Corporation Exploiting Major Loophole To Quickly Build 600-Mile Tar Sands Pipeline

In the five years since TransCanada submitted its first application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, protesters have held marches and vigils, chained themselves to pipeline trucks, interrupted a presidential speech and gotten themselves purposefully arrested, all in the name of stopping the pipeline.

For Debra Michaud, one of the founders of Tar Sands Free Midwest, getting these activists to just take notice of the pipeline her group has been working to stop since early last year would be a victory.

“Nobody’s heard of it,” Michaud said. “People know Keystone, but nobody’s heard of Flanagan South.”

Unlike Keystone’s northern leg, which has been mired in court challenges and political skirmishes since 2008, Flanagan South is already in the works, after about two years of negotiating with landowners along the route and going through its permitting process. Once completed, it will pass over approximately 1,950 wetlands and waterways, including the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/26/3252291/flanagan-south-tar-sands/