Dear Next President,

The Keystone XL Pipeline is thought of by many people as just a single pipeline stretching from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico. While that is true, there are also many other pipelines extending from the Keystone to make the whole system, more like a web of pipelines. I believe that the Keystone XL Pipeline should not be built because of the harm that it will do to the environment.

According to an EIA article ”What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?”, fossil fuels “currently give energy to over 60%” of the United States. It costs millions of dollars everyday to give this energy to the United States. By building the Pipeline, the United States would be able to sell the oil to other countries. This gives lots of money to the United States. This is good for us Americans, but there are many bad things that come along with this deal. One of these effects is the amount of carbon dioxide that would be emitted into the air. An National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) Issue Brief “Climate Impacts of the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline” stated that the “pipeline would increase climate emissions by 24.3 million metric tons of CO2 per year”. This fact will not only affect the United States, but also climate change as a whole. The last thing our Earth needs is more harm to the environment due to humans and CO2 emissions.

The Keystone XL Pipeline has a current route that will run from west Canada, down through the Dakota’s, through Kansas and Oklahoma and finally to the Gulf of Mexico. This route also leads the Pipeline right through the Ogallala Aquifer. This aquifer is one of the largest in the world and provides fresh water to much of Nebraska and Kansas. It also irrigates all of Nebraska’s agriculture and provides water to all of the herds there. Since Nebraska provides a lot of food for the United States, if something were to happen to this water, the food industry in the United States would be affected. A Washington Post article “Keystone XL pipeline may threaten aquifer that irrigates much of the central U.S.” predicted that it would “...potentially put 6.5 million gallons of tar sands oil in the Ogallala aquifer and essentially contaminate the water”. If all of the water was contaminated with oil, the plants, animals, and people living in and around those areas would be affected. This would cause a lot of damage to the environment and would cost the United States millions of dollars to clean up.

All of this being said, the Keystone XL Pipeline will cause many problems to the environment. I believe that it is your job as president to keep the pipeline from being built and preventing these problems from happening. I would like to finish with a quote from our current president, Mr. Barack Obama. In a US News article “EPA: Keystone XL Will Impact Global Warming”, he said he would “not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution”. I hope that you, as our next president, will do the same thing.

Thank you,

Rose

Grade 10

St. Paul, MN