Arrest sparks interest in pipeline

Being arrested isn’t usually considered good, but the arrest of the actress Daryl Hannah is probably the best thing that’s happened for opponents of an environmentally questionable pipeline that would move oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, all the way to Texas.

Her arrest at a protest in Washington, D.C., came after the State Department determined the pipeline would not have “significant impacts” on the environment, opening the way for construction.

Opponents are many. Some Canadians don’t like the pipeline because they say mining the oil will lead to polluted streams and decimated forests, all to help Americans far more than Canadians. The 1,700-mile pipeline would cross the Sandhills in Nebraska, a major wetlands area, and the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world.

The tar sands oil is considered dirtier than regular oil; it’s so heavy, it has to be treated with chemicals to move through a pipeline. Environmentalists say it causes more air pollution at the refineries and more damaging pollution in a spill.

The threat of a spill is more than academic.

Last year, a pipeline that transports tar sand oil from Canada leaked into the Kalamazoo River at Marshall, Mich., spilling 800,000 gallons of oil that cost $500 million to clean up – so far. The cleanup continues and is far more difficult to remove because of the oil’s heavy consistency and presence of other chemicals.

Still, the nation’s insatiable demand for oil creates need for more sources. Just building the pipeline will pump $13 billion into the economies of the U.S. and Canada, and, pipeline company TransCanada says on its website, the pipeline “will play an important role in linking a secure and growing supply of Canadian crude oil with the largest refining markets in the United States, significantly improving North American security supply.”

While special-interest groups on both sides of the issue have been following every development, many Americans knew nothing about it – until Hannah’s arrest.

Green jobs are sprouting in Michigan

A recent report should make Hoosiers envious of the green job growth in neighboring Michigan.

The report, from the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, shows jobs promoting a cleaner environment account for 1.7 percent of Indiana’s employment.

The results are especially disheartening when considering several previous studies that lauded Indiana’s green job potential.

Indiana has 46,879 jobs that are considered green and 17,437 that support green business. And most are related to increasing energy efficiency, agriculture and natural resource conservation.

By comparison, 3.1 percent of Michigan’s jobs are green. About 40 percent of them are related to engineering and design of fuel-efficient vehicles.