[rockdoc123]

The "Republic of Alberta" are a bunch greedy sods. BC should not be so soft and make sure it gets up front compensation from Alberta. But instead it will be the Canadian taxpayer wiping Alberta's a**.

Not familiar with the constitution of Canada are you? The provinces are the only ones with rights to resources, a fact that is supported by the Federal government. The only province whining about wanting some money for something they are not entitled to is British Colombia. The province of BC does not have any say in the matter actually, pipelines are a Federal matter and will be decided at that level. The Premier of BC is threatening all sorts of economic sanctions but I'm afraid Lotus Land will be the one who loses on this. The pipeline could easily go the other direction, the other provinces would welcome the increased employment and tariff revenue. Better yet it could go south and then west through US states who would welcome additional cashflow and employment.
The reason the Alberta government has said a profit share is not part of the equation is it would require an entire rewrite of the Canadian Constitution...something that was hard fought for years ago and something the rest of Canada has no interest in changing.

[WildRose]

Rockdoc, there are petroleum compounds occurring naturally in the Athabasca River, but it's insignificant compared to that which finds its way into the river and into the groundwater because of tar sands activity:

From the site pstarr linked to earlier:

"Trace amounts of petroleum compounds enter the Athabasca River naturally each year because of river down-cutting and annual river erosion. This natural contamination of the river is probably low compared to the two to eightfold increase in river loadings of petroleum associated directly with mining activities (Kelly et al. 2009). River and vegetation contamination near active mine sites is further compounded by aerial deposition from the mining, trucking, and upgrading ore (Kelly et al. 2009). Some leakage of contaminated water finds its way through containment dikes surrounding the greater than 170 km² of tailings ponds and Marsden (2007) relates a 1997 Suncor admission that approximately 1600 m³ of contaminated water leaks into the Athabasca River daily from older tailing pond dikes.Ferguson et al. (2009) offer the optimistic appraisal that such leakage diminishes with time as fine clays plug the more porous flow paths in the dikes. However a legacy of contaminated pore water remains and regional groundwater is contaminated and will remain so for centuries.One great unknown is the degree to which downward migration of contaminated water occurs under the pressure of elevated tailings ponds."

[Lore]

Reclamation is really more of a coverup. If it kinda looks alright on the surface then we can move along and forget about it and let future generations deal with any problems. The whole process is to terraform the disrupted environment into a facsimile of it's former self, but it can never really be the same.

[rockdoc123]

Rockdoc, there are petroleum compounds occurring naturally in the Athabasca River, but it's insignificant compared to that which finds its way into the river and into the groundwater because of tar sands activity:

Well the official monitoring body RAMP disagrees with you. I suggest you go to their website and look at the last few years of sustainability reports. The Alberta government put out a report in 2011 that looked at the Kelly, 2009 study and compared it with RAMP etc. Their general comments were that the Kelly sampling period was too short to derive any conclusions. They suggest some short comings with RAMP in terms of additional monitoring steps that need to be taken and this forms a part of the revised plans that the recently independent review board will be looking at. This is the way things should progress i.e. gradual improvement in monitoring and hence gradual improvement in regulations.

It surprises me considerably that there are so many who jump up and down about an industry that has been making great strides in working towards a proper environmentally regulated system ignore the fact that open pit mining in North America is almost completely unregulated or has spotty environmental regulations at best and these operations affect a much greater area than the oil sands mining areas. The coal industry is also one that doesn't have nearly the regulatory environment that oil and gas does and they can create immense distruction. A great example I remember I heard from a geophysical contractor who was in NE British Colombia scouting out the location for new hand cut seismic lines. In this part of BC the oil industry is required to hand cut seismic lines and they are very narrow in order to improve the chance for natural reclamation as well as not to interupt wildlife patterns. While in the field this geophysicist came across a couple of gents in a ATV who asked what he was doing and once he explained they started laughing. The reason, he was told, is that they worked for the Coal company in the area and their plan was in two years time to strip the entire mountain side down...the area where the oil company was paying so much attention so as not to have a large environmental impact would be an open pit. And that plan was approved by the BC gov't with no attention paid to the amount of sediment discharge into streams that were bullhead trout habitat. The reason...the Coal industry employees a ton of people in BC, the oil industry doesn't. My point here is the oil sands might be an easy target but there are probably worse perpetrators who are not spending the effort that the oil sands companies like Suncor are.

[dohboi]

Lore wrote:

Reclamation is really more of a coverup.

Yep, reminds me of the old 'lipstick on a pig' idea. But I'm sure dockorc will disagree.

[Keith_McClary]

Utah board OKs the nation’s first commercial tar sands project

the company would be required to begin monitoring if contamination was discovered in the future.

"If they ever do run into groundwater," he told the board, "they’ll test it."

Tar Sands South

The PR Spring mining site is 5,930 contiguous acres with a “land position totalling 32,005 acres of bitumen extraction rights on leases in the State of Utah, according to U.S. Oil Sands’ financial statement for the first half of 2012. AP explained that U.S. Oil Sands plans to extract 2,000 barrels of tar sands crude in Utah in 2012, “in the start of what could grow into a much larger operation.””
...
5,900+ acres is a drop in the bucket for an industry sitting on some 232,065 acres of land open for tar sands extraction in the state of Utah,
...
Most well-known for the “Halliburton Loophole,” the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts oil and gas corporations from complying with the dictates of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act,

[WildRose]

Utah board OKs the nation’s first commercial tar sands project

the company would be required to begin monitoring if contamination was discovered in the future.

"If they ever do run into groundwater," he told the board, "they’ll test it."

Tar Sands South

The PR Spring mining site is 5,930 contiguous acres with a “land position totalling 32,005 acres of bitumen extraction rights on leases in the State of Utah, according to U.S. Oil Sands’ financial statement for the first half of 2012. AP explained that U.S. Oil Sands plans to extract 2,000 barrels of tar sands crude in Utah in 2012, “in the start of what could grow into a much larger operation.””
...
5,900+ acres is a drop in the bucket for an industry sitting on some 232,065 acres of land open for tar sands extraction in the state of Utah,
...
Most well-known for the “Halliburton Loophole,” the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempts oil and gas corporations from complying with the dictates of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act,

So sad for the Colorado River.

[WildRose]

Why tar sands land reclamation is not the same as restoration:

http://www.tarsandswatch.org/eco-alchem ... ings-ponds

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/natio ... ice=mobile

http://parklandinstitute.ca/post/story/ ... s_country/

Basically, it's really difficult to reconstruct wetlands. Wetlands, particularly the type called fen, are important to the environment because they store huge amounts of water and moderate drought and flood, as well as storing carbon. And, in northern Alberta, the climate is cold, which means it will take much longer for wetlands to recover there than in other parts of the world. Much less carbon will be absorbed by disturbed wetlands. Wetlands "reclamation" is very expensive. The environmental security funds contributed to by the oilsands industry has been criticized for being woefully inadequate to cover the costs, per acre, of reclamation. And, the Alberta government has a long way to go to develop a policy for measuring the success (or failure) of wetlands reclamation. In the meantime, the area of disturbed land compared to the area of "reclaimed" land is growing exponentially.

[WildRose]

If you have 90 minutes to spare, this is an excellent Nature of Things production with David Suzuki on the tar sands. It's current, discusses all of the environmental issues, the effects on the Athabasca river and the people downstream, the environmental studies done by ecologist Dr. David Schindler, and the problems there have been with industry-led testing/monitoring and reporting. Also, the aerial footage is something to see.

Nature of Things: Tipping Point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjA7_wgofp4

[rockdoc123]

As mentioned earlier there are shortcomings in Schindler’s sampling approach that have been pointed out by other independent bodies including the Royal Society of Canada.
In 2010 the Royal Society issued their independent study on the oil sands and in reference to the Fort Chipewyan health issues said:

There is currently no credible evidence of environmental contaminant exposures from oil sands reaching Fort Chipewyan at levels expected to cause elevated human cancer rates…Environmental contaminants at current levels of exposure are unlikely to cause major health impacts for the general population.

And as far as videos go you might want to look at the other side of the story, Suzuki is not known for unbiased and truthful reporting

http://www.capp.ca/canadaIndustry/oilSa ... -Tour.aspx


And just to remind everyone what the actual footprint is, the diagram below illustrates in perspective the size of the active mining area…you will have to look hard to see the black dot, it is that small.

[WildRose]

Article from the Edmonton Journal yesterday. Environment Canada scientists Jane Kirk and Derek Muir, a world authority re: chemical contaminants, have confirmed the findings in the 2010 Schindler/Kelly report about contaminants in the snow near Fort McMurray/Athabasca River area, and have found the footprint of those contaminants is greater than previously shown in the Schindler/Kelly report.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business ... story.html

"A team led by federal scientist Jane Kirk, also of Environment Canada, will report that snow within 50 kilometres of oilsands operations is contaminated with a long list of "priority pollutants" including a neurotoxin that "bioaccumulates" in food webs.

"But perhaps the most dramatic findings is that pollutants called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are building up in lake sediments up to 100 kilometres from the oilsands operations.


Another of Muir's findings is the level of methyl mercury in the snow:

"Muir says the elevated levels of methyl mercury is "probably the highest concern" because it is a neurotoxin that accumulates in food webs.

"We don't really know the fate of the various metals including mercury as they go from snow, to melt water to run-off and then into the aquatic environment," Muir said.


Also, there is concern about young fish in the tributaries feeding into the Athabasca River in the spring:

"Schindler says water in tributaries where young fish hatch in the spring can be largely melt water.

"My big concern is that slowly because of mortalities at spring melt, that this will erode the fishery, killing off the embryos," says Schindler.

Parrott's findings may explain why fish numbers the Muskeg River, a tributary of the Athabasca, have plummeted in recent decades, he said.


These findings will be presented today at the North American Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry annual meeting in California.

[Tanada]

The proposal, conceived a few years ago in studies commissioned by Alaska and Yukon, would liberate the stranded oil sands and bypass opposition to new pipelines in both countries.

Other solutions have been proposed, but this is the best for many reasons: The group promoting this realizes that any major infrastructure project is a non-starter without a social licence. So they began by seeking and obtaining local support.

“The greatest strength of our Alberta-Alaska railway concept is the support it has received from First Nations along the route and from the Assembly of First Nations across Canada,” said consortium CEO Matt Vickers. He’s a former banker from northeast British Columbia with an engineering background and revealed the project in detail to me. “And the railway was first proposed by Alaska and Yukon, which still support it.”

His group calls itself G7G, Generating for Seven Generations, based on a First Nations’ belief that any major decision today must take into account how it will affect people seven generations in future.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/1 ... -problems/

Hurry Hurry HURRY, step right up and watch the amazing exceptional escapade as Albertan tar err I mean Oil is exported via rail to the port of Valdez Alaska bound for part unknown!

[Graeme]

Oil sands leave toxic traces

Oil sands in Alberta, Canada, hold some of the world's largest reserves of crude oil, and production there has been booming. But a study shows that contaminants from the development of the sands are stacking up in the environment.

Scientists studied five lakes near mining and upgrading operations around Fort McMurray, Alberta, and one further lake 90 kilometres northwest. They found that levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) — carbon-based compounds, some of which are toxic or carcinogenic — in lake sediments have been on the rise since the 1960s. By 2011, PAH levels in the lakes ranged from 2.5 to 23 times higher than they were before 1960. The results are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science1.

nature

[WildRose]

Thanks for posting that article from Nature, Graeme.

Further information on the same subject was published in an article in our Edmonton Journal today:

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/S ... story.html

From the above article:

“This study once and for all lays to rest the popular propaganda that all the pollutants up there are from natural sources, because by this fingerprinting technique they’ve used they’ve been able to separate those from natural erosion from those that aren’t,” Schindler said.

“The latter category track almost exactly the rate of expansion in the oilsands industry.”

Also,


With those increases “and the projected 150-per-cent increase in oilsands production over the next 15 years, there is reason for concern,” Hodson wrote, adding that the study provides “a clear warning of possible future problems if PAH inputs to lakes continue to climb in tandem with oilsands production.”


These findings emphasize the urgent need for independent monitoring of further oil sands expansion.

[Graeme]

New Research Shows Climate Emissions from Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Much Worse Than Reported

Oil Change International’s new report “Petroleum Coke: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands” reveals that current analyses of the impacts of tar sands fail to account for a high-carbon byproduct of the refining process that is a major source of climate change causing carbon emissions: petroleum coke—known as petcoke. Because it is considered a refinery byproduct, petcoke emissions are not included in most assessments of the climate impact of tar sands. Thus, the climate impact of oil production is being consistently undercounted.

Petcoke is commonly used as a cheaper, more carbon-intensive substitute to coal—and the petcoke in tar sands is turning American refineries into coal factories. The petcoke produced from the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would fuel 5 coal plants and produce 16.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, thus emitting 13% more carbon dioxide than the U.S. State Department has previously considered.

commondreams

nyt

[WildRose]

New research showing that mining-related contaminants from tarsands tailing pits have contaminated nearby groundwater:

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business ... story.html

From the memo sent to Canada Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver:

“The studies have, for the first time, detected potentially harmful, mining-related organic acid contaminants in the groundwater outside a long-established out-of-pit tailings pond,”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

These findings further refute the tarsands industry's longstanding claims that contaminants in the Athabasca River area are naturally-occurring.

[WildRose]

Well, here we go. Alberta Environment has rubber-stamped the creation of end-pit lakes for both current mining operations and future ones in the tar sands region, even though the technology for doing so is as yet unproven. This will be done by covering toxic end-pit waste with fresh water from the Athabasca River.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business ... story.html

"“When we approve mine applications and closure plans, we accept in principle that the end pit lakes can be successfully reclaimed. Over time, we expect mine operators to demonstrate this,” said deputy minister Dana Wood in the Feb. 26 letter."

Wow, going on faith that the industry will follow all of the recommendations that CEMA gave in their report last fall about how to do this (keeping in mind that the technology is unproven), and I wonder who's going to monitor the results.

[Buddy_J]

Wow, going on faith that the industry will follow all of the recommendations that CEMA gave in their report last fall about how to do this (keeping in mind that the technology is unproven), and I wonder who's going to monitor the results.

Doesn't matter really. The companies will attempt to pretend to comply, they will sometimes appear to succeed, other times they will blatantly fail and maybe get caught...or not. But it doesn't matter much, as long as people demand the product manufactured from that mining it will happen, no ifs ands or butts. All the whining and complaining and lobbying by the ecofascists, earth firsters, general purpose do-gooders and NIMBY nuts doesn't mean anything until that basic fact can be changed.

[WildRose]

Wow, going on faith that the industry will follow all of the recommendations that CEMA gave in their report last fall about how to do this (keeping in mind that the technology is unproven), and I wonder who's going to monitor the results.

Doesn't matter really. The companies will attempt to pretend to comply, they will sometimes appear to succeed, other times they will blatantly fail and maybe get caught...or not. But it doesn't matter much, as long as people demand the product manufactured from that mining it will happen, no ifs ands or butts. All the whining and complaining and lobbying by the ecofascists, earth firsters, general purpose do-gooders and NIMBY nuts doesn't mean anything until that basic fact can be changed.

I agree with you.

But this is a thread for commenting on the ecological impacts of tar sands production. Perhaps as a result of demonstrating how destructive and unethical the process and industry are, more people will decide they don't want the product.

[John_A]

But this is a thread for commenting on the ecological impacts of tar sands production. Perhaps as a result of demonstrating how destructive and unethical the process and industry are, more people will decide they don't want the product.

Destructive does not by definition equate with unethical. Do you drive car? Ever fly in a plane? Use plastics? Welcome to the club, because if you do this somewhere in North America, you, as have I, and most everyone on this board I imagine, feeds the demand for those fuels, and therefore are responsible for whatever are the ecological impacts of the tar sands, regardless of what they are. The decision we have already made...we want the supply more than we care about the ecological impacts. Which begs the question, does our hypocrisy know no bounds?