"They're coming to get you Barbara..."

Those are some of the last words we hear from an unfortunate victim early in "Night of the Living Dead." With creeping doom and danger sprouting up all around them, a pair of siblings finds themselves in the worst possible place---visiting the cemetery just as hungry zombies are emerging from the grave. They don't realize there is a problem until it is too late---as the mocking brother loses a chunk of his neck to the shambling undead.

There's something similar happening here in the Midwest.

Our energy sector is introducing a slow underground menace that most will not catch onto until it is too late. Bitumen. The climate changing quasi-oil mined from Canada's tar sands. I've railed about the global warming dangers of the refining of bitumen, the environmental impact of digging this stuff out of Canada's boreal forest, and the unique threat that the refineries themselves pose to what is arguably the most important natural resource this nation has in the Great Lakes...

And as refineries are retooled to process the Alberta's tarry gunk, a growing web of pipelines is sprouting up to feed them. And those pipelines come with their own set of dangers for which we are blissfully unaware.

The Canadian Consulate in Chicago, which seems to have become a 24/7 shop for marketing tar sands to Midwesterners, has been busy promoting some Enbridge Pipeline projects in the region to extend tar sands oil deeper and deeper into the Midwest and eventually the Gulf Coast. They've taken the road show to Central Illinois to convince resistant landowners that they should give the pipelines right of way through their lands. The landowners are wise to hold out.

Just take a look at the recent ruling in Wisconsin where Enbridge was fined $1.1 million for environmental infractions that, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, disrupted and degraded forests and wetlands across 14 counties.

Even better, check out this NTSB report about a 2003 Enbridge spill in Minnesota. The pipeline burst, dumping a quarter million gallons of tar sands oil in less than 15 minutes. To contain the problem before it leached into the Mississippi, officials were forced to set the spill on fire---creating a sulfur-rific black cloud a mile high and five miles wide (photo from the report below). Yum. Folks who have noted that the current Enbridge project will pass near streams and drinking water sources should take heed... And so should state regulators and local governments who are supposed to protect the public health and safety. The land owners through whose property Enbridge proposes to pipe tar sands should not be the only ones to ask the right questions about Enbridge's risky business.

Currently, an even bigger tar sands pipeline project is getting a lot of attention. A coalition of landowners, steelworkers, and enviros expressed their concerns about the massive Keystone Pipeline this week. It crosses six states on its way to the Wood River refinery (which sits literally at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers). Given the news about the project's progress, those folks are right to be concerned. It turns out that there are sinkholes opening up all around sections of the pipeline in the Dakotas where it was drilled through unstable, sandy soil. Oops, those are 30 or 40' deep sink holes that are swallowing trees whole...

The problem is growing, just like those sink holes. With the Canadians attempting to increase tar sand production five fold in the coming years, more pipeline projects are coming our way. And more holes being chomped out of the landscape and climate, just like the guy's neck in the movie.

"They're coming to get you Barbara..."