DOWN THE TUBE: Pipelines and History
There are plenty of thorough, well written, and historically grounded pieces written about “Standing Rock” from the people who deserve to control the presentation of their lives : Those of Oceti Sakowin, now often referred to as the Great Sioux Nation. See this piece by Nick Estes for a great account on the use of violence as a political, state, corporate tactic in the desecration of Native Lands throughout history with focus on NoDAPL struggle.
The camps against the North Dakota Access Pipeline (NoDAPL) are only the most recent among longstanding, extensive, struggles between the Standing Rock Sioux and those seeking to alter/control/destroy their way of life.
Outside the Dakota Access, the most recent pipeline on the minds people in North America is the “Keystone XL,” the proposed TransCanada project running 1,661 mile tube estimated to carry 900,000 barrels of black gold from Canada down onto the Gulf of Mexico. Like Dakota Access, Trump has specifically targeted the project as an unabashed political moment.
Rather than try to do what has been done so well, by people who deserve to do it and be listened to, I hope to provide a quick history to PIPELINES as mediums of transportation. In a very real way no pipeline (or shipping route, or roadway) is without explicitly “political” context, yet such a context is of course never without economic concerns.
Pipes and their sludge are hot sociopolitical and economic slurries, with huge stakes for the people seeking to control them and for those seeking to avoid them showing up in their backyards, water systems, burial grounds, water systems, and otherwise sacred sites. They traverse lands and are buried under sea and are more ubiquitous in the world than ever before.
Some History
By 1962, academics in the U.S. were already studying the “Pipeline Revolution.” The United States, “the country which has utilized this means of transport on a massive scale” has been historically more wedded to the pipeline than other nation states. Perhaps its the “newness” of the continent to large scale industrial projects, or the mass expanses of land which aren’t accessible by waterway.
In consideration of the nature of pipelines in comparison to other transportation technologies, their are some clear disadvantages for the pipeline option. Namely, the pipeline is considered to have limitations on range, capacity, and rigidity of transport.
It’s also the case that only certain goods may flow through the tubes, a person isn’t going to send new cars via pipelines. However there are some surprising cases, such as pipelines for milk, coal, chemicals such as Ammonia, salt brine and even beer.
Economies of Pipe
Thing is, pipelines are typically cheaper. When they seem to be viable solutions to the economic problems which arise from an effort to extract wealth from Earth-materials, they are an increasingly chosen development around the world. Yet, cost projections are also temporary solutions to problems of investment and capital. Prices for things change, and some pipelines have been rendered obsolete due to decreases in maritime shipping costs or other forms of transportation.
One such instance is the 1957 Trans-Arabian pipeline known as “Tapline.” Bechtel helped build it, and it was owned-operated-associated with a wide variety of petroleum companies until its dissolution in 2002. The pipeline was never at capacity and the political and technological context of the pipe made it a largely nonviable means of material transportation.
Pipelines are also always going to be targets of political life. The 2009 Russia-Ukraine gas dispute is one case in point, wherein those who controlled a key infrastructural resource for another chose to just turn off the tap. In the dead of winter (January 1st), the Russian natural gas company Gazprom turned off the supply after a series of failed negotiations surrounding debt payments from the Ukrainian company, Naftogaz. Eventually, all Russian natural gas was cut off from Ukraine and Southeastern Europe. It was 18 days later that leaders of nations “re-negotiated” a contract to have the flows continue. The pipeline is also a means of politics, in that the freezing-out of Southeastern Europe became a political weapon over dispute of payment and production.
The Pipeline Revolution is about Risk
Boats run aground, trains derail, semi-trucks crash, and pipelines explode.
One of the key concerns of both protestors and investors of pipelines is the element of risk. Yet, to be sure, risk is not some thing which holds the same meaning for both parties. To the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, the DAPL (among other things) represents a great risk to a way of life, one fueled by the consumption and protection of sources of water. For those investing in the pipeline construction, the protestors pose a risk in that the pipeline is under threat of serious delays and the potential for being halted altogether.
Communities loose when pipelines explode, or ships run aground. Risk is central in the claims of those who seek to halt pipeline construction (too risky) and those who seek to construct them (risk-preventative). Thing is, these are different versions of risk with radically different distributions in regard to who or what is at stake.
The pipeline revolution is about risk, a central feature of contemporary understandings surrounding decisions, calculation, and the future (particularly in notions of prediction or investment).
