Students protest construction of Keystone XL Pipeline

Ten Pitt students gathered at a house on Oakland Avenue at 10 a.m. They proceeded to walk with… Ten Pitt students gathered at a house on Oakland Avenue at 10 a.m. They proceeded to walk with signs down to the Birmingham Bridge and pick up another 40 people. As they traveled across the bridge and down East Carson Street, more people hopped into line.

By the time the group had reached Hot Metal Street in South Side at 11 a.m., nearly 100 people had convened on the green lawn to rally for President Barack Obama to stop construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The Keystone Pipeline would carry oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada 1,700 miles to refineries in Texas. The Pittsburgh Student Environmental Coalition, a youth-run organization, organized the rally Tuesday morning to coincide with Obama’s visit to Pittsburgh’s South Side.

During the two-hour walk and rally in the South Side, the group, which consisted of Pitt students and student activists from across the country that were in Pittsburgh for a sustainability conference this weekend, held signs and chanted various phrases to try and gather attention to their cause.

“Hey hey, ho ho, Keystone Pipeline’s got to go,” and “Save the water, save the soil, we don’t want your dirty oil,” were some of the chants coming from the crowd on the lawn in between the two American Eagle corporation buildings. The area was filled with city police and the demonstrators stayed behind yellow police tape, which blocked off Hot Metal Street to allow Obama’s motorcade to pass.

Pitt senior Nikki Luke,an environmental studies and economics major, said that the pipeline would extract oil from the Alberta tar sands, which is the second largest carbon deposit in the world.

Luke, who is also a member of the Pittsburgh Student Environmental Coalition, said that Obama is the only person that has the power to stop the pipeline.

Seth Bush, a member of Pitt’s Free the Planet, said that because the pipeline is such a large construction project and it crosses international boundaries, it requires a presidential permit. The president would submit the permit to the State Department, which conducts environmental impact studies that the Environmental Protection Agency has to approve. It does not have to go through any legislative bodies, since it isn’t policy.

Bush said Obama is expected to make his decision on the pipeline by the end of the year.

He said that the rally was part of a larger movement happening across the country to protest the pipeline.

Bush, a senior electrical engineering major, was arrested at a similar two-week rally in Washington, D.C., over the summer, where he and about 1,300 other demonstrators sat on the White House lawn to protest the pipeline.

On Nov. 6, more Pitt students and residents will return to the nation’s capital for the second phase of the rally, Bush said. Nearly 2,000 people have already committed to attend the demonstration, where they plan to encircle the White House and “hopefully send an even stronger message, one year before [Obama is] elected again — hopefully,” he said.

As for the Pittsburgh rally, Bush said that it was meant to send the president a message and help catalyze the tar sands movement. He said that Obama waved to the demonstrators from his car as it drove past on Hot Metal Street.

“He acknowledged us. That means it’s in his eye, and that’s the best we can hope for right now,” Bush said.

For Bush, the pipeline could lead to trouble for the human race. He said that the pipeline will contribute to global warming by adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

“It’s really just trouble,” Bush said.

Pitt Greenpeace president Justin Lozano said that the pipeline is more than just a climate change issue: It’s also a health, safety and human rights issue.

He said the pipeline will ruin the communities it is supposed to run through and destroy the land.

“It’s affecting all of us in the long term,” Lozano said.

Lozano, a junior psychology and sociology major, said the rally was meant to promote clean energy and be a part of a greater movement where “we could stop Obama from building tar sands and move towards sustainability and using renewable resources.”

According to the Transcanada website, the company behind the Keystone Pipeline project, operation for the pipeline began in June 2010. The pipeline will provide the U.S. with a more stable source of consistent energy supply over a long period of time and improve U.S. energy security.

The pipeline is also expected to create more than 20,000 high-wage manufacturing and construction jobs across the U.S., according to the website.

The website also said that pipelines “are the safest, most reliable, economical and environmentally favorable way to transport oil and petroleum products.”

Bush and Lozano said they will both still vote for Obama in 2012, even if he decides to go ahead with the pipeline — but they will not support him as heavily as they did in 2008.

Bush said that Obama made statements when he was elected that he would campaign for clean energy, but “if he goes through with this, how can we trust him?”

“How can we go out and campaign and knock on doors day after day to get people to vote for him?” Bush said. “Most of us support Obama, but we can’t continue to support him if he keeps making these decisions.”

Luke also said that she wouldn’t be able to support him as much as she did in his first election.

“We supported him in 2008. We want to support him in 2012 … but we want to supply the economy with clean oil,” she said.