In May of 2012 TransCanada informed me that the new Keystone XL pipeline route – a second routing necessitated by objections to the first route passing through so much of the Sandhills – would cross a portion of our farmland.  I explained that no, it wouldn’t because my family had drawn up a conservation easement held by the Nebraska Land Trust which attached covenants to our deed prohibiting this and other destructive activities on our property.  He had never heard of such a thing so naturally he scoffed.  Before long TransCanada sent us an offer of $15,000 to cross our protected property, an offer we refused.
In the coming months the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) conducted a review of this new route and the public was invited to comment.  We submitted a copy of our deed with a letter explaining what a conservation easement is and why we had one.  Our property contains numerous Native American remains as well as environmentally sensitive wooded wetlands.  Over 100 species of birds have been identified there (many migratory) and at a time when this area is losing habitat at an alarming rate, these last remaining areas need protection.
We attended the meeting at the local Fairgrounds in December of 2012 and when we introduced ourselves to DEQ representatives they knew who we were.  They said they had held a special meeting about our property and that neither TransCanada nor the DEQ had any desire to disturb it.  They even thanked us for caring enough to legally protect our land.
But even though our property was spared I still opposed the pipeline for two reasons.  The first was because of the severe environmental harm that would result from a spill.  And though a smug TransCanada engineer had assured us the pipeline would never leak anywhere, I wasn’t so sure.  Pipeline spills have increased dramatically in recent years and most are the result of corrosion and faulty welds.  TransCanada got in trouble for bad welds and using damaged pipe on the southern section of the route from Oklahoma to refineries in Texas (refineries owned in part by Saudi Arabia) and had decided against using the latest leak detection technology.
Leaks would be all the worse because the Keystone XL pipeline would be carrying “Dilbit,” diluted bitumen, a substance so toxic that if it spills the vapors can kill.  And since it is heavier than water, any leak above the Ogallala Aquifer would sink, contaminating our water supply with cancer-causing chemicals.  Dilbit is so far removed from crude oil that the IRS doesn’t even classify it as petroleum.  This, in turn, exempts TransCanada from paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.  As a result TransCanada’s liability in the event of a spill would be limited to an amount far below potential cleanup costs.
My second objection was philosophical.  We fought the Revolutionary War to stop a foreign government from denying us our rights.  Yet here was a foreign corporation – not even a government – being allowed to condemn private property across the United States.  We were told we’d benefit economically, but promised tax revenues from the first Keystone pipeline were less than half of what TransCanada had predicted. And only 35 permanent jobs would be created by this second pipeline, many outside Nebraska.  This seemed scant reason to surrender individual property rights to a foreign corporation.
In rejecting the Keystone XL last week, President Obama noted that it was neither “a silver bullet for the economy” nor “the express lane to climate disaster.”  And I agree.  But for people living near the pipeline’s proposed route the risks clearly outweighed the benefits. I say good riddance and I hope we’ve finally heard the last of the Keystone XL.

Last Thursday my computer crashed. Cyber-CPR got it going again  but all my music project files were gone. After a second reboot they reappeared and I realized I’d better save everything on a separate drive ASAP, so Friday my wife Lori and son Thomas and I headed for Grand Island to get a backup drive.

As we left Grand Island we noticed a big cloud to the north and wondered if we were getting some rain back home (we needed rain, but Tommy’s car windows were open so we were a bit torn about the prospect). But since rains usually seem to go around us, we headed home without giving it much more thought.

It gradually got darker and darker and as we approached the Boone County line we could see clouds of dust rising nearly straight up from the county roads – there were strong updrafts ahead. Above us was a wall cloud and just to the east, above Plum Creek, there was some rotation. I mentioned that tornadoes tend to form from wall clouds at the south end of thunderstorms and we chuckled that we might be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But we’ve seen a lot of wall clouds that didn’t produce tornadoes and driven through a lot of storms so we weren’t concerned. A dry wind hit us a mile later and then the rain struck. It came in torrents, and the car in front of us pulled over. We kept going, figuring it was a squall and would pass soon. The next car pulled over and I was wondering if we should too. The rain was as hard as I could remember ever driving through, but I figured it couldn’t get any worse so, since we could still see the road, we kept going.

Big mistake. It was soon raining so hard that it looked like we were in a car wash. The wind was shaking the van and though the radio said nothing about severe weather, Tommy’s iPhone said there was a tornado near our location. There was no good place to pull over so we crept forward at about five miles an hour. We strained to see if there was a funnel cloud approaching but the rain was so heavy that we could only see a few yards in any direction.

What to do? We would never see a tornado in time to take cover. Should we abandon the van and cower in a flooded ditch? After what seemed an eternity we reached a county road and pulled over. By then the radio was reporting a tornado southeast of St. Edward – we had to be very near ground zero.

In time the storm let up enough for us to make it home. Thomas headed straight to his car — not only were there three inches of rain in it, the seats were covered with hail – I’m not sure it will ever dry out. Our garden took quite a hit, and there was water in our basement. But all in all, we came out okay.

As I write this my music computer is about three hours into a 14-hour back up (yes, that’s how many music projects I have). It will be good to have this done, but as important as the information computers contain is to our lives today, the threats we face extend far beyond the cyber sphere — something Mother Nature was all too happy to remind us of last Friday.