Keystone Pipeline Will Be Rerouted

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/science/earth/keystone-xl-pipeline-transcanada-reroute.html?hpw

At a special session of the Nebraska Legislature, a state senator announced Monday that TransCanada had agreed to adjust its intended route of the Keystone XL oil pipeline to avoid the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region of the state.

The proposed pipeline would run from Alberta’s oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico and was slated to pass through the Sand Hills, which includes the Ogallala Aquifer, a vital source of drinking water for the Great Plains.

TransCanada’s offer comes just days after a Nov. 10 announcement by the State Department that it would delay a final decision on the $7 billion project until it had considered other routes through Nebraska.

Still, it is the State Department that will ultimately decide the fate of the huge project, and TransCanada’s offer of flexibility does not change the department’s plans to conduct a fresh environmental review of a new route, a process that will probably take 12 to 18 months and push the final decision into 2013.