by Matt Kennedy

   The town of Schenectady, North Dakota is protesting the newly developed plans to construct an oil pipeline.  Their newspaper, The Daily Gazette, reported dozens of citizens in the town created signs stating, “You Can’t Drink Oil” and other messages in protest of the pipeline.

   Thousands of patrons protest these pipelines because they believe in clean water and clean living environments for their towns; however, these oil transports are built every year just to make a quick buck and save some time.

   The amount of news coverage protests receive are limited to short articles in the local newspaper and maybe a 30 second spot on national television all for the sake of money.

   Oil pipelines only have had major news coverage around the time of the Keystone Pipeline in 2013 because it was one of the largest oil transport construction projects in history, but since then the topic has remained on the back burner.

   Battles like this have to be fought with straight up facts; structures, like oil pipelines, are having a negative impact on the environment and the constant production of them need to be re-evaluated and possibly terminated.

   Oil pipelines have become a significant controversy over the past three years ever since the Keystone Pipeline was approved for construction. The major pipeline now runs through Montana to Nebraska.

   Pipelines are heavily protested because people know the dangers. They leak oil across the channel for miles, the metal pipes are stretched across and the oil leaks into water supplies for many towns and cities. Anything from rivers, streams and lakes are at risk near these pipelines because oil is constantly polluting the bodies of water.

   Incidents happen every year where pipelines create disasters, such as the leak in 2015 when an oil pipeline leaked about 30,000 gallons of oil into the water supply of neighboring towns in Montana.

   The other hazards the pipelines can cause include emitting toxic vapors into the atmosphere adding to the constant number of dangerous gases that enter the air daily. Methane is the leading gas pipelines release and it is crazy for one to think these metal pipes do not leak or cause any harm.

   These accidents are so terrible because when they occur, the results are so treacherous and innocent people suffer. Anything from a leak or an explosion damages the environment, also impacting the neighboring towns and citizens. This is why pipelines are in the developmental phase, and why they face such backlash from the common citizens.

   Citizens know what can happen if something goes wrong, and all they are doing is protecting their water supply and their healthy way of living. Nobody wants to drink oil, and since accidents from pipelines happen annually, the construction of them needs to be stop.