The proposed pipeline, which would carry 800, 000 barrels of oil each day from Alberta to Texas, would have passed through a major aquifer in the Sandhills region of Nebraska.

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In a stroke of good fortune, this place, Pinehurst, happened to be located in a part of North Carolina known as the Sandhills, because underneath the grass everything was sand, not soil.

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Of greatest concern initially, the Keystone XL pipeline was designed to run through Nebraska's Sandhills, which lie above the Ogallala Aquifer, the main source of drinking water and irrigation for millions of people.

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