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Supplemental EIS Released by State Dept
By Stop Tarsands Oil Pipelines
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The United States State Department has released their Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) and the public comment period is now open, ending June 6th.
Despite STOP and 31 other local and national groups along with 50 Texans and countless other citizens calling for a comment period beyond 45-days, the State Department has said they are not willing to extend the comment period. What that really means is that they are not willing to give Texans full time to read and analyze the report– while you reading this may have internet, I’m sure you’re aware that many of our neighbors in East Texas do not have internet of any sort, let alone high speed internet that can download a 320+ page report. We are incredibly disappointed at the State Department’s lack of knowledge and sensitivity to our culture and way of life in East Texas.
We have also called for the State Department to hold hearings on the SEIS in Texas and other right-of-way states, as they did for the Draft EIS. So far, they have not expressed a desire or willingness to do so, though they will hold a public meeting in Washington, DC at some point. Imagine that we may find that a little inconvenient!
After the comment period wraps up and the State Department reviews public comments, they can choose to make this EIS final or continue to do further analysis. After the final EIS, a decision of whether or not Keystone XL is in the national interest must be made. It’s obvious that it’s not. There is a 90-day comment period on that, and then when that wraps up the Presidential Permit is granted or denied.
For now, STOP plans on holding more meetings than ever so that the public has full chance to submit comments on this import document. We will keep you updated as more information for those events becomes available.
I also want to say that while having a Supplemental EIS released at all is a win for our coalition, this document is clearly a political ploy and contains no real, sufficient analysis on the project. Alternative routes are not clearly considered and the difference in tar sands and conventional crude is once again blown off. We are sorely disappointed and will continue to hold the State Department accountable to ensure that Americans, not foreign interests, are put first.
To wrap this post up, there are instructions below with how to access the SEIS and then a link to a form to sign on a public comment (though you can feel free to submit your own.)
Access the SEIS:
1. Online-
-Click HERE: http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open
-Once there, follow the link at the top that’s underlined and says “Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)”
-Then click on the tiny blue triangle to the left of the words “Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS)–click on triangle to see all actions.”
-Then you may navigate to different parts of the document. If you want a quick read, the cover letter and executive summaries will be good places to start. If you’re in for the 320-page SEIS long haul, click on “SDEIS (2 MB).”
-From there, it will likely take several minutes to load. After it finally loads, you can browse from your internet browser, or you can right click on the document, select “Save As” and save it to your computer as a PDF (Adobe Acrobat Reader) File. If you do not currently have the ability to open PDFs on your computer, you will need to download that software from here: http://get.adobe.com/reader/
2. In Person– At these libraries in the government documents section. – Full list of current libraries here: http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf/Library_Locations%20by%20State.pdf?OpenFileResource
-At our request, the State Department has agreed to place it at these additional libraries, though I’d advise calling ahead to make sure they have received it by now. See that additional list here: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=1Ky1D9SO_DjVz1bdFxPatVnusWbHlRF16qQ6aj7oggVc0rmTjXJExP4FNbd5G&hl=en&authkey=CPz7iWM
We’ll keep you updated as we and the experts continue to analyze this sloppy impact statement.
Thank you for your support,
Brittany Dawn, STOP Coordinator
Tagged with: keystone xl, state department, eis
