[All] More pipeline breaks due to more plastic eating bacterium?

[Louisette Lanteigne]

Hi folks

I was talking to Norah about how the National Energy Board lacked evidence to support cancelling the Line 9 pipeline due mainly to the limited scope of the assessment. The pipe and it's installation was the scope, not the contents of the pipe or it's source, the tar sands. I was thinking if only we could limit arguments specifically to the structural issues of the pipe itself.  I told my husband, that often times, the little things that create the biggest changes. Take whopping cough for example. The power of a tiny virus can do more damage than a bevy of bombs. If only we could find the virus to kill the Enbridge pipeline projects. That's when it dawned on me. The key to the change is to prove smallest of natural weaknesses. It was the same approach I used for the West Side Lands as inspired by writings of St. Theresa of Liseaux. I focused on little details of the poor studies re: Salamanders water and fish.

I know that Enbridge uses Polyethylene Tape as the main way to prevent erosion in their pipes so when I started digging tonight I found out that in May 2008, 16 year old Canadian boy named Daniel Bird from Waterloo Collegiate Institute found and isolated two bacterium that literally eats plastic. He stored the enzymes at 37 degrees Celsius with plastic and in three months time, 40% of the mass was gone.  Note: These enzymes occur IN SOIL AND IN WATER. It thrives off of NITRATES and ironically, Enbridge pipelines travel all across nitrate rich farmlands where pipes are breaking now. These enzymes thrive at 37 degree Celsius temperatures. I'm thinking hotter summers and warm winters may mean more bacterium and more breaks.  Read about Daniel's study here: 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2008/05/27/its-in-the-bag-teenager-wins-science-fair-solves-massive-environmental-problem/


I've just informed Bill McKibbon about this. I think this might be something worth investigating further. Just don't know where to go with this from here. Feel free to spread the word on this. If we can get data to prove the theory that the same PE materials used by Enbridge pipelines might be consumed by these enzymes, we might have a way to prevent pipeline leaks. Enbridge stated at the NEB if they can't move the oil safety, they won't move it. So let's hold them to that. 

Lulu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/all_gren.ca/attachments/20120729/eef0d78a/attachment.html>