Pressured by profound influence from U.S. markets, corporations and politicians development of Canada’s Alberta Oil Sands project, an area estimated to be the size of Florida, is expanding at astonishing speed. The project produces over one million barrels of oil daily. This number is expected to double within ten years and it is estimated that by 2030 the Oil Sands project will be producing 5 million barrels a day. Alberta is second to Saudi Arabia in terms of meeting world oil reserve capacity. Not surprisingly, the alarming damage to the local environment is expanding in lock step. Are Canadian politicians and corporations making huge profits while simultaneously being strong armed into acquiescence by BushCo policy so as to spare Canadian cities the Middle Eastern reality of shoring up “the flow” for the great diesel driven beast? Of course Canadians are ultimately quite friendly with Americans. We eat the same food, watch the same movies, play the same sports, worship the same pop idols and most importantly go to the same churches. There is no evidence to say that Uncle Sam has yet found Canada’s W.M.D.s or has reason to start looking. Canadians assume they are in no danger. That being said, sneaky backroom political tactics (are there any other kind?) out of view of the public eye and the coerced handover of Canada’s limited natural resources to our much stronger southern neighbor comprise a far scarier reality than the alternative of U.S. tanks rolling into Ottawa, Edmonton, Montreal etc. Humour aside, what does this all mean for the average Canadian and their environment?
The Alberta Oil Sands project continues to grow at an exponential rate while our government’s refusal to commit to a logical policy aimed at curbing industry’s impact on the environment is, at best, able to stir only mild annoyance amid the Canadian public. Atlantic Canada’s fishing industry - the life force of much of Atlantic Canada’s economy - is bled dry by mismanagement while Nova Scotians, Newfoundlanders, Prince Edward Islanders as well as others are forced to migrate from their traditional lands in droves to bleed dry yet another one of Canada’s natural resources and its local environment in Alberta. From the looks of the way Canada is headed once the Oil Sands are no longer lucrative for big oil and company we’ll get right on to the job of bottling up the natural resource sitting in the Great Lakes.
Greed and fear keep Canadian politicians from reaching a consensus on industrial and environmental solutions. Alberta’s prodigal son, Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephan Harper, walks hand and hand with BushCo and his myopic goals of Bigger, Better, Faster – Now! When individual Canadians wake up and decide they would rather their future generations live in a healthy and renewable world then live at the whim of the current political state of apathy they will elect strong and independent politicians to further this desire - no sooner.
The expanding northern town of Fort Chipewyan Alberta is literally down stream from the Oil Sands development site and its pollution. New studies show that the animals, humans and environment in this area are feeling the effects of the Oil Sand industry and its practice of dumping toxic and cancer causing arsenic in nearby water supplies. This small and remote community is fighting a loosing battle to gain government support to help maintain its traditionally healthy local environment. Every village, town and city in Canadian history at one time or another has faced the dilemma that Fort Chipewyan now faces – the choice to abandon logic and destroy the resource and health of the people, fauna and flora living in the local area in an attempt to get a quick fix or to expand in an environmentally conscience and responsible way taking care to protect what is most important to all life.
Will Canada sit by while yet another one of its pristine environments and communities take the path of unsustainable and unhealthy city development? Will we allow our greed and fear destroy another beautiful wilderness and community and ultimately ourselves? Or, given what we now know, will we save this refuge and help it expand in a responsible, logical and green way? If we do not, what does this say about our way of life and the unwritten future of so many other communities waiting to be developed or those cities and communities waiting to be turned around? Are any of us thinking about who lives down stream of Fort Chipewyan?
Fort Chipewyan is the litmus test for the future of every Canadian city.
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U.S. urges ‘fivefold expansion’
in Alberta oilsands production
Last Updated: Thursday, January 18, 2007 | 6:31 AM ET
The U.S. wants Canada to dramatically expand its oil exports from the Alberta oilsands, a move that could have major implications on the environment.
U.S.and Canadian oil executives and government officials met for a two-day oil summit in Houston in January 2006 and made plans for a “fivefold expansion” in oilsands production in a relatively “short time span,” according to minutes of the meeting obtained by the CBC’s French-language network, Radio-Canada.
The meeting was organized by Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Canada is already the top exporter of oil to the American market, exporting the equivalent of one million barrels a day — the exact amount that the oilsands industry in Alberta currently produces.
A fivefold increase would mean the export of five million barrels a day, which would supply a quarter of current American consumption and add up to almost half of all U.S. imports.
“We need to look at additional pipelines from Canada to the U.S. as a new source of supplier, a growing source of supply,” said Bob Greco of the American Petroleum Institute.
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Alberta oilsands rush
threatening environment:
The rate of oilsands development in Alberta needs to be slowed to protect forests and wildlife, environmental watchdogs said Tuesday.
If all of Alberta’s deep underground reserves were extracted, about 13.8 million hectares of land would be at risk, according to the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
The area amounts to 21 per cent of the province, an expanse the size of Florida.The report calls for a moratorium on new projects and lease sales until the province develops a plan to protect the boreal forest in northeastern Alberta.
“There comes a point where it becomes pure greed over and above what is necessary,” said Richard Schneider of CPAWS in Edmonton.
“This should actually be a place where we have options because we do have the resources in terms of money to do the best job that is possible.”
Jerry Bellikka, spokesperson for Alberta Energy, said Tuesday that environmental concerns are being properly evaluated.
“We also have pretty large parts of the Boreal Forest where Sustainable Resource Development and other departments look very closely at the natural environment of the animals and other parts of development,” said Bellikka. “I think there’s a very good process in place.”
Currently, deep oil extraction is approved on a project-by-project basis that fails to examine the overall environmental impact, the report said.
Faster pace of development
Schneider, a co-author of the report, called on Albertans to decide:
- What areas to protect?
- What limits are needed on development?
- How fast should development occur?
- Should an area be left alone to allow forest and wildlife to recover while other development continues?
The report’s authors also asked the province to create interconnected wildlife reserves to curb damage from further oilsands development.
“Evidence is steadily mounting that ecological tipping points for many species are already being exceeded at current levels of industrial development in northern Alberta,” said the report, which looked at the effects on caribou, lynx, martens and forest birds.
Oilsands production now amounts to about one million barrels a day, and is expected to more than double in 10 years.
“The regulation for environmental approval are not changing because of the pace,” said Greg Stringham, vice-president of Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“You still have to meet all of the stringent environmental regulations. None of that changes just because things are going faster now than they were over the last 20 years.”
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Embassy, November 30th, 2005
FEATURE
By Sarah McGregor, MONTREAL
Alberta Oil Sands Growing
Source of Pollution: Report
Lucrative energy industry accounts for Canada’s failure to curb emissions, but environmental NGO hopes the sector can become carbon neutral by 2012.
Rapid production of the Alberta oilsands will account for nearly half of the projected rise in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada by 2010, making it the country’s fastest growing source of pollution, according to data released yesterday by the Pembina Institute.
“It’s striking that Canada is saying it’s committed to reducing emissions but in sharp [contrast] it is allowing this sector to become a bigger emitter,” says Matthew Bramley, Director of Climate Change at the Pembina Institute, a Canadian-based environmental NGO focused on the energy sector.
The Pembina Institute released the findings during a side event at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal, which runs until Dec. 9. In his role as chair of the conference, Canadian Environment Minister Stéphane Dion is marshalling international delegations towards cooperating on a pact to curb global warming when the Kyoto Protocol phases out in 2012.
However, Mr. Dion is also faced with an uphill domestic battle to follow through on commitments in Kyoto’s first phase.
The Pembina report follows on the heels of two other damaging studies that show Canada is lagging far behind in its commitment to reduce harmful emissions to 6 per cent below 1990s by 2012.
Last week, it was revealed that emissions in Canada had risen by 24 per cent as of 2003. The bad news was detailed in a report released ahead of the Conference by the secretariat responsible for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In addition, Canada received low marks compared to other major polluters in a scientific study by the NGO GermanWatch. Experts made those conclusions after a two-year investigation, combining expert opinion on each nation’s reputation in international diplomacy, domestic environmental policies, and its emissions levels. Canada ranked among the lowest of the 59 nations that emit 90 per cent of the world’s pollution, ahead of only Australia, Russia and the United States.
The Pembina Institute projections are based on existing operations in the Alberta oilsands, as well as 28 projects expected to be running in the next 10 years. The forecast shows that total annual emissions from the oilsands will rise from 25.2 megatonnes in 2003 to as much as 67.9 megatonnes in 2010. Under current conditions, the federal government estimates that total yearly emissions will rise more than 90 megatonnes over the same period. (All figures assume no major advances in alternative technologies.)
Canada currently emits about 750 megatonnes annually and is expected to surpass 830 megatonnes in 2010. Kyoto requires Canada to reduce emissions to 560 megatonnes as of 2012.
Mr. Dion partly attributes Canada’s increasing pollution intensity to a booming economy and growing population.
Mr. Bramley is calling on the federal government to develop strict emission targets for energy-intensive industries, which would require producers to buy carbon credits to offset their harmful activity. Otherwise, he says the government will be forced to buy the additional credits, which is a “transfer of liability from the private sector to the taxpayer.”
Mr. Dion maintains that the oil and gas sector will be accountable for a big share of its environmental impact, under what is known as the Large Final Emitter Program. The government is finalizing the guidelines of the program.
Mr. Bramley is also asking that the oilsands industry become “carbon neutral” by 2012, and that the federal government eliminates tax breaks for the profitable energy industry. Finally, he is pushing for an overhaul of Alberta’s royalty regime.
The oil reserves of northeastern Alberta, which cover an area about the size of the state of Florida, are second only to Saudi Arabia’s.
“I want these industries to stay in Canada,” Mr. Dion, told reporters this week, saying there is no guarantee of improved scrutiny if operations move outside of Canada.
Mr. Dion vowed to make Canada a leader in innovative technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which traps harmful gases below the earth’s surface or along the ocean floor.
