Daryl Hannah Arrested at White House Pipeline Protest (VIDEO)
Actress Daryl Hannah has been arrested during a sit-in in front of the White House protesting a pipeline expansion project that would greatly increase the amount of oil imported by the United States from Alberta oil sands in Canada.
Over 100 protestors were arrested on Tuesday.
"I do believe we are in a time of crisis for so many things. And in times of crisis, you have to get engaged in the process. You have to walk your talk. Being arrested is something you never hope for. You don’t want to get arrested. But you know it's a risk you take," the “Splash” and “Kill Bill” star told People Magazine after her release.
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Hannah added, “Civil [dis]obedience is a long-heralded American tradition."
According to Hannah, the people arrested were mostly mothers, grandmothers, and teachers.
“Like me, they are standing up against this big corporation and saying, ‘No,’” Hannah told People.
The 50-year-old, who has two previous environmental-protest-related arrests, said, “Tar sands are the worst environmental atrocity. This pipeline would extend over the nation's largest freshwater aquifers that 20 million people depend on for water.”
TransCanada Corp. (TRP) proposed the $7 billion “Keystone XL” project – a pipeline that would deliver 700,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Gulf through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The U.S. State Department is set to make a decision at the end of the year on whether to allow the new pipeline expansion, State Department spokeswoman Heide Fulton said at a briefing last month.
The Keystone XL proposal has garnered a lot of objections from environmental groups who believe additional analysis is needed to determine the possibility for spills, how communities located along the pipeline would be affected and the project’s impact on climate change.
Bloomberg reported that California Rep. Henry Waxman said Keystone would transport oil from “the dirtiest source of transportation fuel currently available” – Canada’s tar-sands region.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has the final say on whether the plan is approved. According to Clinton, public meetings have been scheduled by the State Department to determine whether the project “would serve the national interest.”
If approved, Keystone would stretch over 1,600 miles – twice the length of the Trans-Alaska system – making it one of the largest in the country, CNN News reported.
