One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the Ogallala Aquifer is a geological formation with very little lateral movement of water. It's not a giant underground lake through which an oil spill would spread contamination over thousands of square miles.
This article does a good job of explaining the issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/op...a-aquifer.html
The author also points out that the
real threat is not a potential pipeline spill; it's contamination from chemically-dependent farming which has been occurring for decades.
When they think of the aquifer, many people conjure up an image of a pristine spring from which you can draw pure, healthy drinking water. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have to carefully filter the aquifer's water before drinking it, at least if you want to avoid slowly killing yourself.
Yes, there are still risks and tradeoffs. But pipeline technology has been greatly improved over the last couple of decades, and it seems that a growing number of people consider the risks acceptable, especially in light of our current economic flabbiness and level of oil dependency.
I think it would be a terrible shame if hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil we could import from our friend Canada every day were instead piped to the west coast and shipped to China on tankers. Environmentalists should vigorously oppose that. Transporting oil by sea is far riskier than by pipeline, and consumes a hell of a lot of fuel as well.