Keystone XL is an Easy Terror Target Says Retired Navy SEAL Chief

Source: Common Dreams

Published on Wednesday, June 4, 2014 by Common Dreams

Keystone XL is an Easy Terror Target Says Retired Navy SEAL Chief

Seal Team 6 commander commissioned by hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer to conduct 'threat assessment' to tar sands pipeline

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

Hedge fund billionaire and staunch opponent of Keystone XL Tom Steyer has hired a retired Navy SEAL chief to conduct a "threat assessment" of the proposed northern leg of TransCanada's tar sands pipeline.

Released Wednesday, the report was conducted by Dave Cooper, a former Booz Allen Hamilton consultant and retired Command Master Chief of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known to most as the infamous SEAL Team 6 that killed Osama bin Laden. Cooper was officially commissioned by NextGen Climate, the environmental group led by Steyer.

In his assessment, Cooper—who spent nearly 10 years determining similar threats and targets in Iraq and Afghanistan—concludes that the tar sands pipeline would be an easy terror target and that such an attack would "wreak havoc" on the landscape it is set to pass through.

In what Cooper deems “the most likely scenario,” a single attack could result in the spill of 1.2 million gallons of "highly toxic" tar sands dilbit. A coordinated attack at multiple locations could trigger the "catastrophic spill" of 7.24 million gallons. And, in the most damaging scenario, a coordinated attack across dozens of miles of pipeline with explosions at several pump stations could result in 60 percent of the oil in those sections to spill.


Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/06/04-7