Keystone XL Pipe: Southern Half Of Pipeline Riddled With Leak-Prone Faults

If an ecologically hazardous accident happens to TransCanada's Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline, we can't say we weren't forewarned. That's the latest from a press release and YouTube video recently disseminated by the good government group Public Citizen.

Public Citizen's Texas office explained, "Dozens of anomalies, including dents and welds, reportedly have been identified along a 60-mile stretch of the southern segment of the Keystone XL pipeline, north of the Sabine River in Texas."

A recent report appearing in the Houston Chronicle revealed KXL's southern half is over 75% complete and will be online by late 2013. That half of the pipeline brings tar sands — also known as diluted bitumen, or "dilbit" — from Cushing, Oklahoma (dubbed the "pipeline cross-roads of the world&quot , down to Port Arthur, Texas, where it ends up exported to the global market.

KXL's northern half is still in its proposal phase. Its eventual fate sits entirely in the hands of President Barack Obama and his U.S. State Department because it's a border-crossing pipeline. In March 2012, President Obama issued an executive order expediting the construction of KXL's southern half.

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http://www.policymic.com/articles/46277/keystone-xl-pipe-southern-half-of-pipeline-riddled-with-leak-prone-faults