After Keystone, WI is pipeline ground zero

The Canadian oil pipeline company with a record of spills and violations - - and which is already on its way to 'winning' permission in post-Walker de-regulated Wisconsin to vastly increase the carrying capacity of a major cross-state tar sand oil pipeline - - has even bigger pipeline plans for Bucky:

An entirely new pipeline running the length of the state to rival the risks to land and water of what the rejected Keystone XL pipeline would have carried, reports The Milwaukee Journal.

Opponents have been sounding this alarm for months:

Initial work is under way to “twin” Line 61, creating a new Line 66 in the same corridor that would carry an additional 800,000 bpd [barrels per day]. With Line 61 and new Line 66 at full capacity, 2 million barrels of tar sands oil would flow through Wisconsin each day.

File under accident, waiting to happen, along with this companion piece.

Some additional history and perspective:

Pipeline 61 with its expanded capacity - - actually, a tripling - - is ticketed to carry much more of the thick Canadian crude daily than was planned for Keystone XL, yet is being given an intentionally-cursory environmental 'review' by the conservative, pro-corporate ideologues running the "chamber of commerce mentality" Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for Gov. Walker.

And also was quietly given a sweetheart state budget amendment by compliant legislators this summer that blocked Dane County with its water-rich farm fields from requiring clean-up insurance if the Enbridge project spilled oil.

So much these days for local control in the Badger state.

Also: Remember the 2010 pipeline break into Michigan's Kalamazoo River, the biggest US inland oil spill event ever?

US EPA photo. Submerged oil recovery on the Kalamazoo River. (6/23/2011)

That was an Enbridge pipeline, and the company has had many pipeline breaks and environmental violations elsewhere.

In fact, almost two years to the day of Enbridge's Kalamazoo River spill, there was this story and headline:

Enbridge races to clean up Wisconsin oil spill, restart line

A summary post about many of these issues, here:

This blog has tried to help with some posts here, or here, for example; additional information has been posted about Enbridge's calamitous spill record in Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere, and the Journal Sentinel's reflexive editorial board approval of Wisconsin tar sand oil pipeline capacity without a more conscientious review by the DNR.

So props to Madison 350 for raising the alarm and fighting the fight locally, and also to national Keystone organizer and activist-author Bill McKibben for his tireless work.