Earth Day was yesterday, but Wichitans celebrated it on Saturday, with music, entertainment, information booths and demonstrations.
One of the information booths had to do with the Keystone Pipeline that TransCanada and itspoliticians have tried to get through Congress. The pipeline sends sand tar that contains oil and gas across Midwestern states, such as Kansas, to refineries and then to Texas where it will be shipped to foreign countries.
“It’s Tar and it is energy intensive,” said Kent Rowe, manager of the booth. ”It takes four gallons of water for every gallon of usable oil or gas.”
He said that it has to be heated and it takes three times the pressure to move the tar through the pipeline.
“It’s not going to create jobs,” he said. “If they want to create jobs, they should pay people to clean up the spills from the tar pipelines they already have. The pipelines always spill.”
The booth had an aquarium of water with examples of the sludge he was talking about. It formed into small clumps that looked like black mud.
“There is no way to prevent leakage with the amount of pressure needed to move the tar down the pipeline,” he added.
He pointed out that the gas and oil is not intended for US consumption but to sell on foreign markets.
Because of the setbacks in environmental laws,many people in Wichita have questioned whether it makes any sense to celebrate such a day, when the environment is under such a heavy assault by present day politicians. Many farmers and Republicans regard the EPA as a nuisance and treat it as a communist conspiracy. But people came anyway to promote a clean environment with clean air, water and land.
Hawaiian Dancer Donna Baba provided entertainment for Wichita
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