It’s sad to see this but it was all avoidable if the tribe had participated in the year long open discussion of plans. They could have crowd sourced an engineer to question the existing pipeline right-of-way used on the gas line.
It’s a lovely fantasy narrative but In order for it to be a summary it needs to be based on fact. The Lokota never engaged the process and there were never any claims the levees in New Orleans could withstand a level 5 hurricane so it’s a straw man argument that it was an engineering failure. The city sits in a flood plain and the weak points were known.
FWIW, this pipeline is designed to carry Bakken shale oil, not Canadian tar sands. In cases where oil interests want to pipe tar sands across America, my response is that they must either 1) refine it into oil in Canada first or 2) take a flying leap.
Bakken oil is at least conventional oil, and therefore not as dangerous. But try telling that to people downriver from a spill…
Thus the hypocrisy. Oil infrastructure is fine in someone else’s backyard. Same despicable behavior Californians engage in.
I don’t see a real need for this pipeline other than to increase profits for some companies. I do believe they have a legitimate cause and they have been protesting peacefully and there’s no call to spray them with water in freezing temperatures. We’ve had a lot of problems from poorly designed infrastructure like this, I’m sure the level of safety could be greatly increased but that has been disregarded because it would reduce profits. Just those factors make me support their cause. I believe I’ll send them some money for their legal fund but do intend to look more closely at the details. But no matter what I find the harsh tactics used by authorities are unjustified, no one is harmed by delaying the construction of this pipeline.
Loans, financing, interest costs. Money is suffering.
Oh poor money! Let’s start a fund to help it.
ETA: It appears you’re on my side, so we’re both being sarcastic.
Supposedly this delay is costing $100 million. This isn’t good for investors. You know any one with a 401k or 403b? $100 million is no harm yet 10¢ for a bag is pit worthy.
You know that 100 mill is nothing to an oil company right? Do you really think that this hold-up is having any appreciable effect on the stock price? Do you really think that anyone in the middle class holding a 401k could possibly even detect the dip in their investments from this protest?
Even if what you say is true, costing a company $100,000,000 out of NIMBYism isn’t right. You wouldn’t be so dismissive if it were your investment. And those protesters aren’t bicycling or riding horses to the site. They are driving gas guzzlers.
This was exactly what I supposed was going on without doing a lot of research. I also think that the pipeline can be rerouted in a way that is safer for the water but at greater expense for the oil company.
I don’t see that it’s the government’s job to determine what we “need”. There are many, many things that are built that are not “needed”.
Agreed on the 2nd point. They should not be sprayed with water in freezing temps.
Which specific designs are you talking about here that are inadequate?
Maybe I am missing your point but there is oil drilling and there are huge refineries in California.
Costing a company money is always a bit of a pain for the company, but it is also a cost of doing business. I have customers that end up costing me more money than I make off of them. I have costs that occasionally spiral out of my control, and end up costing me much more than initially planned. As this company losing 100mill over a delay in a pipeline that will make them billions, I would consider that to be about the same proportionally as when a client shows up at my business about 5 minutes late for their appointment.
So, sure, if it was my investment, I wouldn’t be dismissive, and I may even be a bit annoyed, but I would also realize that this loss is just a cost of doing business, and not get all shitty about it.
It’s not? Really? And how did you come to this conclusion? Oil profit margins tend to be in the 6.5% range. 100 million is 3% of the investment.
Yes. The project was already properly vetted and that process was ignored by the tribe. There aren’t that many Standing Rock Sioux in the crowd of protestors who are traveling from all over the world to peacefully set fire to stuff.
No one makes this clearer than Robert Fool Bear Sr., 54, district chairman of Cannon Ball. The town he runs, estimated population of 840, is just a few miles from the action. It’s so close that, given the faceoffs with law enforcement, you have to pass through a police checkpoint to reach it.
It’s about time people heard from folks like him, he says.
This is about outside agitators who don’t have a clue what they’re protesting. And it appears there are plenty of people who want to protest it without knowing anything about the issue.
No it’s not the cost of doing business. It’s the cost of hooliganism. The cost of doing business as the money spent researching the best route and then vetting it through the proper agencies. A process that openly invites anyone with an issue.
A distinction w/o a difference.
If you build a shop in a bad neighborhood, the events which occur in that neighborhood—though they be the acts of hooligans—are the costs of doing business in that neighborhood.
Did I mention the government? Anyway, when it comes to endangering public resources like drinking water it is the government’s job to determine what we need.
So it’s never okay to protest a particular oil project? It’s always hypocritical, if one uses modern technology in any way whatsoever? I don’t buy that.
No one yet in this thread has demonstrated that a danger exists, and if it does how much of a danger. Lost of folks have claimed there is a danger, but that’s to the same thing.
Wow, a wikipedia dump. As valuable as a Google dump.