TransCanada, owners of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, have agreed to reroute the pipeline to avoid the Nebraska Sandhills, a particularly sensitive ecosystem.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
Sen. Mike Flood, speaker of the Nebraska Legislature, announced on the floor that TransCanada Corp. would move the pipeline to another area of the state. Sources in Nebraska said it would likely be located farther east, nearer an existing Keystone pipeline that already carries Canadian tar sands oil into the U.S…
“We were at the Capitol building, they were in special session, and Speaker Flood stopped everything and said that everything was over, and TransCanada has voluntarily moved the pipeline out of the Sandhills of Nebraska,” said Todd Cone, a rancher who has been one of many battling the route through central Nebraska.
The Nebraska legislature was considering legislation that could have forced the project to be rerouted.