Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Indigenous

Indigenous nations have protected the earth on their territories for thousands of years. With the government of Canada ignoring their sovereignty, nations not only see massive theft of resources that could help alleviate social problems, but their exacerbation through their further alienation from their own lands, often accompanying being overrun by development and southern workers, while having no self-determination during this process. In the south of Canada industrial farming displaced many nations with often genocidal results. In the north, a modern equivalent of that fate is only just beginning, wrought on by industrial oil and gas drilling schemes (among many industrial plans) that are condemning entire societies, languages and cultures to a precarious future, becoming minorities in their lands for the first time.

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Mercury in eggs downstream from tar sands grows 50 per cent: study

Mercury in eggs downstream from oil sands grows 50 per cent: study
Bob Weber
Edmonton— The Canadian Press
Published Friday, Oct. 01, 2010

A study by Environment Canada indicates levels of toxic mercury in the eggs of water birds downstream from the oil-sands industry seem to have grown by nearly 50 per cent over the last three decades.

The study, one of the few to compare the region's ecosystem before and after its industrial boom, doesn't tie the increased mercury specifically to energy development.

Canada announces tar sands water review panel members

Canada announces oil sands water review panel members
By Stephanie Dearing.
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Canada's Environment Minister, Jim Prentice, unveiled his picks for the six person review panel he had announced he would set up. The panel is to review all the Alberta oil sands water monitoring information.

Prentice's follow-through on his announcement to form the panel in September caught Alberta off balance, said The Tyee's Andrew Nikiforuk. The federal government of Canada has had a 'hands-off' approach when it comes to the oil sands developments.

More birds dying in tar sands than first reported: study

More birds dying in oil sands than first reported: study
CTV.ca News Staff
Tuesday Sep. 7, 2010

A new report suggests more birds are dying in Alberta's tar sands than the government has let on.

Government industries have estimated that on average, about 65 birds die each year from tailings pond exposure, according to the study released Tuesday. The mean annual rate was determined by analyzing the mortality rate between 2000 and 2007.

Foundations and the Environmental Movement

September 13, 2010
An Interview With Daniel Faber

By MICHAEL BARKER

Ottawa tightens muzzle on climate change, tar sands

Ottawa tightens muzzle

Documents reveal scientists need approval from minister's office before speaking with major media - a measure one researcher calls 'Orwellian'

By MARGARET MUNRO, Postmedia News
September 13, 2010

The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age.

Utah agency approves tar-sands project

Utah agency approves oil-sands project

By PAUL FOY (AP) – September 13, 2010

SALT LAKE CITY — A top Utah regulator approved plans Monday for the first commercial U.S. oil sands project.

John Baza, director of Utah's Division of Oil, Gas & Mining, upheld an earlier decision by his staff to give Earth Energy Resources Inc. a permit to mine a 62-acre pit in eastern Utah.

Environmental activists had objected to the project and demanded a hearing held by Baza in July.

Keep industry out

Calgary Herald September 7, 2010

The provincial government's proposal to have members of the oilsands industry sit on a committee tasked with overseeing a study into the unusual rates of cancer at Fort Chipewyan is an absolute nonstarter.

Neither the residents of Fort Chip, downstream on the Athabasca River from oilsands operations, nor Albertans in general, can have confidence in the conclusions of any study in which members of the industry suspected of being linked to those cancers, have oversight or control.

West Moberly says Site C would power tar sands not homes

Monday, 30 August 2010

Amid a bevy of resource projects in northeast B.C., the West Moberly First Nation claims the province is green-washing its Site C hydroelectric project.

“It’s not clean and it’s not green,” West Moberly Chief Roland Willson told BIV in a recent interview.

The First Nation community is a member of the Treaty 8 Tribal Association near Fort St. John where dozens of companies are snapping up land to build the next shale gas well, coal mine or renewable power project.

Protecting the Tar Sands, Protecting Capitalism

Whatever It Takes:
Protecting the Tar Sands, Protecting Capitalism
Ryan Katz-Rosene

Something is rotten in the province of Alberta! And it's not just the tar sands. It's the way political and corporate elites do whatever it takes to extinguish potential threats to the bituminous megaproject. The attempt to protect the tar sands from criticism can be framed as a part of a broader effort to protect the ‘rights’ of private interests to profit from bitumen production.

Canada Insists Oil-Rich Tar Sands Are Sustainable

Canada Insists Oil-Rich Tar Sands Are Sustainable
By Leon Kaye | August 25th, 2010
Triple Pundit

Some of Canada’s most stunning natural beauty is in the prosperous province of Alberta. Walk through downtown Calgary and you get the vibe that it is the true economic center of Canada. Banff and Jasper National Parks boast incredible scenery and awe-inspiring wildlife. About 275 miles and a nine-hour drive away, the landscape changes, and displays the driver behind Alberta’s economic success.