Fighting a Tar Sands Company's Claims to Private Land

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Air date: 
Fri, 03/09/2012 - 12:00am
Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with Julia Trigg Crawford about the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.

Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with Julia Trigg Crawford, a Texas landowner and farmer who isn’t letting the foreign tar sands company claim eminent domain rights to her land without putting up a fight. Two weeks ago Ms. Crawford launched a Change.org petition to protect her land from tar sands money and tar sands risks.

With support from activists on both sides of the aisle, Ms. Crawford is hopeful that the Texas farmer can claim victory over the multi-billion dollar tar sands company which is trying to build a pipeline to transport a highly toxic hydrocarbon (called “tar sands”) from Alberta, Canada to Texas to refine and then export to foreign countries.

Independent studies show that the TransCanada Keystone XL “tar sands” pipeline would not create any lasting jobs and would subject tens of millions of people to hazardous risks when the pipeline leaks—as its sister pipeline has done more than a dozen times already. This includes the drinking water of one million Midwesterners people who rely on the Ogallala Aquifer and 60 counties in Texas who rely on the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer.

Ms. Crawford and her supporters are using the Change.org petition to implore Texas politicians to protect American land from foreign interests that threaten private property and the health and safety of landowners.

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