Pennsylvania Mom Headed to Tar Sands Pipeline Protest

• Susan Phillips
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

What many don’t realize about America’s dependence on foreign oil is the country we rely on the most is Canada. That’s right, Canada exports more oil to the U.S. than any other country.
Now Canada wants to sell us even more crude oil, extracted from tar sands in Alberta. Getting oil from tar sands is not as simple as sinking a well, The process first involves strip mining, or the use of open pits. Then the oil is extracted from the sand, clay and water. Turning that slurry into crude oil involves further processing. Critics say extracting the oil generates large amounts of greenhouse gases.
Plans to build a $13 billion dollar pipeline to carry tar sand oil from Alberta to Texas has the support of President Obama. And the State Department just released a report that concluded the Keystone XL pipeline will have no “significant impact” on the environment. But opponents worry about spills along the 1,661 mile long pipeline.
So activists have been staging sit-ins at the White House this week, resulting in more than 500 arrests. Cheltenham, Pa. resident Leslie Leff, an elementary school teacher, plans to join them. Leff says she’s not an environmentalist, and has never broken the law. But, she says, she feels more and more responsible about her own energy use, and her personal contribution to greenhouse gases. Leff says she can no longer leave it up to the politicians she helped elect, especially President Obama.
“I’m a big supporter of Obama,” says Leff. But I’m really disappointed when it comes to [his actions on] the environment. He hasn’t lived up to his promises.”
Leff, a 54-year-old elementary school teacher, says she’s nervous.
“I’m excited. But I’m also a little scared,” said Leff. “It’s daunting to be handcuffed and go to jail.”
Leff plans to get arrested on Saturday with her 18-year-old son. She joins hundreds of others, including actress Daryl Hannah.
TransCanada says the project will create at least 13,000 jobs, and that the 36-inch wide pipeline is safe.
 

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