People Living at End of Keystone Xl Pipeline Already Sick & Dying

going from potential pipelines abroad to potential pipelines domestically there is a disturbing article in think progress which outlines how people who are now living at the end love where the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would go are already sick and dying Think Progress summarizes it saying Port Arthur Texas is an oil town home to massive refineries the process 900,000 barrels of crude oil each day occasionally burping up columns of thick black smoke it's where the proposed Keystone XL pipeline after polling tar sands down from canada and across the midwest wood and its residents are sick and dying in a new feature story in on earth author Ted Jenna ways goes down to Port Arthur gets a look at what's happening to the people largely low-income almost entirely african-american who call it home residents and activists are far fighting hard to relocate from where they currently live close to the refineries long story short check out the article on on earth it shows that based on data collected by the Texas Cancer Registry cancer rates among african-americans in jeff is circus F Jefferson County are fifteen percent higher than for the average texan and as a result of decreased access to care as a result of being a low-income and other factors the mortality rates from cancer are 40 percent higher so this is not a surprise Louis we talked before on the show about at the white you know the big water the five gallon water things that are brought into office buildings a lot they go upside down and you get your water outta there the production of those five gallon it's like a its I forget the name it's a particular type of plastic the production of those happens in many parts of the world but it happens in in a in a particularly poor part of Texas and the a areas that are downwind from where the exhaust where the smoke from the production of those barrel the the plastic containers a goes have six significantly can't increased rates have cancer so this is not a new thing we know that this affects disproportionately poor people because they have decreased lobbying power to keep it out of their backyard and in many cases those my does does disadvantaged groups happen to be minority groups as well so this is before the Keystone pipeline even goes in Lewis imagine what the case will be once if and when that pipeline is added to what is going on in that part of Texas I'm sure things can only get worse in its funny people like to focus upon on the details of pollutants well this type of plastic is bad to buy products from its oil refining process is known to be bad I mean overall I think it's pretty clear that just about any type of pollutant is incredibly harmful at least that the vast majority of them in the long term and it's just funny that we need to to focus on it the exact details of which pollutes our bad I because the our political system basically and I understand even if you want to make a case and you could make this case write this the if you could say I understand that we want to get off fossil fuels I understand that lobbyists and big corporations are way too involved in the energy industry and their lobbying Congress and this is not a good done on not a good long-term solution but there will be short term stimulus and it'll provide some jobs in blah blah blah its even kind of an exaggeration I mean to really make the case that we should only be doing the Keystone XL pipeline based on short-term stimulus and the potential a dampening effect a fossil fuel gas prices that it might produce I think it's bogus Louis in the in the time if you sum up the entire economic benefit have that and compare it to where we would be if years ago George W Bush had the opportunity didn't carry do it started really focusing on alternative energy and completely getting off a fossil fuels the broader economic benefit and the health benefits that would lead to economic benefit by West people being sick so on and so forth you it's in part it's almost im in a mind-blowing to even try to quantify how much better off we would be if that had been done I know the focus on on all the short term stuff is incredible there is there is no focus on any long-term I'll long-term energy II energy stimuli at all but I mean of course that's where the money is maybe these big companies you just keeping it under wraps until the oil dries up