On Friday, the State Department revised its January report on the environmental impacts of building or not building the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, including the number of potential injuries and fatalities if Canadian oil would move by rail instead.
The New York Times reported that the revisions projected “hundreds more fatalities and thousands more injuries than expected over the course of a decade.”
Frightening numbers that supporters and opponents of the pipeline used to boost their case _ except that the newspaper tied the wrong set of numbers to the no-build scenario.
“The initial study noted that without the pipeline, companies would simply move the oil by rail, and an addendum concluded that the alternative could contribute to 700 injuries and 92 deaths over 10 years,” wrote Times reporter Coral Davenport. “Friday’s updated report raised those numbers more than fourfold, concluding that rail transport could lead to 2,947 injuries and 434 deaths over a decade.”
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