Cross post from IfLizWereQueen  

You might think that the President and the Governor are twins separated at birth if you look a little more closely at their ties to the Keystone Pipeline and how willing both of them seem to be to put a huge source of our nation’s water supply at risk for the benefit of billionaires.  It looks to me like the Pres. and the Gov. have it covered from both ends when it comes to risking our nation’s water supply so that two billionaires can make even more billions of dollars.

From all appearances (based on reports from the State Department that seem to pave the way) it looks like President Obama is poised to make David Koch even richer than he already is by approving the Keystone Pipeline.  This pipeline would pass through Nebraska.  As you can see in the map below, the High Plains Aquifer is located in Nebraska. The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer, is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. It extends from Nebraska all the way down into Texas.  About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which yields about 30 percent of the nation’s ground water used for irrigation. In addition, the aquifer system provides drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary–millions of Americans.

Because the aquifer is shallow, it is especially susceptible to pollution from oil leaks from pipelines.  In case you wonder about the odds of an oil leak happening from the Keystone pipeline, you can know that, based on extensive historical evidence, that the question is not “if” but “when.”  Check out this list of pipeline accidents for verification.

As you can see from the map above, the twins have it covered from both ends. If the actions of one fail to pollute the drinking water for millions of Americans, then the other one is sure to succeed.

Because of the national coverage, thanks to people like Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, of the details surrounding the ongoing protests and arrests regarding the Tar Sands and related Keystone Pipeline, I’ll focus on the other end–that almost silent, yet no less lethal end, which happens to be out in Andrews County Texas.  There you will find Governor Perry and Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons working no less hard to put the drinking water of millions of Americans at risk for generations to come.

Don’t look for this story in mainstream media because you won’t find it.  I know because I’ve searched for it. If it is there at all, it is buried somewhere on the back page.

Back in December of 2010, a special committee appointed by Perry to help his buddy Harold Simmons out, the  Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission (TLLRWDCC)  proposed rules that would allow importation of nuclear waste from 36 states across the country into Andrews County. That’s a massive expansion from the current rules that only allow nuclear waste from Texas and Vermont. In fact, the volume of waste transported, imported and stored could go up as much as 19 times.

Some Texas have been raising the roof about it, but things continue to move forward in favor of Harold Simmons and against the majority (the 80% of us who earn less than $100,000 a year).

August 20,2011  the TLLRWDCC was scheduled to meet in Andrews, Texas to discuss moving forward with the plans to add billions more to Harold Simmons’ personal coffers and according to my sources twenty people went there to protest.    All of these people are heroes for the rest of us and they deserve a thank you.  I sent an email to Rusty Tomlinson, one of those who was there to stand up for the rest of us.

Oh, did I forget to mention?  Dallas billionaire, Harold Simmons, is a man who in 2010 alone contributed $500,000 to Rick Perry’s campaign and will likely contribute much more to his presidential campaign.  Chump change from Simmons who is like to reap in the hundreds of millions on this deal.