Bell's versus the Keystone XL pipeline

eee, I wish I didn't read that

 

the only plus side of the article

 

Bell has filed several enviro suits in the last couple of weeks. They also sued another oil company over dredging the river because of a massive spill the company had a while ago. Bell's claimed that dredging will actually stir up pollutants and get them into the water on which they rely for brewing. This one's going to be interesting because dredging was a part of the settlement the feds got with the oil company.

 

FT: Any Black Note I have left

 

Big beer vs big oil. I think we all know where we stand in this fight...

 

They are suing Enbridge, the pipeline company mentioned in the article.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2013/07/bells_brewery_files_case_again.html

 

Do you know that the original break was close to Marshall Mi, just south of Dark Horse? Oh the humanity!

 

People who move oil all the time spill it once in a while.

 

Not saying that the release is OK, but sometimes the benefits gained from cleanup of the last 10% of a spill is not worth the risk it poses.

I believe the most recent Bell's lawsuit was over staging the dredged material in an area near the brewery, with the claim that "dust" from that area would cause harm to the brewery.

 

I believe most folks are just concerned that you can't form a sentence!

 

Bells gets their water from the Kalamazoo river?

 

And if it were apple juice, spilling it once in a while wouldn't be a problem.

 

And if the oil was not moved you would be riding a horse. Living in a hut. With no beer.

 

You, me, my horse, my hut, and my beer will be just fine without Canadian tar sands oil.

 

No, but it affects the water table. Plus ground seepage from stored sludge could be really bad.

 

Yes, tar sands oil is truly what ushered in the industrial revolution and freed us all from the harsh confines of hut livin'.

 

I don't want this to turn into a political thing, but is your argument really that because spills are going to happen regardless of safety efforts, we don't have to do anything about it? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to stop using oil?

 

In my town, there's a location that's had one oil company or another or a gas station since the early 1900. The first spill was in 1907. Since then, there have been at least 13 spills or tank leaks. There's a plume of "oil" gradually spreading through a part of the town, contaminating ground water as it moves along and even seeping back up into homes. One elementary school that was on the edge of the plume was closed for several years and re-built on a concrete cap. The local stream is constantly monitored for pollution (a tiny tributary of the Charles). Finally, a hundred years since the first spill, someone at town hall finally had the bright idea to ban any oil or other carbohydrate storage at that location. There are still five gas station in town and a handful of heating oil companies, but they are all required to dig up and replace or reline their tanks periodically. The only reason I know about this is because I spotted the monitoring equipment while house-hunting and the real estate agent lied to my face--then my ex went to the library and asked there and got the whole rundown. So, yeah, I'd like to clobber all the drill-at-any-cost wackos every time they open their mouths, particularly when they try to convince the world how dangerous wind turbines are to the birds.

I don't know if Bell is making a political statement or is just protecting its turf. But the breweries in Colorado and in California are banding together to oppose fracking and that's both a political statement and self-protection. One thing it's not about is greed--well, not their own greed.