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Pipeline in West Texas draws a protest of its own

Forest Guardians
/
Wikimedia Commons

There’s another pipeline protest and this one is not in North Dakota. It’s in Texas.

As Reuters reports, about 40 protesters gathered Wednesday near Alpine, Texas at the construction site of Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) Trans-Pecos pipeline, which is a 148-mile joint venture with the Comisión Federal de Electricidad, Mexico's federal electricity commission.

Much like the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and others who have been protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota over the past several months, protesters in Texas are concerned that the Trans-Pecos pipeline, which would cross the Rio Grande River, could contaminate the water.

Opposition to the Trans-Pecos line isn’t new, however. The Big Bend Conservation Alliance and other groups, according to Reuters, have been attempting to halt construction of the line for the past two years by advocating to stop ETP’s use of eminent domain, which allows the company to seize private land for construction.

The Trans-Pecos pipeline, once constructed would originate outside Fort Stockton, Texas and deliver up to 1.4 bill cubic feet of gas per day to the U.S.-Mexico border, Reuters reports.