Hooray!

“There’s just no getting around the fact that Keystone XL would devastate communities, wildlife, and clean drinking water,” one group said.

A federal judge in Montana on Wednesday overturned a key water crossing permit needed to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, handing a major victory to environmental groups who said the oil network could imperil endangered species and threaten drinking water.

Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Morris said in his decision that the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to consider how a 2017 permit allowing the pipeline to cross waterways could harm some species, including the endangered pallid sturgeon.

A coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, filed suit last year.

“Today’s ruling confirms, once again, that there’s just no getting around the fact that Keystone XL would devastate communities, wildlife, and clean drinking water,” Doug Hayes, a senior attorney for the Sierra Club, said in a statement. “It was true a decade ago, and it’s just as true today: Keystone XL would be a bad deal for the American people and should never be built.”

[huffpost.com]