Pros And Cons Of The Dakota Access Pipeline

To begin, the Dakota access pipeline should be completed because it will help the economy immensely and in so many different ways. One way it helps the economy is by providing lots of jobs. 8,000 to 12,000 new jobs to be exact. Not only that, but lots more money will be given to companies that supply materials such as steel pipes. Both of these reasons will allow for more money to be circulated throughout the economy, therefore producing in a stronger economy. Next, it is estimated that during construction, $129 million in yearly tax revenue will be put into the state and local economy. That in itself is so much extra money that the state can spend on public resources such as roads, schools, libraries and more. However, it doesn’t stop after

The original plan for the pipeline was supposed to cross under the Missouri river north of Bismarck. This original plan was changed once it was realized that if the pipe burst, it could contaminate the water of the city’s water source. Instead, the pipeline was rerouted south, half a mile upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Now if the pipeline broke, all of the water that the Standing Rock Tribe and millions of other people downstream uses would become poisoned and undrinkable. Although people may think the chances of this happening are slim, it is actually a decent possibility. Since 1986, there have been 8,000 incidents of oil pipelines bursting. About 3,300 of those incidents have happened since 2010 alone. Per year about 3 million gallons of oil spills as a result of pipelines bursting. All of these incidents have resulted in 500 deaths and more than 2,300 injuries. Not only that, but the cost was almost $7 billion dollars in damage. All of those possible negative results including risking lives of innocent people is not worth having another

If this pipeline is built, it will carry 470,000 to 570,000 barrels of oil. Once the oil was processed, transmitted, and burned, it will release 101.4 million metric tons of CO2 each year. That is the same amount of the gas that 21.4 million cars burn per year. This is an exceedingly large amount of CO2 that is very bad for the earth. When CO2 is released into the atmosphere, it begins depleting the ozone layer. The ozone layer is what keeps us protected from the full damage of the sun and it’s uv rays that cause skin cancer and multiple other bad things. Therefore, by releasing CO2, we are harming the thing that allows our earth to stay cooler. This means that the climate will progressively get hotter as the ozone layer becomes more and more depleted. According to US Senator Bernie Sanders, "if we have any hope of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change, we should not be building new oil pipelines that lock us into burning fossil fuels for generations to