• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Come on, man.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Republicans in disarray!

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

The willow is too close to the house.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Energy Policy / Speaking of Keystone

Speaking of Keystone

by $8 blue check mistermix|  January 22, 201510:30 am| 50 Comments

This post is in: Energy Policy

FacebookTweetEmail

The second oil spill on the Yellowstone River in four years has poisoned the Glendive, Montana water supply:

The 12-inch-diameter Poplar Pipeline spilled on Saturday morning. By Monday night, Glendive residents cleaned local grocery store shelves of bottled water as news spread that health officials had found benzene levels in the municipal water treatment plant at two to three times what the Center for Disease Control says is safe for long-term exposure.

Some elderly residents reported not having anything to drink to take medication. People who had drunk from their taps complained of stomachaches. Hospital and schools struggled to keep their charges hydrated and safe. Some businesses were forced to cut back services or close. People fled town to do laundry or take showers.

Not until Tuesday morning did the first pallets of clean, bottled water from Bridger Pipeline, owner of the Poplar Pipeline, arrive in Glendive. They were dispensed first to hospital, schools, nursing homes and the prison. Then they to went to other residents.

Bill Salvin, a spokesman hired by Bridger Pipeline who also fielded calls on Tuesday for the county government’s emergency services command center, said the delay was due to “a matter of logistics.”

I have family in Glendive, so I’ve visited there many times. The Yellowstone is the centerpiece of that town. It has no dams and is (was?) considered a “blue ribbon” trout stream.  I wonder how many jobs will be lost when fisherman don’t come back this year.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « The Loneliest Number
Next Post: Confessions Of A Master Baiter »

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    tbone

    January 22, 2015 at 10:33 am

    Assholes.

  2. 2.

    chopper

    January 22, 2015 at 10:35 am

    it almost seems like our tendency to shit all over a place is directly proportional to its beauty.

  3. 3.

    debbie

    January 22, 2015 at 10:36 am

    Surely there will be jobs created to clean up the mess?

  4. 4.

    JPL

    January 22, 2015 at 10:39 am

    What pipeline leaked? If it’s not news, it didn’t happen. Don’t let your balls deflate, btw.

  5. 5.

    mikefromArlington

    January 22, 2015 at 10:40 am

    This is excellent news!! For the next GOP candidate!!!

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    January 22, 2015 at 10:40 am

    Some elderly residents reported not having anything to drink to take medication.

    FOX News watchers off their meds? Didn’t we already suspect that was the case?

  7. 7.

    ruemara

    January 22, 2015 at 10:47 am

    How red is the area? Do they now get that there’s a benefit to keeping your water supply clean? Sorry, I have no more sympathy for the common clay of America.

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    January 22, 2015 at 10:51 am

    You can’t make an omelet run a petroleum based economy without breaking a few eggs having the occasional pipeline leak. The best you can do is to make sure somebody else gets poisoned when it happens. Why else do you think the Canadians want to run their pipeline through the US instead of Canada?

  9. 9.

    jonas

    January 22, 2015 at 10:56 am

    That’s not benzene in the water supply, it’s the taste of freedom.

  10. 10.

    sharl

    January 22, 2015 at 10:59 am

    Ahh, benzene.
    Smells like {inhales deeply} FREEDOM!!!1!

    ETA: Hah, Jonas beat me to it!

  11. 11.

    constitutional mistermix

    January 22, 2015 at 10:59 am

    @ruemara: Eastern Montana is pretty red but overall Montana is a barely purple state. It’s not the South.

  12. 12.

    Morzer

    January 22, 2015 at 11:03 am

    @jonas:

    Mitt Romney drives a Mercedes Benzene to honor the men who saved us from Obama’s tyranny in WWII.

  13. 13.

    sparrow

    January 22, 2015 at 11:03 am

    @ruemara: I’m sure the residents will be apologizing for inconveniencing Bridger by existing, very soon.

  14. 14.

    Mike E

    January 22, 2015 at 11:04 am

    @Roger Moore:

    Why else do you think the Canadians want to run their pipeline through the US instead of Canada?

    Because that’s where the ports are…north o’ th’ border folks aren’t so adverse to poison since getting that tar sand oil isn’t exactly a clean enterprise, yes?
    @chopper: Watching Ken Burns’ Nat’l Parks, you get the feeling beauty is an affront to capitalists everywhere.

  15. 15.

    ruemara

    January 22, 2015 at 11:08 am

    @constitutional mistermix: at this point, having even a slight magenta cast is suspect.

  16. 16.

    Shakezula

    January 22, 2015 at 11:08 am

    Where’s Fox news when you need them? If you don’t drink the poisoned water, the terrorists will win!

  17. 17.

    Morzer

    January 22, 2015 at 11:09 am

    @JPL:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3D2gsPUR0

  18. 18.

    Morzer

    January 22, 2015 at 11:10 am

    @Shakezula:

    Sharia pipelines make Montana a no-go area for Americans….

  19. 19.

    Turner Hedenkoff

    January 22, 2015 at 11:11 am

    This is why they’ve started calling Keystone a “jobs bill.” They’ll need folks to clean up after the spills.

  20. 20.

    feebog

    January 22, 2015 at 11:13 am

    Rachel featured this story last night and interviewed the Mayor. The big problem is that the river is solidly frozen over, so no one has any idea how far down the river the oil has drifted. And they won’t know for several months until the river thaws.

  21. 21.

    SatanicPanic

    January 22, 2015 at 11:18 am

    @jonas: should we take bets on how soon before FOX starts claiming that benzene is actually good for people?

  22. 22.

    Waldo

    January 22, 2015 at 11:20 am

    The byproduct of unregulated capitalism is finally trickling down and all you guys do is complain. Ingrates!

  23. 23.

    Diana

    January 22, 2015 at 11:22 am

    @ruemara: I agree. You think guvmint regulation restricts your freedom? Well, now you know what it does! And, wonder of wonders, maybe you could have found this out earlier, say, anytime over the past thirty years. sorry, no sympathy here.

  24. 24.

    Morzer

    January 22, 2015 at 11:22 am

    @Waldo:

    But it’s trickling down from Canada’s ass! Last time that happened, the result was Ted Cruz!

  25. 25.

    JPL

    January 22, 2015 at 11:23 am

    @SatanicPanic: FOX ignores oil spills, so there will be no need to discuss it.

  26. 26.

    El Cid

    January 22, 2015 at 11:25 am

    It’s actually a great idea to pump flammable liquid poison all over the country in thin tubes.

  27. 27.

    Tommy

    January 22, 2015 at 11:28 am

    The pipeline has or was built. Google it. Runs a few miles from my house in Woodriver, Illinois. It is an affront to all things human. I recall being a kid, Woodriver was in our conference, and we’d take a bus there. We could smell the place, the town, from miles away. Woodriver was not the right name for the town!

  28. 28.

    mikefromArlington

    January 22, 2015 at 11:32 am

    At the very least Dem reps should be bringing this up any time someone says Keystone

  29. 29.

    Tommy

    January 22, 2015 at 11:48 am

    @mikefromArlington: Of course they should. I am an avid hiker/camper. Almost every year I reconnect with a college roommate from the 80s. We almost never talk during the year, but find a way to spend a week or so plus in a far off state/national park.

    Often times he brings somebody with him that has never camped before.The last few years a Republican. At the end of that experience they see the light. Two years ago we were in the Smoky Mountains. Said I needed to head out and pay for our camp site.

    The guy handed me a couple 20s. I was like dude it is only $11/night for our permit. Based pretty much on the honor system. He was confused. I took it upon myself to explain to him our government rocks.

  30. 30.

    muddy

    January 22, 2015 at 11:50 am

    Benzene is nasty. When I was working as a (n oldstyle) draftsman, drawing with ink on mylar, I used it for cleanup. You could do all your set-up marks with a light blue pencil, which would not show up on blueprints. But the waxiness kept the ink from the mylar sometimes. Also fingerprints etc could interfere with the ink. So you’d take a little piece of tissue and wipe the mylar off with some benzene. Worked a treat.

    Then I found that the fingernail on the finger I used for the benzene tissue stopped growing. Mind you this is just putting a few drops on a tissue for a couple seconds, not like I was soaking in it. I decided to switch to tweezers to hold the benezene tissue, it was harder because I had to be careful not to scratch the mylar surface.

    It still took nearly a year for my fingernail to start growing again.

  31. 31.

    boatboy_srq

    January 22, 2015 at 11:51 am

    I wonder how many jobs will be lost when fisherman don’t come back this year.

    There will be a spike in prices for fishing licenses and equipment in non-polluted areas, and a slightly lower spike for same in underpolluted areas, and discounts in Montana for the opportunity to reel in high-hydrocarbon catch. Free markets, baby!

    /snark

  32. 32.

    catclub

    January 22, 2015 at 11:53 am

    Unfortunately, pipelines are the least safe way to transport oil, except for all the other ways.
    Ask the people in Lac Megantic Quebec about how safe oil trains are.

    Running pipelines and maintaining them may still be hard to do while extracting profits.

  33. 33.

    Tokyokie

    January 22, 2015 at 11:57 am

    My only visit Yellowstone Park was around 1988, and on the way to the park, I stopped so I could get a sip of water from the clear-running stream near the road to the east entrance. (Checking a map, it must have been Blaine Creek.) Guess I can’t do that any longer because a pipeline company didn’t want to bury its pipeline deeply enough below a river. But I’m sure the Keystone Pipeline will be done environmentally correctly and will pose no danger to the Oglalla Acquifer.

  34. 34.

    Tommy

    January 22, 2015 at 12:05 pm

    @Tokyokie: Not sure I’d ever suggest you get some water that way, but I totally get your point. Thinking there is a creek you can drink out of isn’t a bad concept. It should be how we all view the world. Heaven forbid we have clean water.

  35. 35.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    January 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm

    … health officials had found benzene levels in the municipal water treatment plant at two to three times what the Center for Disease Control says is safe for long-term exposure.

    Keep the gubmint of of my … um, never mind.

  36. 36.

    Mart

    January 22, 2015 at 12:09 pm

    Do not forget about Enbridge. They are extending their tar sand pipeline network that currently supplies refineries near Chicago and St. Louis. They are connecting the Flanagan, IL terminal with the Cushing, OK terminal that KeystoneXL will (hopefully not) connect to. When I spoke to the project manager he said two-36 inch lines, but their internet says Flanagan South will have one 36 inch line. Following existing natural gas right of way so light permitting. Will cross the Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas Rivers to name a few.

  37. 37.

    Citizen Alan

    January 22, 2015 at 12:19 pm

    Has there ever been a dystopian fantasy so dark that it featured a mainstream and broadly popular political movement that supported the right of corporations to poison the entire nation’s drinking water if there was enough profit in doing so?

  38. 38.

    Morzer

    January 22, 2015 at 12:22 pm

    @Citizen Alan:

    Reaganism is the word you require.

  39. 39.

    D58826

    January 22, 2015 at 12:26 pm

    Treehuggers and fish lovers don’t count as real Murkins

  40. 40.

    D58826

    January 22, 2015 at 12:30 pm

    @Tokyokie: At the rate we are depleting the Oglalla Acquifer, the risk of pollution from the pipeline will be a moot point.

  41. 41.

    ellie

    January 22, 2015 at 12:40 pm

    @ruemara: Thank you! Me too! Let them live with the consequences of their short sightedness.

  42. 42.

    Roger Moore

    January 22, 2015 at 12:42 pm

    @muddy:

    Benzene is nasty.

    Yep. It’s one of the relatively rare substances that are proven to be carcinogens in humans. Most things that we believe are carcinogens are only suspect because they’ve been shown to produce cancer in lab animals at high doses*. Benzene is noxious enough- and used to be used by enough people without protective equipment, as you describe- that the epidemiological evidence that it’s a carcinogen is rock solid.

    *They have to use high doses to produce significant results in a reasonable number of lab animals, but this always makes the results questionable in humans because there may be a tolerable dose that our bodies can deal with effectively.

  43. 43.

    D58826

    January 22, 2015 at 12:44 pm

    And on a totally unrelated topic – Obama just flipped the bird at Bibi and Orangeman. He won’t meet with Bibi next month when he shows up in Washington to grandstand before Congress.

  44. 44.

    Bridgier

    January 22, 2015 at 12:48 pm

    Glendive is, in and of itself, a bit of a shithole, which has been content to drink the (treated) effluent of various up-river communities for the last several generations.

    Montana is pretty red, and getting redder all the time – Eastern Montana is currently ‘booming’ because it’s right next to the Bakken, and there’s a lot of oilfield jobs floating around the area, so there’s going to be a lot of sucking it up and taking it for the team, because, with the price of oil falling, the golden goose isn’t looking very healthy at the moment and people have mortgages and auto notes to pay.

  45. 45.

    Morzer

    January 22, 2015 at 12:56 pm

    @D58826:

    I like this new, punchy version of Obama. Seems like the American people do as well.

  46. 46.

    WereBear

    January 22, 2015 at 1:10 pm

    @Citizen Alan: The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner.

    Read it as a teen. Never thought I’d live it.

  47. 47.

    Mike in NC

    January 22, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    @D58826: Bibi needs to be greeted warmly when he arrives to grovel to the GOP. Maybe start with a full body cavity search by some burly female TSA screeners.

  48. 48.

    brantl

    January 22, 2015 at 2:06 pm

    For fly fisherman (myself) included, this would be what pissing on a relic of the cross is, for Christians.

  49. 49.

    Gravenstone

    January 22, 2015 at 2:14 pm

    @D58826: Honestly, that’s excellent news! Fuck Nutsandyahoos.

  50. 50.

    Freemark

    January 23, 2015 at 4:02 am

    @Mike in NC: I agree with the sentiment but I believe you have the direction of grovelage mixed up.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Recent Comments

  • Aussie Sheila on Late Night Open Thread: There’s *One* Senator Gonna Miss ‘Leader’ Mitch… (Mar 25, 2023 @ 7:31am)
  • Betty on War for Ukraine Day 394: Bakhmut Still Holds! (Mar 25, 2023 @ 7:29am)
  • Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg on Late Night Open Thread: There’s *One* Senator Gonna Miss ‘Leader’ Mitch… (Mar 25, 2023 @ 7:23am)
  • Geminid on Late Night Open Thread: There’s *One* Senator Gonna Miss ‘Leader’ Mitch… (Mar 25, 2023 @ 7:22am)
  • LiminalOwl on Late Night Open Thread: There’s *One* Senator Gonna Miss ‘Leader’ Mitch… (Mar 25, 2023 @ 7:20am)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!