We've always had spills from pipelines. The causes range from human error, equipment failure, natural disasters,etc. There are no sure things, it's about risk and what's the pay off to investors and society. XL and drilling off shore are no brainers. You would think energy was cheap and unemployment wasn't a problem. Besides, I'd rather be buying energy from our friends rather than dictators.
There was a time when these kinds of thing were called progress, But it seems our world view has changed. Now we (EPA) are shutting down coal fire plants because of minuscule parts per million amounts of mercury, which will increase utility cost, while at the same time mandating we screw miniature mercury environmental disasters into our light sockets.
