Water

Canada oil sands projects flunk green test-groups

By Jeffrey Jones
CALGARY, Alberta, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Canadian oil sands mining projects, seen as a key source of North American energy supply for decades to come, have been given poor environmental marks in a report released on Thursday, with even the best performer barely garnering a passing grade.
Environmental groups Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund surveyed 10 Alberta oil sands ventures, including seven yet to start producing, for attention to land, air emissions, water, climate change and overall environmental management.

What is it that prevents Pembina Institute and WWF from just saying "Stop!" to the tar sands instead of just lobbying to improve their "environmental performance." Maybe it is something to do with the fact that they both receive multi-million dollar funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose parent companies Sun Oil/Sunoco built the first tar sands project in 1967 and who continue to refine large amounts of sythetic tar sands crude oil in Ohio and are planning to extend tar sands supply pipelines as far east as their refineries in Philadelphia.

- Tarpit Pete

January 6, 2008
Government Responsible for Sustainable Tar Sands Development
by Rachel Penner de Waal

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Alberta's current royalty regime has likely cost the province more in lost revenue than Trudeau's National Energy Program did, according to a senior policy analyst at the Pembina Institute.

BLM: Tar sand development may hurt parks
By BOBBY MAGILL
The Daily Sentinel

Monday, January 07, 2008

Tar sands development could severely affect Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and a stretch of the San Rafael Swell along Interstate 70, according to a Bureau of Land Management report.

Liberal Opposition Criticize Alberta Inaction on Fort Chip Health
By LEA STORRY, SRJ Editor 17.DEC.07

Alberta Health and Wellness is not saying anything new in terms of a controversial report to come out of Fort Chipewyan. But the Alberta Liberal caucus thinks the Conservatives need to take a look at what they’re doing to the province.

“The government is not doing due diligence in Fort Chipewyan,” stated Laurie Blakeman, MLA Edmonton-Centre and Liberal shadow minister for health and wellness. “The government tests the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong people.”

Price too high: Weigh all costs of energy from oil shale, tar sands
Salt Lake Tribune Editorial // 01/01/2008 02:13:04 PM MST

It's obvious the Bush administration wants to go on record with the energy industry as having done everything it could to encourage development of oil deposits in the West, even those embedded in tar sands and shale, no matter the cost to the region's wild lands.

What's new at the tar sands?

by Dave Cohen

My neighbor has a circular driveway ... he can't get out.
—Steven Wright

Pipeline to B.C. back on track
Asian demand for Alberta crude makes 1,300-km route to B.C. port feasible, Enbridge president says
Gordon Jaremko, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Saturday, December 29 2007

Courses are being charted for supertankers to fetch Alberta oil for Asia from a new British Columbia terminal planned for Kitimat.

Engineers are designing tunnels to put a new pipeline beneath the mountains between Edmonton and the Pacific Ocean without scarring alpine scenery or wildlife habitat.

A very significant statement, buried within the article below, produced for a North Dakota audience, in that is shows basically why EVERY SINGLE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT is a crock of doo-doo. Cumulative Impacts are measured, or there is nothing to look at within a report. It's really quite simple-- if the report does not factor in all the ways in which the environment is impacted by development, then you don't have an impact of development to the environment report. Everything else then, is a smoke and mirrors game.

What the Tar Sands Need
Processing requires massive inputs of water, energy, land, labour
December 31, 2007
by Dru Oja Jay

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Water

For each barrel of oil produced from the tar sands, between two and 4.5 barrels of water is needed. The water is used in the process of extracting bitumen from the naturally occurring the tar sand. The bitumen is later "upgraded" into synthetic crude oil.