Let's Not Forget Michigan's Tar Sands Disaster

Nearly two years ago, an oil pipeline burst and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. Two years is an eon in the days of the 24-hour news cycle so most of the media in Michigan has forgotten about it.

Leave it to Rachel Maddow to not only remember the mess, but to tie it to one of the national issues of the day -- construction of the Keystone Pipeline, which Republicans are trying to pressure President Obama into approving.

On her MSNBC show Friday (March 9, 2012), Maddow noted that the national already has tar sands pipelines like Keystone and they have created messes of the kind that opponents of Keystone warn about. Her case in point was the spill in the Kalamazoo River. At the time of the spill, officials said the mess would be cleaned up in a mere month. But here we are nearly two years later, and work is still on going. Turns out, oil from tar sands is heavy and rather than floating on the top of the water so that it can be skimmed off, it sinks to the bottom of the river bed.

But let's let Rachel explain, as only she can. (The most relevant part of the clip starts about six minutes in.)

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Nuclear Waste? Not a Problem--to DTE

The recent Greater Brighton Area Chamber of Commerce Energy Summit and Expo paid a lot of attention to being "green" -- talking about green energy credits, reducing energy consumption, etc.

But the key note speaker, David Harwood, was a glaring exception. Hardwood is DTE Energy's director of nuclear developoment. His topic -- DTE's application to build another nuclear plant.

According to Harwood, all the problems with nuclear plants have been solved. In fact, he doesn't even include a slide on the nuclear waste issue in his presentation. And he had a bit of a smirk on his face when it was brought up.

There is no problem with nuclear waste, he said, except that the politicians won't decide where to put it.

How about we put it in Harwood's backyard?