TransCanda gas pipeline construction project in Sierra Tarahumara near Divisadero and rim of Barrancas del Cobre
/ Photo Tom Barry
TransCanada is blading a 50-ft.
swath across the Sierra Tarahumara – one of the most rugged, inaccessible
regions of Mexico. The energy transfer and story corporation is clearing a path
of natural destruction to lay a 30-inch gas pipeline.
When completed, the pipeline
will carry natural gas – a product largely of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) –
from U.S. drilling fields. Connecting with the Tarahumara Pipeline that runs
from the U.S.-Mexico border to south of Chihuahua City, the new TransCanada
pipeline – Encino-Topolobampo Pipeline--will channel U.S. gas surpluses across
the Sierra Tarahumara to fuel new electricity -generating plants on the west
side of the mountain range.
In Mexico, TransCanada
operates with the blessing of the Mexican government. As Mexico has opened up
its energy market to foreign investors and foreign energy, TransCanada has jumped
in with $5 billion in energy-infrastructure investment. The new gas pipeline
across the mountains and canyons of the Sierra Tarahumara in the border state
of Chihuahua is one of more than two-dozen gas pipelines or gasoductos that are being constructed
across northern and central Mexico.
In the United States,
TransCanada became known as a dirty-energy company because of its project to
build the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline would have pumped
carbon-heavy crude oil from Canadian oil sands across mid-America to energy
refineries on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Under pressure from
environmentalists from around the world, the Obama
administration denied TransCanada permission for the controversial pipeline
project, noting that it wouldn’t serve U.S. national interests and would
contribute to global climate change.
In contrast, the Mexican
government argues that the TransCanada project in the Sierra Tarahumara and the
many other transnational and transregional gasoductos
serve the country’s national interests and reduce carbon emissions. Most
observers agree with the government’s argument in favor of a massive network of
U.S.-sourced gasoductos. Advocates of
transferring U.S. natural gas to Mexico point to the relatively low cost of
natural gas imports, the absence of dependable Mexican gas production, and the
advantages of converting the country’s generating plants from coal and oil to
cleaner natural gas.
Neither in the United States
nor in Mexico has there been much public discussion or policy debate about the rapidly
changing transborder energy market. Mexico’s new tapping of U.S. gas reserves
has precipitated a frenzy of pipeline construction both in the United States
and in Mexico. For the most part, the new U.S.-Mexico pipelines cross sparsely
inhabited arid regions in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts. As such the massive construction projects have sparked little public reaction.
- Tom Barry
Photo of the Tarahumara Pipeline / FERMACA Pipeline