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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Tarsands leave behind ecological dead zone
Don Klassen's letter (In defence of oilsands, Jan. 11) gives the impression that the Alberta oilsands are, relative to China and American industrial emissions, an ecologically benign development. This would be true, relative to China and the U.S., only if the sole dimension to the environmental issue of the tarsands involved CO2 emissions, which is not the case.
No, it has been well-documented that the tarsands involve the clear-cutting of hundreds of kilometres of the carbon-storing boreal ecosystem, leaving behind a toxic dead zone. The once pristine Athabasca River now sees toxic tailing ponds located adjacent to its banks, and leaks and leeching have helped turn the river into a natural threat to animals and humans relying on it for life.
The community of Fort Chipewyan, hundreds of kilometres downstream, is reeling from statistically high numbers of rare cancers and an alarming death rate as a result. And the inefficiency of the extraction of the bitumen has the Alberta government trying to accelerate the transmission and burning of cleaner natural gas to extract dirtier sources of energy through the Mackenzie Valley Gas Project. Failing this, the area could be hooked up with nuclear power plants, as the continental plan to quintuple the output of the tarsands lurches forward with the so-called economic recovery.
Studies by David Schindler of the University of Alberta show the huge volumes of fresh water being extracted by the industry are starting to take a toll on the levels of the water table, while pipelines are being constructed around the continent to transport bitumen to be refined. Of special concern should be the Gateway project that would see pipelines built to the B.C. coast, eventually allowing up to 200 oil tankers a year to dock there and navigate the fourth most dangerous waterways in the world, a recipe for ecological disaster a la the Exxon Valdez.
And back to carbon emissions: Canada's rose from 1990 levels by around 30 per cent rather than decline the six per cent committed to through the government's signing of the Kyoto accord, mainly due to unregulated growth of the tarsands industry. We should be investing in renewable energies and moving away from fossil fuels, and especially the destructive project of the tarsands. Green jobs are possible if we become innovative and creative and move beyond the oil-fuelled American dream. We should demand North America become an efficient continent through retrofitting our entire oil-based infrastructure rather than continuing to fuel up an iceberg-destined ship.
Alon Weinberg
Winnipeg
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 16, 2010 A19
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