Texans don't need the 'Grand Old Pipeline'

Editor's note: This column is in response to an opinion piece featured in the Daily Record on March 11: "Texans need the Grand Old Pipeline"

If you know anything about oil and pipelines, you must know this simple fact: when you drill, you spill.

The BP oil spill of 2010 spilled 205.8 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico killing 82,000 birds, 6,125 sea turtles, 25,900 other marine mammals, and eleven humans. Life is unequivocally more valuable to me than any amount of money, but you seem to be motivated by economics, so let me use your language.

BP spent $60 billion fixing this, not to mention the rippling effects on industries like fishing and tourism. A major loss to our state, our oceans and our world. Since 1964, there have been 320 known spills from offshore drilling in the Gulf alone.

The Dakota Access Pipeline has spilled hundreds of gallons of oil into the sacred land of the Standing Rock Sioux people. They protested knowing this would happen and were shot with rubber bullets, forcefully sprayed with water hoses and pepper sprayed, but anything for short term economic gain, right?

Oil refineries in Texas have led to massive air pollution and high rates of Asthma in Texan children. According to an August report by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, 21 counties in the state didn’t meet federal standards for ozone in 2015. A study from the Clean Air Task Force reports that with current emission projections, ozone levels in 2025 will cause nearly 144,496 asthma attacks and 105,824 lost school days for our children.

The construction and maintenance of oil and natural gas is dangerous. You think the Permian Highway Pipeline is free of fault? Go ask Teresa Albright in Blanco County, who had muddy drinking water coming from her faucet due to the pipeline, if she agrees.

I have yet to understand what is so radical about caring for and protecting life which inhabits the Earth. It behooves me to see the lack of understanding and compassion displayed by many who favor short term economic gain at the expense of long term costs like poisoned water, oil spills, air pollution, and undeniably: deaths.

Us radical environmentalists fight for things like the Oak Trees and Golden Cheeked Warbler, who are now facing massive habitat degradation because Kinder Morgan didn’t follow specific stipulations in their permits for the clear cutting process. These Oak Trees will now suffer from Oak Wilt, leading to their deaths. 197 acres of the Warblers habitat was cleared out by KM, likely leading to their deaths as well.

We should be spending more time talking about our impact as human beings on the ecosystem we are inseparably connected to and dependent upon. There isn’t anything clean or safe about this pipeline, nor oil and gas in Texas, nor in the world. We should spend more time talking about how we can use science and technology to advance America’s energy in the cleanest and safest way possible through protecting wildlife, having clean air and clean water, protecting minorities, and not polluting our Earth to the point in which it will be uninhabitable.

Correction: This story has been corrected to state that hundreds of gallons of oil, according to a report by the Intercept, have been spilled by the Dakota Access Pipeline. This opinion column orginally stated that 580,000 gallons have been spilled, however, this claim was unsubsantiated.