[Keith_McClary]

Reactions mixed to approval pause for Alberta shallow oilsands drilling

EDMONTON -- Environmental groups are giving Alberta's energy regulator a rare pat on the back over its decision to delay approvals for certain types of oilsands projects over concerns about the intensity of development.
"It's encouraging that the (regulator), despite the pressure to increase development, is willing to take a pause when it's required," said Erin Flanagan of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think-tank.
In late January, the Alberta Energy Regulator announced it would delay approval for all oilsands proposals in a 1.2-million-hectare region around Fort McMurray that planned to use unconventional steam injection to recover bitumen from shallow deposits. The regulator said it was increasingly concerned that development in the area was degrading the ability of subterranean rock to keep bitumen trapped underground.
"The intensity of development is increasing and we don't see it slowing down," said spokesman Darin Barter. "We're seeing increased applications and increased development in that area and we want to make sure that, going forward, we're not playing catch-up."
Developments using steam to extract bitumen are expected to ultimately be responsible for up to 80 per cent of Alberta's production.
Barter said the regulator is trying to avoid blowouts or seepages of bitumen forced through the rock layer by steam injection.
Flanagan said the method causes the layer, called caprock, to flex slightly. It's not clear what effect that constant flexing from hundreds of wells is having, she said.
"You're expanding and contracting the deposit, so it becomes more fragile. The integrity of the deposit changes over time. That's why the question of appropriate pressure becomes a critical one."
The consequences of too much pressure can be catastrophic. A 2006 blowout at a Total site left a 300-metre crater in the forest.
"This is really to ensure we don't have future issues," said Barter.
Barter said the approvals pause is not related to an ongoing leak at a Canadian Natural Resources (TSX:CNQ) site near Cold Lake, where bitumen forced by steam has seeped up from cracks in the earth.

[Serial_Worrier]

Drill baby drill. Not as enthusiastic as 2008 huh Sarah Palin?

[ROCKMAN]

No but fortunately the POTUS is still enthusiastic. Just last Wednesday he upped the total acreage in the GOM he's offered for drilling to over 150 million acres and pulled in almost $1 billion in lease bonuses. And has approved more Deep Water drill permits than any other POTUS. The oil patch has no complaints as far as his energy policies go. We just keep hoping he delays the Keystone permit as long as possible.

[Graeme]

Not Just Another Pipeline: The Truth About Tar Sands and Keystone XL

According to the tar sands lobby, Keystone XL is just another pipeline -- but this couldn't be further from the truth.

When an oil company executive tells American families that we don't need to be concerned with tar sands pipeline safety, it's not only misleading, it's insulting. Tell that to the people of Mayflower, Arkansas, where more than 200,000 gallons of dirty tar sands oil spilled from ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline last spring, soaking their homes, land and water.

Nearly one year later, the recovery effort in Mayflower is still incomplete. A contributing factor? Heavy, thick tar sands oil that's nothing like conventional oil, making it uniquely difficult to clean up.

Like the Pegasus pipeline, TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline will also carry tar sands oil, a fact the company prefers to avoid. "Oil is oil," a TransCanada executive told us early last week. But that's flat-out not true. Tar sands oil is dirtier, more corrosive and worse for the environment than conventional oil.

Let's set the record straight -- Keystone XL is not just another oil pipeline; Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline. And this week, NextGen Climate is launching a new educational series to tell Americans what they really need to know about tar sands, a "Tar Sands Crash Course."

We'll cover everything from how the Canadian tar sands are different than conventional oil to what happens when tar sands oil spills in American communities. We'll also address how tar sands oil impacts us all through toxic byproducts, waste and carbon pollution.

TransCanada has made clear that they want to hide the facts about tar sands oil. But we aren't going to let that happen.

Subscribe here to get our Tar Sands Crash Course series.

huffingtonpost

[Graeme]

The Crude Frontier: Pipelines or rails? Both methods of crude oil transportation operate with risks

As the national debate over the safety of crude oil transportation continues to swirl, two high-profile North Dakota incidents illustrate the risks associated with moving the commodity.

More than 865,000 gallons of crude oil spewed out of an underground Tesoro pipeline near Tioga last September, causing millions of dollars in damage and requiring cleanup that may take years.

A few months later, a train derailment outside Casselton spilled about 475,000 gallons of oil and prompted an explosion and partial evacuation of the small town. No one was killed or injured, but local officials agreed the accident was a “near miss.”

Officials representing the pipeline and rail industries say their method is the safest way to transport crude oil. But while federal data analyzed by the Forum News Service confirms that crude oil spills account for a fraction of a percent of the amount shipped by rail or pipeline every year, neither trains nor pipelines operate without risks.

Pipeline operators reported almost 1,900 crude oil spills nationwide between 2003 and 2013, or roughly one every other day, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and a majority were caused by corrosion or equipment issues. Those incidents resulted in roughly 21 million gallons of oil being spilled, and in five fatalities and 11 injuries.

Meanwhile, train incidents spilled more oil in 2013 – 1.15 million gallons – than the four previous decades combined, according to a McClatchy News analysis. And that doesn’t include the crash in Quebec that killed 47 people last summer, a tragedy that heightened concerns over moving crude oil by trains.

Lawmakers in North Dakota and Washington, D.C., are pushing for more pipeline construction, which they say can ease the amount of crude oil moved on the tracks. But they acknowledge that rail transportation will play a heavy role in the energy development that’s propelled North Dakota to its status as the country’s No. 2 oil-producing state.



Hoeven has been particularly vocal about approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which wouldn’t run through North Dakota but would transport about 100,000 barrels of Bakken crude per day. Enbridge’s proposed Sandpiper pipeline would move about 225,000 barrels per day out of the Bakken region to Clearbrook on its way to Superior, Wis.

Josh Mogerman, spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the debate over pipeline and rail is a “false choice.”

“The industry wants more of both,” he said. “Not one or the other.”

As pipeline capacity lagged behind the explosive growth of oil production in the Bakken oil region, about a dozen rail facilities were built in the matter of a few years in order to get oil to markets.

Oil producers have found that trains have distinct advantages over pipeline, including their relative speed and an ability to quickly shift where oil is shipped, including places that pipelines don’t currently reach. And the extra cost of shipping by train rather than pipeline can be mitigated if oil prices allow.

Wayde Schafer, conservation organizer at the North Dakota chapter of the Sierra Club, said the only real solution to crude oil transportation concerns is reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

“All forms of transporting the oil are putting the environment and the public at risk,” he said.

inforum

[Graeme]

Canada Refuses To Answer NAFTA Oversight Group Why It Fails to Enforce Against Tar Sands Pollution

The Government of Canada is refusing to respond to an investigation into its alleged failure to enforce its federal laws addressing tar sands water pollution leaking into surface and groundwater. The Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an international oversight body responsible for monitoring the North American Free Trade Agreement’s environmental provisions, launched an investigation in December 2013 following a petition submitted by NRDC, Environmental Defence Canada, and several Canadian citizens alleging that Canada was not enforcing its federal Fisheries Act for confirmed leaks of toxic waste into water. The federal Canadian government is now refusing to respond to these allegations thereby avoiding public scrutiny about why they are failing to hold tar sands companies accountable for violating Canadian law. The Canadian public – especially communities living hear these tailings ponds which currently cover an area the size of Washington D.C. – deserve an explanation given these leaking tailings ponds are located near where people live, drink, fish and hunt. The Government of Canada should not get a pass from its international commitment to respond to this investigation especially as it is under the microscope in the U.S. over whether to permit the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

nrdc

[Graeme]

‘A Government Of Thugs’: How Canada Treats Environmental Journalists

I attempted to enter Canada on a Tuesday, flying into the small airport at Fort McMurray, Alberta, waiting for my turn to pass through customs.

“What brings you to Fort Mac?” a Canada Border Services Agency official asked. “I’m a journalist,” I said. “I’m here to see the tar sands.” He pointed me to border security. Another official, a tall, clean-shaven man, asked the same question. “I’m here to see the tar sands.” he frowned. “You mean oil sands. We don’t have tar here.”

Up until the 1960s, the common name for Canada’s massive reserves of heavy bitumen mixed with sand was “tar sands.” Now, the phrase is officially considered a colloquialism, with “oil sands” being the accurate name, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. But “tar sands” is not really an informal phrase in Canada as much as it is a symbol of your views. If you say tar sands, you’re an environmentalist. If you say tar sands, you’re the enemy.


The Strategy Is Working — Or Is It?

Thus far, government push-back against environmental journalism seems to be working. As a recent survey of Canadian journalists showed, many environmental and climate stories about the tar sands often go unreported. That survey, titled “The Alberta Oil Sands, Journalists, and Their Sources,” questioned 20 reporters with extensive daily experience reporting on the tar sands.

Of the 20, 14 said stories about the tar sands were not being told, and seven of those 14 said environmental issues were the main ones untouched. Environmental damage done by leaking tailings ponds and bitumen waste; toxic contaminants leeching into the water; the impact of excess sulfur produced in the mining process — all of those were included in the issues journalists perceive as under-reported.

“I hate this story,” one reporter who participated in the study said. “It’s important, but there’s no direction or progression.”

As for activist groups, Ben West of ForestEthics said the hostility has actually been helping his group’s efforts. And it’s not just the group itself. As the government’s attacks have become more and more public, West says his and other environmental advocacy groups have been obtaining record-breaking donations from individuals — what he calls a “clear sign” that Canadians want to protect their environment from the tar sands.

“I actually kind of welcome these attacks from the federal government in a sense, because they are a great opportunity to highlight how crazy our government’s acting, and use it as a reason to ask people for more support,” he said. “Many Canadians feel strongly about this. Let the government create their own disincentives.”

thinkprogress

[WildRose]

Recently, prominent scientists from across Canada, as well as concerned First Nations and other citizens, have rejected the Joint Review Panel's report regarding the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would transport bitumen to the BC coast for shipment to Asia. Government of Canada was ready to go ahead with the pipeline based on the JRP's report, which is flawed and does not consider the impact of increased oilsands emissions on the global environment and the emissions targets that Canada has promised to adhere to, and falls far short of assessing the dangers to BC's coastal environment if the pipeline goes ahead.

Below is the letter sent to Prime Minister Harper detailing the problems with the report and why it should not be accepted by the Canadian government as defensible for the Northern Gateway Project.

Note also the list of scientists who have signed this letter.

http://awsassets.wwf.ca/downloads/scien ... 6_2014.pdf

[Graeme]

Canadians are eating tar-sands pollution

Tar-sands extraction isn’t just turning swaths of Canadian land into postapocalyptic film sets. New research shows it’s also contaminating the wild animals that members of the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations have traditionally relied on for food.

We already knew that the tar-sands operations have been dousing northern Alberta with mercury and other forms of pollution. Now university scientists have collaborated with the First Nations to test the pollution levels in hunted animals found downstream from the tar-sands sites. Here are some lowlights from their findings, which were included in a report published on Monday:


Arsenic levels were high enough in in muskrat and moose muscle; duck, moose, and muskrat livers; and moose and duck kidneys to be of concern for young children. Cadmium levels were again elevated in moose kidney and liver samples but also those of beaver and ducks … Mercury levels were also high for duck muscle, kidneys, and livers as well as moose and muskrat kidneys, especially for children. …

Total levels of PAHs [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons] and levels of carcinogenic and alkylated PAHs were very high relative to other food studies conducted around the world.

The First Nations members aren’t shocked to hear this. Some have already started avoiding their traditional foods because of worries

grist

[Graeme]

New Threat to Oilsand Projects

A new study suggests that naturally occurring upward flow of groundwater in the oilsands region is creating fractures and weaknesses that may explain a series of catastrophic events for the controversial mining industry.
The findings, first published in a PhD thesis last year and soon to appear in a paper for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, have significant implications for worker safety, groundwater protection, the security of massive industrial wastewater disposal in the region as well as the economics and placement of more than 100 steam plants and mines.
Half of all bitumen now produced from the oilsands relies on a form of oil production that injects highly pressurized steam into deep deposits of cold bitumen.

Recent eruptions of steam, bitumen and groundwater at oilsands operations may all represent an industrial collision with a natural process that drives salty groundwater into bitumen-bearing reservoirs where it fractures and weakens the rock near and above bitumen deposits.

The events include the massive 12,000 barrel bitumen seepage to the surface by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL); a huge blowout at Total's Joslyn steam plant project in 2006; and a large groundwater gusher at Shell's Muskeg River mine.

That 2010 disaster turned a newly created dam for mining waste into a lake full of 7-billion litres worth of highly saline water.

resilience

[Graeme]

Chemical Air Pollution Around The Tar Sands Is Getting Worse, Data Shows

Chemical air pollution surrounding the primary areas where tar sands oil is mined and processed in Canada is on the rise, according to new data released by the Alberta government.

The 2012 data released Thursday showed that levels of both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide — chemicals that help cause acid rain, smog, and myriad health problems — have risen to levels two and three on a government-set scale of four at several monitoring sites between Fort McMurray and Fort McKay. Level four is the highest limit allowed to protect human health, but the report said levels two and three are still cause for concern and that there should be further investigation into the source of pollution. Nitrogen dioxide is also a greenhouse gas.

“It’s important to understand the triggers are well below the [legal limit], so we are not anywhere near an issue where will have health issues for humans or our biodiversity,” Environment Minister Robin Campbell said Wednesday, according to the Edmonton Journal.

Though two-thirds of the air quality monitoring stations that reported higher levels were near tar sands facilities, the Alberta government has been reluctant to say that the declining air quality is due to the development process. Tar sands oil — the type of oil that would be transported across America in the Keystone XL pipeline if approved by the Obama administration — has a unique development process that some scientists say emits twice the amount of air pollution as conventional oil development.

thinkprogress

[Graeme]

Huge Ponds Hold Tar Sands Sludge, and Great Risks (Op-Ed)

On August 4, 2014, the catastrophic failure of a mining company's dam in British Columbia, Canada, released over 2.5 billion gallons of contaminated water from a containment pond into the upper Fraser River watershed. Only a few hundred miles east in Alberta, at least half a dozen dams containing the wastewater from the tar sands mining industry hold more than 100 times the volume of the British Columbia release and span over 43,000 acres of Canada's boreal forest. A breach from any one of these mine-tailings ponds would pose enormous risks to local communities and the surrounding boreal forest ecosystem.

And yet, Canadian authorities offer virtually no public information about the safety of these tailings dams, which already leak millions of gallons of wastewater — containing a suite of toxins, such as naphthenic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, phenolic compounds, ammonia and mercury — every day. Meanwhile, Canadian regulators have opted not to enforce existing laws meant to limit the volume of toxic waste produced during tar sands mining or confront the leaks. Canada's Pembina Institute projects that the volume of tailings will grow by at least 40 percent over the next two decades. By 2060, Pembina estimates that these mine-tailings ponds, which lie amidst the Canadian boreal landscape, will grow by another 120 billion gallons.

livescience

[Graeme]

NAFTA's Regulatory Body Should Investigate Canada's Inaction on Tar Sands Tailings

Within the next few weeks the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), an environmental review body established under NAFTA, will decide whether to investigate the Canadian government’s continuing failure to regulate its tar sands industry. In 2010, the CEC received a petition from NRDC, Environmental Defense Canada, and three Canadian citizens asking the CEC to address water contamination from tar sands waste, known as tailings. The petition, Alberta Tailings Ponds, calls on the CEC to create a factual record examining whether Canada has failed to enforce Canadian federal fisheries laws by not regulating toxic substances stored and now leaking from the tar sands industry’s massive tailings ponds.

Soon, the CEC will vote on whether to approve the creation of the factual record. While the CEC has no legal authority to compel enforcement of the fisheries protections, approval of a factual record can have a real effect on Canadian tailings policy. By informing Canadian citizens of their government’s inaction on tailings regulations, a factual record would help hold the Canadian government accountable for its environmental obligations. If the CEC votes in favor of a factual record, Canada will finally face public scrutiny for its failure to protect its fisheries, and thus its citizens, from toxic tailings.

nrdc

[Graeme]

Subsidy Spotlight: Paying the Price of Tar Sands Expansion

Carolyn Marsh was in her living room watching television on a Wednesday night in August when she heard a loud boom from somewhere outside. Having lived in the industrial town of Whiting, Indiana––just south of Chicago––for nearly three decades, she wasn’t terribly shaken. “There’s a lot of noise constantly,” she explains.

But when the news came on an hour later and reported an explosion at the nearby BP refinery, Marsh was incensed. It was the second serious incident since the recent completion of BP’s Whiting Refinery Modernization Project, which Marsh had fought to prevent.

In December 2013, after six years of community pushback, court battles, Environmental Protection Agency citations, and ongoing construction in spite of it all, BP’s $4.2 billion retrofitted facility came fully online.

It was now a tar sands refinery, capable of refining 350,000 barrels of the world’s dirtiest oil per day. And it was paid for, in large part, by U.S. taxpayers.

A little-known tax break allows companies to write-off half of the cost of new equipment for refining tar sands and shale oil. According to a report by Oil Change International, this subsidy had a potential value to oil companies (and cost to taxpayers) of $610 million in 2013.

Tar sands are petroleum deposits made up of bitumen mixed in with sand, water and clay. Their production is extremely destructive at every stage: from strip mining indigenous lands in Canada, to disastrous accidents along transportation routes, to dangerous emission levels produced by refining the heavy crude, to the hazards imposed on communities saddled with tar sands byproducts like petroleum coke (“petcoke”), and finally to the greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere when the end product is used for fuel.

Despite all the reasons to keep tar sands in the ground, the refining equipment tax credit has helped put tar sands development in the U.S. on the rise, accelerating climate change at the expense––in every sense of the word––of American taxpayers.

priceofoil

[dohboi]

Graeme's back!!

[Graeme]

D, Thanks.

Oilsands study confirms link between tailings ponds and air pollution

New federal government research has confirmed that oilsands tailings ponds are releasing toxic and potentially cancer-causing chemicals into the air.

And Environment Canada scientist Elisabeth Galarneau said her study — the first using actual, in-the-field measurements — agrees with earlier research that suggests the amount of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons emitted by the industry has been dramatically underestimated.

“We found that there actually does appear to be a net flow of these compounds going from water to air,” she said. “It’s just a bit under five times higher from the ponds than what’s been reported.”
Galarneau’s findings echo those from an earlier study this summer. That paper, however, depended on mathematical modelling.

The Environment Canada study, recently published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, used actual data collected from air sampling and filtering devices placed in the oilsands region under the joint federal-provincial monitoring program.

Using standard and well-established testing methods, Galarneau’s preliminary results suggest 1,069 kilograms a year of PAH compounds are being released from the 176 square kilometres of tailings ponds across the region.

Official reports to Canada’s National Pollutant Release Industry say that only 231 kilograms of those chemicals are released annually.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are commonly found in fossil fuels and can be released by incomplete burning of any material that contains carbon. Although their toxicity varies widely, 32 of them are considered priority pollutants by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

They are known to cause cancer. High prenatal exposure to these compounds is linked to lower IQ and childhood asthma.

thestar

[Keith_McClary]

Contaminated water in Alberta renews questions about steam-injecting technology
December 20, 2014

EDMONTON -- A Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. oilsands operation that has contaminated a groundwater aquifer is renewing questions about a technology that has already been linked to another serious leak in northern Alberta.
The Alberta Energy Regulator says CNRL reported a break in a well at its Wolf Lake high pressure cyclic steam stimulation project in late October, and that the company later discovered elevated levels of hydrocarbons in the aquifer about 60 kilometres northwest of Cold Lake.
The area is located about 10 kilometres away from the company's Primrose East property where a bitumen-water mixture was found oozing to the surface last year.
...
"I don't know how you get benzine out of an aquifer. There's no process for filtering it out. It's basically a mix of carcinogenic chemicals into this underground water system. It's not like you can put in a scrubber and clean it all up," Stewart said.

[WildRose]

It's being posited that the method is at fault, i.e. the steam injection, and now CNRL is resuming production using steam flooding, which is a low-pressure method. The high-pressure steam injection causes fractures in the rock which allows bitumen to escape to the surrounding lakes, etc. However, they are using the new steam-flooding method and resuming production before the investigation has been completed as to why the problems happened at Primrose with the steam injection in the first place, and assuming that the lower pressure method won't cause the same ecological damage. Full steam ahead!