Social Impacts

Keystone Protest Held; URI Divestment Possible

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

Hundreds of Students Arrested at White House Protesting Keystone XL
Posted: 03/02/2014

I just came back from the White House, where the police are still arresting the hundreds of students who are taking part in what will likely be the largest act of youth civil disobedience at the White House in a generation.

This is XL Dissent: a massive surge of protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and a powerful show of solidarity with all communities who are fighting the fossil fuel industry and confronting the impacts of the climate crisis.

Alberta doctor tells U.S.: Canada is ‘lying’ about tar sands’ health effects

Thursday, 27 February 2014

American Senators told that oil sands are linked to a huge spike in cancer, despite Canadian government claims

Mychaylo Prystupa

Vancouver Observer

A northern Alberta doctor warned U.S. Senators on what he says have been the devastating health impacts of the tar sands on families – effects, he says, that have been willfully “ignored” by the Canadian and Alberta governments.

Another Enbridge pipeline proposed for Canadian tar sands oil
Duluth News Tribune
By: John Myers
March 4, 2014

Enbridge Energy said today it plans to build yet another new oil pipeline into the Northland, on top of two expansion projects already in the works.

Enbridge said it would end service of its aged Line No. 3 from Alberta to Superior and replace it with a larger capacity line to bring northwestern Canadian oil into the U.S.

Tar sands experts on tap for town hall

by Jennifer Feinberg - Chilliwack Progress

Mar 5, 2014

The risks and the realities of pipelines are the focus of a town hall meeting March 7 at the Best Western Rainbow Country Inn, hosted by the PIPE UP Network.

The timing has to do with the National Energy Board gearing up for hearings on the proposed pipeline project by Kinder Morgan, which is planned to cut through communities across the Lower Mainland.

Canadian group pitches Alaska rail line for oil sands
Posted on February 4, 2014
By Jennifer Canfield
Juneau Empire

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Could a $15 billion railroad project reduce the cost of living in Alaska overnight? Matt Vickers, a lead member in the startup group G7G Railway Corp., thinks it can.

Mining Tar Sands Produces Much More Air Pollution Than We Thought
Research shows that emissions of a class of air pollutants are two to three orders of magnitude higher than previously calculated

By Joseph Stromberg
February 3, 2014es

Environmental health risks of Alberta oil sands likely underestimated: study

John Cotter

EDMONTON — The Canadian Press
Feb. 03 2014

A new study suggests the environmental health risks of oilsands operations in Alberta’s Athabasca region have probably been underestimated.

Researchers say emissions of potentially hazardous air pollution that were used in environmental reviews done before approving some projects did not include evaporation from tailings ponds or other sources, such as dust from mining sites.

Tar Sands Fuel Headed to Massachusetts

By ecoRI News staff

Massachusetts motorists will soon be filling their tanks with gas increasingly derived from Canadian tar sands oil, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Keystone-Resisting Landowners See Cash Offers Skyrocket
Jan 26, 2014
Huff Post (Canada)

PAGE, Neb. - Cash offers have been skyrocketing, as much as seven-fold, for holdout Nebraska landowners who are willing to sign quickly to allow the Keystone XL pipeline onto their property.

The landowners say they've received written offers from pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. in the last few weeks offering exponentially more money than initially promised, on the condition that they sign soon.