[WildRose]

Another disastrous spill of bitumen, this one has been ongoing since May of this year, actually it's 4 spills at different sites a few kilometers apart near Cold Lake, Alberta. It is a project using Cyclic Steam Stimulation technology. The bitumen took the path of least resistance through rock and shale, and the company has not been able to stop the leaks. Damage is to lakes and wetlands above ground with lots of wildlife impacted and also seepage into groundwater, so fears of aquifer contamination. And, unfortunately, lack of transparency between the province and the company, and all the stakeholders in the area.

http://www.pembina.org/blog/754

From the article:

"Remarkably, nearly 11,000 barrels of bitumen have seeped to the surface of the Cold Lake facility. This bitumen has soiled lakes and the surrounding ecosystem and has proven deadly to 214 animals. An unknown volume of bitumen and process affected water has moved out of the bitumen bearing formation and into groundwater bearing zones in the general area.

Nearly 11,000 barrels of bitumen have seeped to the surface of the Cold Lake facility. Photo: Toronto Star.

Nearly 11,000 barrels of bitumen have seeped to the surface of the Cold Lake facility. Photo: Toronto Star.
New research from Timoney and Lee notes that CNRL’s spills present a more challenging clean up scenario than a pipeline spill, since they cause both damage deep underground and to the surface above ground. Our analysis of the spill locations provided in the Regulator’s Incident Reporting archive shows that the furthest distance between two spills is approximately fifteen kilometers, while the shortest distance is slightly more than one kilometer. The high-pressure nature of Cyclic Steam Stimulation technology has perhaps resulted in the bitumen emulsion following the path of least resistance through the formation’s rock and shale to the surface at four distinct areas on the Primrose and Wolf Lake lease."

[WildRose]

Hi, everyone

Below is an initiative led by First Nations in Canada to protect the Great Bear coastal region of British Columbia. It's the area that would be impacted by an oil spill from a tanker if the Gateway pipeline were to be approved. Gives you some information about the area, the wildlife there and the communities on the coast.

On the right-hand side of the page (under "What's New") you can click on either the Canadian or the Global campaign and support this important initiative.

http://www.coastalfirstnations.ca/

Thanks,
WildRose

[rockdoc123]

and the other side of the story

http://northerngatewayalliance.ca/

[yellowcanoe]

It's rather hypocritical of first nations living along the west coast of BC to object to the construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline. As remote communities with no road access, transport to these communities in the form of ferry or air is more fuel intensive per capita than it would be in more urban areas. A rural lifestyle which for many people means extensive use of fossil fuel powered boats, ATV's, big trucks or SUV's and snowmobiles additionally contributes to a greater dependence on fossil fuels than people living in urban areas. I certainly see this when I visit relatives in Northern BC.

[Antaris]

Yellow, we all use oil. But from the first boat built,to present day, what do they all have in common? They all can, and, a lot have SUNK. I have no problem with pipelines. Better a pipe than truck or rail. But putting dilbit on a very large boat piloted and crewed by humans makes no sense. Oh let's wave to the people ,Crash. Lets have sex on the bridge, Crash. I'll be in my cabin (having a drink), Crash. Shit that piece of coral wasn't on the map, now we better cut the boat up cause it sure doesn't want to get pulled off. Humans all make mistakes, but this is one of many wrong areas on our planet to make a mistake.
Leave the shit in the ground and wait 10 years. It will be worth more and our neighbours down south (you maybe) may appreciate (pay) it more.
Nobody cares about the future.100 years from now if anybody is alive they will be pissing on our graves.

[rollin]

Yellow, everything you have comes from and through a rural area. Where does that city food and water come from? Where are the mines? Cities are the major source of destruction and pollution on this planet, they can only exist with a huge amount of externalities. Their footprint is global. A city isolated from it's rural and natural sources is a cold dead tomb.

If any of you want the story of this area and the impact tar sands oil will have on the Great Bear Region: http://www.nrdc.org/international/files ... rouble.pdf

[Paulo1]

A couple of things:

There is no such thing as "The Great Bear Rain Forest". This was an environmental coup dreamed up to restrict logging on the BC mid-coast and to promote land claims. This area is located on the BC Mainland stretching from Smith Inlet to Kitimat. Roughly. It has now grown in people's minds to be almost the entire BC Coast. I remember flying the Powell River Weldwood crews up to Security Bay when their Goat Lake operations were logged out. This was in the 70s. Soon to become Interfor, Bella Coola operations spread out along with these transplanted operations in the search for cedar and untouched valleys at the head of remote inlets. Prior to this the area had been logged for decades by small gypos utilizing private timber sales, including A frame operations and what they call 'hand logging' which is really pulling stuff into the chuck using boat assisted tight lines. It has been logged thus for over 100 years.

There used to be a pulp mill at Ocean Falls in the heart of this Great Bear Rain Forest. This is not undiscovered wilderness by any means.

The native villages, while remote, are serviced by daily plane service and have been done so since the 50s. There is, indeed, a huge reliance on imported fossil fuels for all vehicles, boats, and lighting plants. Without fossil fuels these villages would collapse in short order. This is a welfare state of affairs that mirrors Alaska's northern communities. Without fossil fuels and a totally subsidized lifestyle these communities are unsustainable with current populations and resident abilitites. Just like everywhere else.

Now, I do not want to see tanker traffic on the coast and I would be willing to take my place on the protest lines to stop a possible BC version of Exxon Valdez, nevertheless, it is hypocritical for these communities and peoples not to acknowledge that their way of life and very existence is dependent on much of the taxation these Oil Sands revenues provide to all of Canada. As my father used to say, (and probably everyone elses dad of my era....I'm 58) "money doesn't grow on trees. We all have to work".

In my 20 year career of bush flying piggy-backed with 17 years of teaching and construction, I have always followed the maxim of 'moving to where the work is' when I needed a job. And in my family we worked. That saw me working in 4 Provinces and two territories. If I didn't work my family would not have a home or my kids food/clothes. The valley I am retired in (our modern comfortable homestead thing) had a school built about 15 years ago that would service 350 kids from K through grade 10. Currently, there are 28 kids in the school. Guess where all the young families are? They moved away for work(food) like people do, all over the world, forever, including indigenous people. On the coast, when the clam beds depleted the village would move. When the village site became filthy, the village would relocate and it would coincide with the salmon runs. While just about 100 % of every west coast estuary has reserve land set aside for traditional inhabitants, in almost every case these lands are never inhabited or utilized, instead, the villages remain fixed near the fuel depot, airplane dock, or air strip; their houses festooned with satellite dishes, the hum of the diesel light plant ever present.

What frosts my butt is the urban coffee crowd aligning themselves with a people living a way of life that is becoming unsupportable, certainly well intentioned in doing so, but promoting a lifestyle divorced from reality. The buying and selling of product, trading, is what has allowed humans to thrive and prosper. To live unsustainably in enclaves, in an environmentally unfriendly lifestyle, paid for by the resource industry tax teat is hypocritical and dishonest. If I see another van hauling a load of Kayaks up the highway so tourists can have an 'eco tour' vacation, I am going to stick my finger down my throat. Throwing a rainbow sticker on the back window and a Free Tibet bumber sticker doesn't hide the use of just another tourist group driving up the road in their fossil fuel powered buggy.

Finally, here are 'the couple of things' I alluded to at the beginning of this post, and my apologies for the rant that seems to address both sides. I was unloading a plane a few years ago at one of these villages when the logger helping me unload started to rant about one of the locals. You see, said local just returned in his 70hp skiff after shooting a seal for its' whiskers for 'ceremonial purposes'. And last year Gilford Village made the CBC with their water woes. You see, it seems that on an Island where it rains 200 inches a year they don't have safe drinking water and the Govt was forced to supply bottled water for said residents. Nevermind there is a year round creek 1/4 mile away and a couple of lakes with great hydro potential, well within feasability. I just have to ask myself, what did people drink around here 100 years ago? A 5 dollar tarp and cleaned out 45 plastic drum would supply a home with great and ample water year round. 100% pure rainwater. No, 'The Govt'. has to freight in bottled water.

This lifestyle has got to change while there is time to do so. Our country has to face this challenge together and recognize we survive by working together and accepting that working together means actually working and not just protesting and going to meetings.

Paulo

[Synapsid]

Paulo,

Thanks, as aways, for your post.

What do the Gilford Villagers do with the empty water bottles?

[rollin]

This is a dying planet folks, we need to leave some areas alone as much as possible. Have some respect.

[Paulo1]

I don't know what they do with their water bottles? I assumed they would have been 5 gallon exchange jugs similar to what is sold at grocery stores or delivered to offices? I do know the Govt was tasked with putting in a new system with treatment options. You can see the place on Google Earth. It is right across from Pt McNeil at the mouth of Knight Inlet. There are only a few houses. The site is quite close to a huge traditional clam bed where the creek runs. It is called Gilford Bay.

I guess my problem is really an expression of frustration....frustration with the situation and the misrepresentation of facts. All of these villages are unsustainable and supported by taxation, but then that can be said of many places, I guess. It just seems there are two standards. When Ocean Falls shut down the town of several thousand became a Ghost Town. I have relatives and friends who lived there and loved doing so. But when the mill shut the people moved away because there was no living to be made. But these remote villages keep growing and expanding regardless of whether there is any economic activity or employment. Teen pregnancies are rampant. I worked with a young native lady who told me she had her first child at 13...her 2nd at 15. I asked her what people thought because my first question I would ask my daughter and the father would be "how do you plan to support your family"? She told me that such a thing was simply not asked, that the village celebrated the birth. In my culture a teen pregnency would mean a life of hardship and poverty....plus reduced prospects. In her village she said they had unlimited free daycare, fully paid for, and increased welfare payments. My 33 year old daughter pays $760.00 for her 2 year old to be in day care so she can work because she has student loans to pay off. She also pays taxes which goes into the general revenue kitty to support places like this village.

The chuckle is this...and why I wrote about water on Gilford. I had a rainwater system and a machine dug shallow well. This summer we had hardly any rain and I had to hire a well drilling company to put in a proper well so we could water our gardens (we grow most of our food). I had to pull $10,000 out of savings, granted, it was set aside for emergencies but it hurt. It didn't make CBC.

All the best....paulo

[rockdoc123]

Paulo....your frustration is understandable. What the Federal government doesn't realize is that often they hurt First Nations people by trying to help them. There needs to be less of "throwing money at the problem to solve it" and more of trying to break the chain of easy support.
I remember years ago traveling up and down the west coast and in the fall during the salmon run seeing all sorts of road side stands where First Nations folks would be trying to sell chinook and coho that had run up the rivers for spawning and were somewhat worse for wear. The deal is, as you know, that First Nations do not have limits on fishing, nor do they have any restrictions with regards to netting, spearing or whatever when the salmon are in the rivers. It is, however, illegal for them to sell the fish but it is not patrolled to any extent. As a consequence they become the worst stewards of their own resources. If the government simply made them live by the same rules as everyone else but waived the license fee for commercial fishing and helped them through loans to buy boats, nets etc. it would serve the fishery and the people.
As well creating programs where they can get First Nations people out to universities and trained in various occupations and then incentivise them to return to their communities to help "break the chain" would probably do wonders. As it stands the folks who can get out and get an education generally have no intention of returning to the harsh life they grew up in. MY view is the government doesn't really want to solve the problems they just want them to go away.
Just my opinion.

[Synapsid]

Paulo,

I share the sense of frustration--I saw similar conditions when working in NW Alaska around 1980 but I don't live in the region so it wasn't quite so personal to me. The Inuit there were making some progress in getting young people into college, and I thought that to be a hopeful sign, but walking into the village trading post and seeing what was being stocked was really depressing, as were the resulting health problems. Once, though, as I walked in, the lady behind the counter looked at me and said "You want a moose sandwich?" Yum.

Transport between villages along the Kobuk was bush plane or motorboat, and across the tundra was snowmobile year-round. The dogs were left chained up except in winter; at least they weren't burning hydrocarbons. During the winter they ate dried chum salmon and that's what they, um, ran on. My guess is that those villages could go back to being sustainable, but I know of no reason why they would. Can't blame them, starvation couldn't have been fun and that was the population control in the old days.

[Keith_McClary]

Review panel supports Northern Gateway pipeline

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said

Now that we have received the report, we will thoroughly review it, consult with affected Aboriginal groups and then make our decision.

Pretending they have not already decided.

full report

[Graeme]

ROCKMAN seems to love facts. Well, here is some for you to digest figuratively and literally. Love to see how you defend this info.

Scientists Find 7,300-Mile Mercury Contamination ‘Bullseye’ Around Canadian Tar Sands

Just one week after Al Jazeera discovered that regulatory responsibility for Alberta, Canada’s controversial tar sands would be handed over to a fossil-fuel funded corporation, federal scientists have found that the area’s viscous petroleum deposits are surrounded by a nearly 7,500-square-mile ring of mercury.

Canadian government scientists have found that levels of mercury — a potent neurotoxin which has been found to cause severe birth defects and brain damage — around the region’s vast tar sand operations are up to 16 times higher than regular levels for the region. The findings, presented by Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk at an international toxicology conference, showed that the 7,500 miles contaminated are “currently impacted by airborne Hg (mercury) emissions originating from oilsands developments.”

The Canadian government touts Alberta’s oil sands as the third-largest proven crude oil reserve in the world, next to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The region’s heavy crude oil is mixed with clay, bitumen, and a good deal of sand — hence the name “oil sands.” This makes for a unique and energy-intensive extraction process that some scientists say produces three times the greenhouse gas emissions of conventionally produced oil. Environment Canada has said it expects production emissions from tar sands to hit 104 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020 under current expansion plans.

Giant oil companies across the United States are currently investing in Canada’s tar sands as part of their role in the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from Alberta all the way to Texas. The pipeline would double imports of tar sands oil into the United States and transport it to refineries on the Gulf Coast and ports for international export. The oil sands industry itself is undergoing a major expansion, powered by $19 billion a year in investments, according to Bloomberg News.

Mercury pollution is just the latest contamination-related environmental woe to hit the tar sands. In May of this year, leaks of the oil started popping up in Alberta, and haven’t yet stopped. In September, the company responsible for the leaks was ordered to drain a lake so that contamination on the lake’s bottom could be cleaned up. By September 11, the leaks had spilled more than 403,900 gallons — or about 9,617 barrels — of oily bitumen into the surrounding boreal forest and muskeg, the acidic, marshy soil found in the forest.

Environment Canada’s research on the mercury pollution reportedly suggested that tar sands development has created a “bullseye” of contamination, with the highest levels of mercury found in the middle. The research also included indications that the toxin was building up in some of the area’s wildlife, with elevated levels being found in some birds’ eggs. Mercury pollution is particularly disconcerting because of its ability to bioaccumulate, meaning it tends to become more concentrated as it moves up the food chain.

The contamination’s reveal comes just one week after it was revealed that the Alberta government would hand over regulatory responsibility for the province’s tar sands industry to a corporation that’s funded entirely by Canada’s oil, coal and gas industry. The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) said it would take over the duties of the now defunct Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) — which was funded in part by taxpayers — and Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development.

thinkprogress

[Synapsid]

Graeme,

Why would he try to defend it? He's said many times that of course drilling for oil releases various nasties into the environment and that the only way to prevent that is to stop drilling for oil.

[Graeme]

Yeah, of course ROCKMAN will stop drilling for oil!! Dah. And I'm sure he'll encourage his colleagues in the industry to do same.

[americandream]

Yeah, of course ROCKMAN will stop drilling for oil!! Dah. And I'm sure he'll encourage his colleagues in the industry to do same.

What do you suggest he do? Quit working and move in with you?

[rockdoc123]

as one might expect a couple of key statements attributed to the scientists that conveniently didn't make it into that quote:

The federal scientists stress the mercury loadings around the oilsands are low compared to the contamination seen in many parts of North America, including southern Ontario and southern Quebec.

Both Muir and Kirk stressed in an interview with Postmedia News that much higher levels of mercury pollution are seen in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, which are on the receiving end of toxins created by incinerators, combustion and coal-burning power plants.

[americandream]

as one might expect a couple of key statements attributed to the scientists that conveniently didn't make it into that quote:

The federal scientists stress the mercury loadings around the oilsands are low compared to the contamination seen in many parts of North America, including southern Ontario and southern Quebec.

Both Muir and Kirk stressed in an interview with Postmedia News that much higher levels of mercury pollution are seen in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, which are on the receiving end of toxins created by incinerators, combustion and coal-burning power plants.

So what is it? Too much, too little or not enough?

[rockdoc123]

So what is it? Too much, too little or not enough?

from everything I have read their comments are ....we are concerned that levels are higher near the tar sands development but at the same time they do not say whether those levels are above anything thought to be dangerous. The fact that levels of mercury are much higher in and around every industrial centre in Ontario and Quebec (and no doubt the US) and there has been no ground swell movement to shut down said plants etc suggests the levels are not dangerously high but require continuous monitoring.

Not sure where mercury comes from given it isn't used in the process.