Judge recommends approving Certificate of Need for Sandpiper Pipeline
A victory for Enbridge’s Sandpiper Pipeline project.
An Administrative Law Judge is recommending the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approve a Certificate of Need for the proposed pipeline that would cut across parts of Northern Minnesota.
Judge Lipman recommended that the Public Utilities Commission approve Enbridge’s Certificate of Need for its proposed route.
The recommendations are intended to assist the Public Utilities Commission on whether there is a public “need” for the Sandpiper pipeline proposed by the North Dakota Pipeline Company.
If approved, the pipeline would carry 375,000 barrels per day of oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota, across northern Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin.
But those who are against the pipeline because of environmental concerns are not giving up hope.
Richard Smith is the president of Friends of the Headwaters which opposes the pipeline.
Smith said in a statement today that his group is disappointed with Judge Lipman’s decision but that they remain confident that the Public Utilities Commission will see that Enbridge’s proposed route is not in the state’s interest.
Smith says it puts far too many of our natural resources at risk, when better, alternative routes are available.
Enbridge also released a statement praising the decision and saying the recommendation is significant and will enable the Minnesota regulatory process to move forward in a timely manner.
Enbridge says the Sandpiper has broad and deep support throughout Minnesota, with 60 Minnesota legislators and the majority of county commissions along the route expressing their support.
Judge Lipman’s report will now be sent to the Public Utilities Commission, which will make a final determination of need, expected in June 2015.
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To run pipelines across the MN headwaters to Lake Superior and from Superior, WI, either down through WI or across the Upper Peninsula of MI and down into the Great Lakes, running this pipeline of poison under the Strats of Mackinac–is insane. Even oil producers know they should “keep it zipped” (i.e., keep stranded oil assets in the ground) for sheer economic, if not environmental, reasons. They are over-producing poison. Even children probably hope and wish we could join together like these people in Quebec: http://tarsandssolutions.org/member-blogs/video-weve-reached-our-boiling-point –now that we all know about: climate change, the over-production of tar sands, about water-table destruction caused by fracking, about waste-water disposal wells and seismicity (i.e., man-made earthquakes) especially there in Cushing, OK, where many pipelines are headed, and about exploding trains and leaking pipelines. Judge Lipman probably knows, too, though he fails to admit that nothing will clean up oil sands and chemicals in our water (and this bad decision is not balanced out by his approval last hear of the Aurora solar project, either!). It is about the water! Do we really need to continue to endanger all life on the planet by approving this pipeline?
http://www.friendsoftheheadwaters.org/uploads/3/4/4/2/3442631/learn_more_section_home_5-14.pdf