WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) -- Former Vice President Al Gore urged President Barack Obama to follow British Columbia's example and veto the Keystone XL oil pipeline project.
Gore called the tar sands pipeline that would transport crude oil from Canada to refineries in the U.S. Southwest "an atrocity," London's The Guardian reported from Washington.
"I certainly hope that he will veto that now that the Canadians have publicly concluded that it is not safe to take a pipeline across British Columbia to ports on the Pacific. I really can't imagine that our country would say: 'Oh, well. Take it right over parts of the Ogallala aquifer,' our largest and most important source of ground water in the U.S. It's really a losing proposition," Gore said.
The proposed route for the Keystone XL pipeline is across the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies ground water for irrigation and drinking across much of the Great Plains states.
The State Department, which has jurisdiction over the Keystone XL project as it crosses the U.S-Canadian border, is to announce its decision yet this year, The Guardian reported.
