Social Impacts

Proposal alarms Chaplin
http://www.arkcity.net/stories/041607/com_0002.shtml
Oil pipeline officials may adjust their route

By FOSS FARRAR
Traveler Staff Writer

The Chaplin Nature Center west of Arkansas City may be harmed by an oil pipeline from Canada that would run through its property, a nature center manager said today.

Shawn Silliman, the center's naturalist, said a flag planted on the south side of the 230-acre Chaplin center property indicates that the pipeline would run through the property.

Oilpatch eyes neighbour
Bitumen find in Saskatchewan could spawn new industry
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=e108138b-...
Published: Tuesday, April 17, 2007

By oil sands measures, the core sample plucked from 200 metres below a spindly Jack-pine forest last month was a beauty. Saturated with bitumen, the brownish, one-metre cut, part of a 20-metre oil sands zone, smelled like fresh asphalt. The sand was as warm and homogenous as that of a Caribbean beach.

The approval of the port in Gitimaat ["Kitimat"] needs to be rescinded. This port is completely useless if there is a shipping moratorium, and with a port approval it is politically much harder to imagine both the maintenance of the shipping ban (building a port is for use) and to prevent the construction of the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline.

Labour wants Keystone pipeline put on hold

NEB warned pipeline is a job killer

EDMONTON, April 16 /CNW/ - In a submission to the National Energy Board
(NEB) on April 13, 2007, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) argues that
the Keystone pipeline project that is currently before the NEB for approval is
not in the public interest.
"We have asked the Board to consider the broader, long-term impacts of
approving the pipeline to connect suppliers of bitumen in Alberta to
purchasers of bitumen in the United States," says AFL President Gil McGowan.

Before the corks are popped and the bubbly pouring, let us recall that this pipe has been declared "dead" more times than Elvis Presley. At the end of the Berger Inquiry from the 1970's, there was a moratorium placed on this pipe until A) final agreements [sic] were established with all nations from the Valley; B) protected areas and proper environmental plans for the rest were laid out.

Enbridge pipeline shut down after leak
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070416.wenbridge041...
DAVID EBNER

Globe and Mail Update

One of the biggest Canadian oil pipelines to the United States has been shut down after a leak was discovered Sunday night, according to operator Enbridge Inc.

Line 3 connects Hardisty, Alta., with Wisconsin, carrying 450,000 barrels of oil a day to refiners in the U.S. Midwest — more than 20 per cent of Enbridge's capacity on its mainline, which is comprised of several links.

If people are to coordinate a possible fight back against the tar sands, there needs to be voices from all sectors. This is not an Albertan fight alone, and pipelines will also be running over the landowners of farms through Saskatchewan, Manitoba and if Enbridge has their way, British Columbia.

Companies, not governments, control energy future: analyst

By RENATO GANDIA
Today staff
Friday April 13, 2007
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/Local%20News/300358.html

The American addiction to oil is fuelling the sizzling oilsands development in Fort McMurray, said a policy analyst from the United States slated to come here Monday.

The response to this importation of people, to be exploited vastly and then dumped on transport back to their original nation-state, has often been put in terms of "Canada first" language, the language of making sure "Canadian jobs are protected" without the obvious fact that there simply is not enough labour already. The problem here is not a nationalist one, but a disposable people attitude being put forth here.

This story, a small community of desperately poor people who at first will welcome tar sand extraction as a possible panacea against the ravages of historical colonialism and modern poverty, is not a new one. The location is, however, and it signifies a new escalation in tarsand production. It is interesting noting their concerns about capacity in pipes that already exist in Alberta. The possibility of building the infrastructure in Saskatchewan will add another massive dimension to what is already the largest such project in the history of the Earth.