"“If there was not already a pipe that went in in 1953 and this was a new route, I think it’s pretty safe to say that they would not try and argue that going across a city’s protected groundwater zone was the best route to go. … It makes no sense at all to stick a pipeline there when you can go around instead.."

In actual fact, the presence of an existing right of way and a 60 plus year successful operating history is the one of the BEST possible indicators of future success.

This guy knows, craftily, that any new route will tie up the project in even more years of red tape.

Just more obstructionism.