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.
Oil pipeline developers want ND route changes
By DALE WETZEL Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press - Thursday, April 17, 2008
BISMARCK, N.D.
State regulators will hold a hearing next month on 49 proposed changes in the North Dakota route of the Keystone oil pipeline, which is intended to bring crude from western Canada to Oklahoma and Illinois.
It's important to know their rhetoric, but given the lack of other natural gas sources available and the massive energy needs for the expansion of the tar sands as planned by the Governments of Alberta, Canada and the US (along with the major oil corporations and the Department of Energy) this is going to be used by one pipeline to prod the other, to get concessions, and to overall "grease the process" in order to make this pipeline or that pipeline happen faster.
STATEMENT OF THE LUBICON LAKE INDIAN NATION AT THE PREHEARING MEETING OF THE ALBERTA UTILITIES COMMISSION ON APPLICATION 1551990 OF NOVA GAS TRANSMISSION LTD, A WHOLLY OWNED SUBSIDIARY OF THE TRANSCANADA CORPORATION, TO BUILD A 42-INCH DIAMETER GAS PIPELINE CALLED THE NORTH CENTRAL CORRIDOR PIPELINE ACROSS UNCEDED LUBICON LAND WITHOUT LUBICON CONSENT
April 14, 2008
Introduction
U.S. on 'monorail with a cliff at the end,' UA prof warns
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 13, 2008 10:37 PM
Guy R. McPherson is professor of conservation biology at the University of Arizona.
McPherson was the guest last week on Live Talk Wednesday, discussing dwindling oil supplies and what awaits the American Empire. Here are excerpts from the interview, which can be found in its entirety at aztalk.azcentral.com.
Alberta Oil Sands affect the environment
COLBY STREAM
News Writer
"Problems don't stop at the border," Co-Director of Boise State Canadian Studies Lori Hausegger said. "They go across the border, so that's an issue everyone has to think about."
Canada week, which takes place the first week of April every year, addresses some of these problems.
"Canada week helps, I think, to educate folks and Boise State … about Canada. People don't know a whole lot about the country," Co-Director of Boise State Canadian Studies Ross Burkhart said.
Tribes, landowners in the Dakotas face down giant pipeline
Posted: April 11, 2008
by: Stephanie Woodard
State Department hands out tobacco, stirs anxiety
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Unease appears to be growing in North and South Dakota over imminent construction of the 2,000-mile Keystone Pipeline, which would transport oil from northern Canada across seven U.S. states from North Dakota to Oklahoma.
Canada is in the middle of a quiet oil boom
Tar sands, long too expensive to process, help make it major U.S. source
By Peter Klein
CNBC
updated 2:29 p.m. MT, Mon., April. 7, 2008
Ft. McMurray, Alberta - With oil prices hovering near a hundred dollars a barrel, there’s a major oil boom underway. It’s not happening in the sweltering heat of Texas or the dry desert of Saudi Arabia, but on the frozen Canadian tundra where oil producers are developing a new source of fossil fuel.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Load shedding
by Tom Whipple
Fall Church News-Press (March 27 2008)
Largely unnoticed in America are the increasingly frequent electricity
shortages developing around the world.
Many of these are caused by shifting weather patterns that are leaving
hydro-electric dams with insufficient water to produce at full capacity.
While some aspects of global climate change are temporary, many, such as
the melting of glaciers, seem destined to last for decades, or perhaps
centuries, thereby depriving the world of some of the best sources of
Lubicon fight proposed TransCanada pipeline
© Indian Country Today April 04, 2008. All Rights Reserved
April 04, 2008
by: Kate Harries
TORONTO - The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation in northern Alberta is
gearing up to fight a proposed jumbo pipeline that would carry natural
gas from the Mackenzie Valley in the west to the oil sands
developments to the east.
The $983 million proposal follows a history of industrial development
across the unceded Lubicon territory that has left the 500-member Cree
nation impoverished, poisoned and disregarded by Canada and Alberta -
Whale risks rise in Robson Bight
Times Colonist
Monday, April 07, 2008
Governments' poor performance in dealing with a truck full of diesel fuel on the bottom of Robson Bight raises concerns about proposals for more tanker traffic and offshore oil and gas development.
The federal and provincial governments have expressed support for both, although the Harper government has not lifted the offshore drilling moratorium in place since the early 1970s. Both governments promise tough environmental controls as part of any change.
