Archive for the 'tar sands' Category

Canada Threatens Trade War With EU Over Tar Sands

Published on 02/21/2012 in contaminated water, greenwashing, oil, policy, tar sands and wastewater. 0 Comments Tags: .

Photo retrieved from: www.guardian.co.uk

“Canada has threatened a trade war with European Union over the bloc’s plan to label oil from Alberta’s vast tar sands as highly polluting, the Guardian can reveal, before a key vote in Brussels on 23 February.

“Canada will not hesitate to defend its interests, including at the World Trade Organisation,” state letters sent to European commissioners by Canada’s ambassador to the EU and its oil minister, released under freedom of information laws.

The move is a significant escalation of the row over the EU’s plans, which Canada fears would set a global precedent and derail its ability to exploit its tar sands, which are the biggest fossil fuel reserve in the world after Saudi Arabia. Environmental groups argue that exploitation of the tar sands, also called oil sands, is catastrophic for the global climate, as well as causing serious air and water pollution in Alberta.”

Read more: Guardian

 

lily victoria

Alberta Oil Sands Up Close: Gunshot Sounds, Dead Birds, a Moonscape

Published on 02/07/2012 in contaminated water, oil and tar sands. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.desmoblog.com

“It’s literally a toxic wasteland—bare ground and black ponds and lakes—tailings ponds—with an awful smell,” said Warner Nazile, who with Freda Huston spoke to university students in Denver recently about the tar sands and its related pipelines. Both are activists from British Columbia and members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation.

They are two of the legions of First Nations citizens fighting against a pipeline that’s just as controversial in Canada as Keystone XL is in the United States: Enbridge’s Northern Gateway, a 36-inch, nearly $6 billion pipeline that would carry 525,000 barrels per day of crude from the oil sands 730 miles across and beneath lakes, streams and mountains to Kitimat on the British Columbia coast for shipment to Asia, particularly China. Hearings are currently under way in Edmonton, Alberta, before a review panel.

In a January 28 interview both Nazile and Huston talked about the pipeline’s current review in an environmental assessment and analysis by a joint review panel. Their conclusion is that, despite its despoiling an area roughly the size of England, the Northern Gateway means billions in revenue to the Canadian government, which has given the project full support.

Read more: Indian Country

 

lily victoria

Water pollution traced to La Brea Tar Pits

Published on 11/30/2011 in contaminated water, hydrology, oil, tar sands and wastewater. 0 Comments

Palm trees are reflected on the oil-slicked surface at the La Brea Tar Pits. Now that polluted water in Ballona Creek has been traced to the popular tourist attraction, the county will spend $2 million on a remedy. (Ricardo DeAratanha, Los Angeles Times)

“For years, residents living near Ballona Creek and environmentalists have complained of mysterious sheens of oil and grease in the western Los Angeles County waterway, often blaming industrial dumping, urban runoff or other man-made causes for the pollution. One cause that apparently never crossed their minds: the La Brea Tar Pits. It turns out the tourist attraction and preferred field trip destination of seemingly every grade schooler in the region has sent oily wastewater spilling into the highly polluted creek. The tar pits, in Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile neighborhood, overflow during heavy rains, overwhelming the devices that separate oil from water. Polluted runoff then gets into the storm drain system, spilling into the creek and emptying into the ocean, according to county planners. It’s unclear how big a polluter the naturally occurring tar pits have been. Still, the release of pollutants has cost the county money.”

Read More: Los Angeles Times Blog

jenna cavelle

Over 1,000 Arrested While Protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline

Published on 09/07/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, oil, rivers, tap water and tar sands. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.foodandwaterwatch.org

“One of the largest acts of civil disobedience in the environmental movement is underway as over 1,000 people have been arrested in front of the White House while gathering to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline, which will extend from the Athabasca tar sands of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, is a threat to our environment and threatens the drinking water of millions of people in its path.

The pipeline is especially threatening because it will run from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada through the Ogallala aquifer—one of the world’s largest supplies of fresh water—as well as major rivers that supply substantial agricultural water to farmers and drinking water to millions of Americans.”

Read more: Food & Water Watch

 

lily victoria

Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Incoming? House Passes Bill Mandating Decision Within 4 Months

Published on 07/27/2011 in oil, policy and tar sands. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.heatingoil.com

“The Keystone XL pipeline is unique in that it poses both a supreme environmental threat and is gravely symbolic; a harbinger of a certain fossil fuel-dependent doom, if you will. If constructed, the pipeline would carry tar sands crude all the way from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In all, the pipeline would span over 1,600 miles. And tar sands crude, being literally the dirtiest fuel source we know of, is nastier stuff than regular oil, and has been found to be more likely to cause leaks and spills. And since we already see plenty of those with the regular pipelines (the Yellowstone pipeline rupture just weeks ago), there’s plenty of reason to be concerned.

Yet the US House of Representatives just acted to bring this abomination one step closer to reality.

The House voted 279-147 in favor of forcing the Obama administration to make a decision on the $7 billion dollar pipeline by November 1st. And though the bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, where the Democrats still maintain a majority, it’s a foreboding sign that the pipeline is inching closer to reality.”

Read more: AlterNet

 

lily victoria

Nebraska Water Scientists Warn of Oil Pipeline’s Risk, Call for More Study

Published on 06/16/2011 in contaminated water, groundwater, oil, policy and tar sands. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Retrieved from: www.worldweatherpost.com

“WASHINGTON—Great Plains states are risking an unknown level of environmental and economic hurt if the U.S. State Department persists in routing a controversial tar sands pipeline atop the Ogallala Aquifer without further study.

That is the scientific warning coming from a pair of University of Nebraska professors with expertise in groundwater flow and contamination.

In a June 6 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (attached below), the two scientists laid out how their state’s fragile sandhills region is particularly vulnerable to crude oil pollution from a pipeline spill and why a research information gap needs to be closed.

Their concerns align with those expressed by Environmental Protection Agency authorities in their recent harsh critique of the State Department’s second attempt to draft an environmental review of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline.”

Read more: Reuters

 

lily victoria

Enbridge: Why Just Ride To Conquer Cancer? Stop It Before It Starts

Published on 06/13/2011 in contaminated water, greenwashing, hydrology, oil, rivers, tar sands, wastewater and waterborne diseases. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Photo retrieved from: www.borealbirds.org

“Enbridge has been finessing its plans to construct the Northern Gateway Pipeline, a pipeline originally proposed about 10 years ago and which is being pushed by the Harper agenda. The twin pipelines, which run from Northern Alberta to BC’s coast, will cross through 60 First Nations communities and over 1,000 streams and rivers. This means that in the event of a pipeline failure it is likely that waterways will be contaminated and the health impacts on local people are soon to follow.

Now let’s take Enbridge’s track record. The company has an average 60 leaks and spills per year between 1999-2008 and the Northern Gateway could add about 5 spills per year. With these statistics, it is not a matter of ifthere is a spill, but when there is a spill and where will it be. No oil or engineering company has ever been able to fully clean up their mess and recover 100% of oil leaked. One teaspoon of benzene, but one of the many contaminants released, can contaminate 260,660 gallons of water. In the event of a leak, carcinogenic toxins are released both into waterways, land, and the air.

In communities living downstream from tar sands projects, rare cancers are unfortunately not so rare. Bile duct cancer typically affects 1 in every 100,000 people. In Fort Chipeweyan, a community with a population of about 1200 people, there were five diagnosed cases in the span of about 5 years.  Bile duct cancer is among the many other cancers—colon cancer, leukemia, lymphoma to name a few—and diseases on the rise in Fort Chip, a community which draws its water from the Athabasca watershed. The watershed has been increasingly contaminated by tar sands projects.

Rising cancer rates seen in communities living downstream from the tar sands is bound to be replicated in communities living along Enbridge’s proposed pipeline. The associated health costs of the pipeline is only one of the many reasons that several communities have banded together to reject the proposal.”

Read more: It’s Getting Hot In Here

 

lily victoria