Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Water

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.

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A Smoking Gun in BP's Deep Horizon Mess?

Submitted by BassMan2 on 15. May 2010 - 11:31
Thom's nationally syndicated radio show

This hasn't seemed to have gotten much circulation yet, and I think it really needs to. Seems that a crew from Schlumberger, on contract to BP, hightailed it off the platform at their own expense 6 hours before the blowout becuase BP refused their recommendation to shut down the well. This lends more credence to Thom's suggestion that corners were cut because the bigwigs were coming for a vist.

Protesters filmed at Alberta upgrader hearing

Protesters filmed at Alberta upgrader hearing
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 2, 2010 |
CBC News

(CBC)Private landowners who protested outside a public hearing into an bitumen upgrader northeast of Edmonton Tuesday were filmed by security guards hired by the project proponent, French energy giant Total S.A., CBC News has learned.

"What are they so afraid of?" landowner Anne Brown asked on Wednesday. "Why are they taping us?"

The Gulf oil spill in context: US oil consumption

The Gulf oil spill in context: US oil consumption
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
May 31, 2010

[graphs and charts at link at bottom of this article]

Aging Chevron oil refinery must clean up or shut down

By Peter Cech, The Province June 1, 2010

I am appalled that oil leaks are still happening in Burrard Inlet in the heart of the Lower Mainland.

There's a long string of "events" related to Chevron's operations in North Burnaby. "Unplanned discharges" of particulate and toxic fumes in the air we breathe are an annual event.

We've even been subjected to leaks of methyl tertiary butyl ether. This goes beyond the "nuisance odours" we've been subjected to for decades.

Alberta’s Tar Sands and Idaho’s Wilderness Gateway

Unfiltered By Nick Gier, Unfiltered 5-31-10

In April of 2008, over 1,000 ducks flying over Northern Alberta took a break from their migration north and landed in what they perceived was just another lake in the area. They never took flight again, along with other 10,000 other waterfowl that year. The water in many of these lakes has been tarred and poisoned by bitumen processing.

First Nations and Tar Sands Industry Clash in the Courts and the Hague

Kinder slows Canadian plans

Kinder slows Canadian plans
Calgary Herald
May 26, 2010

Pipelines - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has slowed multibillion-dollar plans to add oil pipeline capacity to Canada's West Coast due to a lack of demand, but still believes its proposal is the oilsands industry's best option, its president said Tuesday.

Kinder Morgan and Enbridge Inc. have both floated projects to move crude from Alberta's oilsands to the Pacific Coast, where it could be shipped by tanker to Asia.

Southeast Texas Keystone XL Hearings

PIPELINE
Potential piping project opens debate

Jennifer Johnson
Orange County Editor

A proposed pipeline funneling what skeptics call "dirty oil" into Southeast Texas from the tar sand mines of Canada has drawn criticism from some Beaumont/Port Arthur residents, the local branch of the Sierra Club and the Texas office of Public Citizen, but officials working with the unconventional crude say the majority of what is being said is hyperbole at best.

Environmentalists join ranchers in opposing Keystone XL oil pipeline

Andrea J. Cook Journal staff | May 13, 2010

U.S. Department of State

Environmentalists did most of the talking at a public hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline in Faith Thursday.

Muddy roads and calving season may have kept area landowners from attending, but a couple landowners stood to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Keystone XL, while others preferred to sit and watch.

TAR SANDS: The dilemma of the ponds

TAR SANDS: The dilemma of the ponds
Tar sands tailings ponds remain an environmental quagmire

Lewis Kelly / lewis@vueweekly.com

Last week a lawyer for Syncrude, Robert White, told provincial court Judge Ken Tjosvold that Syncrude can't be legally responsible for the birds that land in its tailings ponds as preventing all birds from touching the contaminated water is impossible. If Syncrude is guilty in the case of the 1600 ducks that died in its tailings pond in April 2008, White argued, so is every other company with a tailings pond.