“Just as naked starlets win publicity for the animal rights crowd, an image of an oil-covered bird and a few sensational statements earn headlines for the anti-oil brigade.” is the quote from an article in the Edmonton Sun. This coming from a paper who the same day had a cover that showed a tar soaked bird, and questioned who’s birds were dirtier. It’s a sad day when a newspaper wears it’s bias on the front page, it also represents misinformation from a major media outlet. While I may agree there is a lot of enviro-chaos this world over, in Alberta the government is willing to turn a blind eye to what is going on in the north of this province. With cancer rates in Native communities near the tar sands projects being much higher than anywhere else, and wildlife dying in tailings ponds not even being reported for years, the government seems to only step in when public outcry reaches a fever pitch, if at all.
San Francisco based Corporate Ethics should be applauded, for bringing this environmental catastrophe to the forefront. What is happening up north is largely ignored by the community in Alberta. We want the money but aren’t willing to face the ugly truth as to where that money is coming from, and at what expense. Reading through comments on the Edmonton Sun’s website to the Corporate Ethics ad campaign really gets a sense of the mood in this province, yet they haven’t actually taken the time to do the research. They talk about how Americans shouldn’t talk about what’s going on here, that they should clean up their own yard first, that they are part of the problem, and to a certain extent they’re right, but their arguments begin to fail when you realize how uninformed they are, the only example in the states that they are able to cite right now is the gulf spill, and by the numbers it’s pretty big. It represents 1.4 million cubic meters of oil spilled, yet thats nothing compared to just one of the tailings ponds in the tar sands projects. The Syncrude tailings pond contains 540 million cubic meters of waste, that includes ammonia, arsenic and mercury, this is held back by the second largest dam in the world, and it’s a type of dam that has had on average 2 failures per year since 1995.
The Edmonton Sun article quotes Travis Davies, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum producers as saying “Like any industry, there is a land impact, but in Alberta, that land must be reclaimed, by law,” and says there is an $800 million bond paid by oil producers to ensure the land is returned to a natural state. Well that sounds like a good deal, especially now that we can look to the gulf of mexico. BP has said the cost to them so far has been $3.5 billion, and it’s spill is just a fraction of what is contained in the tailings pond. The notion of the land being reclaimed and returned to a natural state is laughable, the Exxon Valdez ran aground more than 20 years ago, and parts of the affected area have still not recovered, and scientists believe it may be another 30 before they do. If it was possible to deal with the waste there would be no need for tailings ponds in the first place. The true cost of clean up will be much, much higher than the $800 million, and thats if it stays contained.
I find it depressing that so many Albertans, are so misinformed, and uneducated about the process of oil extraction in their own province. They hide behind the natural splendor of Banff and Jasper, and get upset when someone brings up the ugly blight of the north. The Edmonton Sun may be able to say Michael Marx’s comments about shifting an industry away from oil, while boycotting another industry like tourism is ironic, but the author Michael Platt himself fails to realize that tourism will never be able to sustain the Alberta economy on it’s own. Right now Alberta is being driven by oil, yet there is nothing else on the horizon to take it’s place, and with not only the potential end of oil in our own lifetimes, but a major public shift happening away from our dependence on fossil fuels isn’t it time Alberta diversify to an economy based on sustainability.?
