Water is needed in huge amounts in tarsands production and in all other construction stages of tarsands infrastructure across the continent. It takes five litres of water to produce one of usable petrol. There is also water used to move gas, build new tar pits or that water which becomes polluted in the outlying areas. Waste tailings ponds are so vast as to be visible from outer space at this early point in production. Water is now being privatized in slow motion, as “access rights” are available in Alberta. As production grows and climate change continues to parch southern Albertan land, more and more water will be needed to help supply fuel for the American market. This water will ultimately be diverted from rivers, lakes, farms and cities throughout Canada; the water levels in the Athabasca River have already dropped several meters. The Deh Cho/Mackenzie River is already threatened, both from development along its valley and it is downstream from tar sands operations. A generation ago, the Athabasca River was clear and drinking was common. Now, those that live with the river consider it poison and off-limits.
Whitecourt is a small town near massive (mock) oil development. It's also a town known for helping establish the "precedent" of industrial development. If the nuclear proponents get one reactor approved somewhere to feed their insatiable drive for (tar sands mock) oil, then it will grow politically available ten thousand times higher, and our job gets worse.
What shall we do?
--M
Energy Alberta talks nuclear power with Whitecourt residents
TANKER TRAFFIC TALKED ABOUT
A public forum being held in Victoria on Tuesday, May 22 will examine the impact of oil tanker traffic in B.C. waters.
By Thomas Winterhoff
News staff
http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=23&id=986802&m...
May 18 2007
May 22 public forum
will examine tanker traffic off B.C.’s coast
With Alberta’s tar sands fueling Canada’s booming oil industry, domestic and international energy companies are looking for better and faster ways to transport raw petroleum products to world markets.
Choke point for oil sands may be water shortage
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
May 11, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070511.TARSANDS11/TPS...
The amount of water available in Northern Alberta isn't sufficient to accommodate both the needs of burgeoning oil sands development and preserve the Athabasca River, contends a study issued jointly yesterday by the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta.
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2007/ing/f140507i.html
Fidel Castro
May 14, 2007
María Luisa Mendonça brought to the meeting in Havana, a powerful documentary film on the subject of manual sugarcane cutting in Brazil.
As I did in my previous reflection, I have written a summary using María Luisa’s own paragraphs and phrases. It goes as follows:
To achieve the goals being set out by these scientists-- who are perhaps still acting *conservatively* in what they collectively state needs to be done to achieve a healthy biosphere-- we need to speak as plain as day:
clip:
"The Alberta tar sands are big, but even the Canadian government does not project them paying out much more than three million barrels a day when they reach maximum production in five or ten years, and the process will probably poison all the groundwater east of the Canadian Rockies."
Rigged to Blow
Tuesday, 15 May 2007
by James Kunstler
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/1579/81/
A press release below from the EUB-- the same people telling us that Nuclear Powerplants that take years to construct, and then more years of operation to start being a reduction in Greenhouse gas emissions, are an "environmental benefit". Their track record is no longer credible. Here below, spilling oil is not dangerous to your health. So says the EUB.
--M
EUB Completes Investigation Into Rainbow Pipeline Failure Near Slave Lake
Calgary, Alberta (May 9, 2007) The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board
(EUB) has completed its investigation into a pipeline leak that
Tory MPs storm out of meeting on energy sharing; Canada left short to aid U.S., says professor
The Edmonton Journal (A6) The Ottawa Citizen (A3) The Montreal Gazette (A12)
Fri 11 May 2007
OTTAWA - Amid heated charges of a coverup, Tory MPs on Thursday abruptly shut down parliamentary hearings on a controversial plan to further integrate Canada and the U.S.
U.S. activist takes on Syncrude
Colorado woman 'appalled' by the energy used at the Alberta tar sands operation
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070503.OILSANDS03/TPS...
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
Syncrude Canada Ltd. has picked an unlikely David-and-Goliath-type battle with a feisty 85-year-old Colorado grandmother over a website she created that portrays the giant energy company in an unflattering light over the environmental costs of the tar sands.
This new port development, lauded as a part of a Canadian strategy to open up a Gateway to the Asia Pacific, is all a part of the new plans to make northern BC-- in Prince Rupert and further into the shoreline at what is commonly called Kitimat-- a major hub for bringing in diluent fuels from Russia while shipping Tarsand mock oil to China and California.
