Controversial Keystone XL Pipeline

The Controversial Keystone XL pipeline route across Nebraska has been approved, but difficulties are still ahead to complete the project.

The alternative route was granted across Nebraska, TransCanada will evaluate the new proposal. This will increase the expense and delay the $8 billion project.

The new path takes a 63 miles detour from the initial route and would parallel, for about 100 miles, the existing Keystone pipeline that TransCanada has in operation since 2010.

It would also require TransCanada to contracts with 40 landowners to allow them to operate on the new pipeline route.

Opponents to the project are seeing the approval of the alternate route as a victory. They are planning on filing lawsuits to block the project to move further.

Governor Pete Ricketts has been in favor of the Keystone project. It would increase taxes and generate jobs.

Having both pipeline close to each other will provide better monitoring of both line including quicker responses to any issues. The new route crosses fewer miles of the migration route of the whooping crane.

TransCanada will fully restored farmland that would be disturbed by the pipeline construction. Keystone would be the safest project in pipeline history.

The initial proposal in 2008 ignited a firestorm of opposition. In 2013 the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality approved the new route. In 2015 President Barack Obama rejected the entire project. In January 2016, President Donald Trump resurrected the Keystone XL. TransCanada applied for approval of the route that was approved in 2013.

The Keystone XL is designed to transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil a day from northern Alberta to the refineries on the US Gulf Coast.

If the project can move forward this year it could take up to 2 years to be completed.