Keep Bakken Pipeline out of Iowa

To the editor:

As I write this, I am enjoying a glass of cold water from my kitchen tap. If I lived in Glendive, Mont., water from my kitchen tap would be undrinkable with high levels of cancer-causing benzene.

The toxins are there because a broken oil pipeline spilled more than 40,000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River. Montana may be far from Iowa, but oil from that same source - the Bakken Shale formation - could soon be flowing through an underground pipeline cutting diagonally across our own state. The proposed Bakken Pipeline would cross Iowa's major watersheds in its 343-mile journey from the state's northwest corner to the southeast where it will enter Illinois.

If you think it's a good idea to transport crude oil under the ground where you live, just ask the folks in Glendive how it's working for them. Permission for construction of the Bakken Pipeline depends on approval by the Iowa Utilities Board. I don't approve. If you don't either, let them know. And have a glass of clean water, while you still can.

Judy Ryan

Cedar Rapids