Letter: Pipelines are dangerous, destructive

The April 27 guest column 'Stop the pipeline delays” left me insulted and outraged.

It's the same old, slickly packaged public relations propaganda pumped out by the practiced pitchmen of Dakota Access and pipeline construction industry who will cash in on this dangerous deal while denying it's deadly effects. This is deja vu all over again. It inflames my rage.

The same thing happened in South Dakota. A brand-new, bright, shiny state-of-the art tar sands pipeline was built by the best and brightest of the industry six years ago. On April 2 it leaked nearly 17,000 gallons of benzene-soaked tar sands oil over a football field sized field 100 miles from my hometown of Sioux City. The landowner will never be able to farm his land again. Lord knows the damage done to the underground water table.

Wake up! Get your heads out of the tar sands soaked sand and understand you are poisoning our planet and destroying God's good earth. Our lands, water and ways of life cannot continue to be used as sacrifice zones for Big Oil's shortsighted, insatiable desire for profit at any cost. No more tar sands pipelines! Why don't you Main Coalition leaders drive up to Freeman, S.D., climb into some haz-mat suits and work on the toxic cleanup there. There's plenty of work for you to do. It'll be good practice for when the pipeline you build here in Iowa spills.

Tom Mohan

Cedar Rapids