Keystone XL Pipeline Derailed

Despite the recent rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline by President Obama in anticipation of December’s COP 21 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, many residents in Valley County rue the project’s demise.

“It’s a poor decision,” said Dave Pippin, former County Commissioner and current resident of Glasgow. “I see it as large-scale political payback. It’s bad for the county, bad for our economy, and I think bad for the United States.”

As the project floundered amid federal non-committal, jobs related to its progression evaporated in Big Sky country. “Dan Forbes is the one Keystone rep left in the entire state,” said Rene Clampitt of the Valley County Planning Board just one day prior to the President’s Nov. 6 decision. “And he’s going forward like everything’s still happening. Last time I saw him here he was getting permits approved.”

Forbes was based out of Miles City, a town of 8,500 two hours east of Billings; when called for comment, he replied via text with the number for a TransCanada media hotline.

Keystone promised an array of short-term employment opportunities for the area. The man-camps which would have been installed outside Hinsdale and Fort Peck, towns fifty minutes apart in Valley County, north of the Missouri River, would have provided 2,000-2,400 jobs to local and migrant workers in the one year it would have taken to erect the relevant stretch of pipeline.

Bruce Peterson, current member of the Board of County Commissioners, projected the annual payment from pipeliners for the right to maintain operations at $12 million. The amount would have been split among the county, its cities, and school boards. Visions of revitalization projects have come to seem more and more likely: potholes filled, city centers beautified, classrooms revamped, etc. The county already receives $4 million annually from a natural gas pipeline, a deal which has spanned thirty years. However, county expenses have increased in recent years, so much so that it was forced to enact a 10-percent cut on its 2015 expenditures.

“I feel bad for the school districts,” said Pippin. “This would have been a great funding mechanism for [them]. It would have made [funding] education a whole lot easier here.”

In Glasgow, Mayor Becky Erickson and her city council hoped the funds would aid in the purchase of a used Quint fire truck to replace the rusted, fifteen-year-old model in current deployment.

“There would have been an undeniable positive economic impact on our community,” she said. “Obama’s denying of the pipeline is a missed economic opportunity for both Glasgow and the county.”

Not that local sentiments were uniform. Darrell Garroutte, Chair of the McCone Agricultural Protection Organization, was vocal in his opposition, and commended the president on his decision, saying that “the pipeline carried great risk to both [human] safety and the environment, and ran roughshod over property rights. The rewards were always overinflated, while the risks were often minimalized.”

Mark Cooper, a TransCanada representative, believes his company has “addressed every hurdle and test” thrown at it by the U.S. Government. “It meets the President’s climate regulations,” he said in mid-September. “It would be 22-40 percent less greenhouse-gas-intensive than past tar sands pipelines, put 42,000 people to work in both short and long-term jobs, throw $3.4 billion into the American economy. We have full landowner support in Montana, 90 percent in Nebraska. If the deciding powers favor science over symbolism, it will go through.”

“It really makes no sense,” said Pippin. “Plus, why would we sever ties with the Canadians? We should be encouraging business relations with them.”

Critics noted the pipeline’s main purpose would not have been to serve the U.S., but to transport fuel through the country and export it to direct global competitors such as China.

“What we’re essentially talking about,” said Derf Johnson, a lawyer for the Montana Environmental Information Center, “is a foreign company using U.S. land to move their oil halfway across the world. It’s preposterous.”

Dissenters stress the “short-term” aspect of the job increase claim. After construction, the man-camps here would have been shuttered, leaving as little as one permanent position at a pump station between Hinsdale and Glasgow.

For the county, however, the long-term promise of an annual general fund influx trumped ambiguous environmental concerns, and regardless of the length of their stay, the 2,000-plus expected workers would have flooded the local economy with business. NorVal, the region’s power provider, would have seen its demand for energy double.

“The tables could change in a year or so,” says Pippin, relaying his hopes for a reversal of fortune. “Maybe when we have another President in office, one who knows what he’s doing, the big guys will rule in our favor.”