Tarsands Infrastructure: South/East [US] is a category that represents the many connecting and supplying pipelines and associated projects that are needed to transport fuels for the production of tar sands bitumen and to move tar sand heavy bitumen to the Lower 48 of the US for refining. This involves some massive new pipeline projects to Illinois, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere including existing refineries in Ontario and Quebec.
Though the category is labelled "US", the proposed new projects also traverse untouched Canadian territory across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The names of some of the larger ones include The Alberta Clipper Project, The Spearhead Pipeline (expansion) and the Keystone Pipeline, along with other pipelines controlled by TransCanada and Enbridge, as well as Imperial Oil. Despite the massive size and scale of pipeline networks already existing through the continental United States, these pipelines and associated construction would be needed to achieve US and Canadian government goals of reaching 5 million barrels a day of tar sand oil being shipped out of the tar sands "ground zero" of Alberta.
Debate stirred over 1st major US tar sands mine
AP
By CHI-CHI ZHANG, Associated Press – Sun Apr 10 2011
SALT LAKE CITY – Beneath the lush, green hills of eastern Utah's Uinta Basin, where elk, bear and bison outnumber people, the soil is saturated with a sticky tar that may soon provide a new domestic source of petroleum for the United States. It would be a first-of-its kind project in the country that some fear could be a slippery slope toward widespread wilderness destruction.
No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline
Published: April 2, 2011
New York Times
Later this year, the State Department will decide whether to approve construction of a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast called Keystone XL. The underground 36-inch pipeline, built by TransCanada, would link the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to Texas refineries and begin operating in 2013. The department should say no.
Enormous Kearl-bound oilsands shipments target of Montana lawsuit
By: The Canadian Press
Posted: 04/1/2011
CALGARY - The Government of Montana is being challenged in court over its decision to approve the shipment of enormous truckloads of oilsands equipment through the state to northern Alberta.
Missoula County and three environmental groups say in a lawsuit that the state Transportation Department made the wrong decision in allowing the shipments and are demanding a full environmental impact assessment.
Republicans press Obama to approve oilsands pipeline
By Sheldon Alberts, Postmedia News March 31, 2011
WASHINGTON — The heated policy debate over Alberta's oilsands took centre stage Thursday in the U.S. Congress, with Republican lawmakers claiming President Barack Obama has "failed to act" swiftly enough to ensure a secure long-term supply of Canadian crude.
Sally Mauk: First Nations activists see changes since tar sands
By SALLY MAUK for the Missoulian missoulian.com |
Friday, March 18, 2011
I was standing on South Reserve Street in Missoula in the wee hours of the morning recently to report on the transport of two enormous coke drum halves and their impressive entourage of trucks and law enforcement as they snaked past a few dozen chanting protesters.
Waiting for the drums to arrive, I thought about the conversation I had the week before with two Canadians who live in northern Alberta near the world's second-largest deposit of oil.
Utah’s tar sands
By mike duncan
Mar 09 2011
Salt Lake Tribune
Tar sands are no longer a what-if. This water-intensive mining may be coming to Utah soon, and what it could become is a big deal indeed.
Unlike gas wells, extracting oil from sand is neither quiet nor unobtrusive. Despite admirable efforts to minimize water use and reduce water pollution, the industry uses considerable water and generates wastes, especially if pipelines are built and field refineries established to avoid trucking the thick oil.
Military members push for pipeline
Daily Progress, Jacksonville, TX
March 5, 2011
Meagan O'Toole-Pitts Jacksonville Daily Progress The Jacksonville Daily Progress Sat Mar 05, 2011, 02:11 PM CST
JACKSONVILLE — The American GI Forum of Texas and 66 military veterans urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to grant TransCanada a Presidential Permit to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion this week, aiming to reduce the nation’s dependency on oil in the Middle East.
Green groups call for more review of pipeline
By JAMES MacPHERSON
More from BusinessWeek
March 3, 2011
BISMARCK, N.D.
The U.S. government must evaluate the additional impacts of allowing domestic crude on a proposed pipeline designed to carry Canadian tar sands oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast, a coalition of environmental groups has said.
Keystone’s tar sands pipeline concerns environmentalists
2011-03-02 /
The Cherokeean Herald
TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline System is being heralded as one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken by the United States and Canada – four times the length of the Alaska pipeline.
The 2,151-mile pipeline already connects Hardisty, Can. with Cushing, Ok. Lying in the path of the Keystone Gulf Coast Extension (Keystone XL) from Cushing, Ok. to Port Arthur is Cherokee County.
Disaster Capitalism at the Local Level
Tar Sands to Toledo
Weekend edition,
February 25 - 26, 2011
By TRUDY BOND
"I am extremely pleased with the announcement that BP has given the green light for the Sunrise project in Alberta."
-- Ohio Democratic Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur
