Iowans should embrace pipeline

To the editor:

There have been a lot of letters opposing the Bakken Pipeline. I think the people of Iowa should embrace this pipeline as good neighbors to the Dakotas. After all, nature has gifted us with most of their topsoil through thousands of years of wind erosion, it's the least we can do.

The Dakotas are relatively poor states and technology has given them an economic boom with new oil and gas production. All of the people of the United States benefit with this increased domestic production of oil. We are building lots of wind power, but we cannot give up fossil fuels to power our economy and our lives, so let's use our oil instead of draining our economy importing oil.

The proposal is for adding 350 miles of new pipeline. Hello naysayers, we already have 40,000 miles of pipeline in Iowa. Are there leaks? Not very often, but yes and meters and controls built in Marshalltown limit the spills. Transporting this material by train is vastly more dangerous to us than a pipeline.

Let's be neighborly and say 'Hey North Dakota, here's your pipeline. Thanks for the dirt!”

Gary Glockhoff

Cedar Rapids