TransCanada Reroutes Keystone Pipeline

Keystone controversy | BCBusiness
Despite the controversy still surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada is moving forward with a proposed detour around Nebraska’s delicate environmental areas.

The long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline proposal now includes a new detour around Nebraska’s fragile Sandhills region.

Calgary-based TransCanada is resolute, to say the least.
 
In spite of U.S. President Obama’s permit rejection for its controversial Keystone XL pipeline in January, the company keeps inching forward. First it began its southern leg of the embattled pipeline. Now the company has submitted a new route around an environmentally sensitive area in Nebraska that was a cause for concern for many pipeline opponents.
 
Obviously TransCanada is committed to making Keystone happen.
 
The new detour avoids the delicate, groundwater-rich Sandhills region and adds 161 kilometres to the approximately 2,700-kilometre pipeline vertically spanning the continent. The company submitted the detour proposal to Nebraska’s governor, and approval would mark a major victory for TransCanada. Not only would approval greenlight a major leg of the project, but the suggested reroute doesn’t add anything to the pipeline’s projected $7.6 billion cost.
 
Even if TransCanada obtains approval for the Nebraska portion, it still awaits the greenlight from the U.S. government for the cross-border leg from Hardisty, Alta., to Oklahoma.
 
But this is almost a story of the big pipeline that could. Whatever red tape American bureaucrats string up, TransCanada finds a way to cut through it. And they’ll just keep cutting until the pipeline is complete.