The Health implications in terms of these projects are vast, and not just the deadly explosions and industrial accidents that happen in production-—from reported increases in rare forms of cancer downstream from tar sands production to the pollution of fresh water leading to poisoned diets (fish, moose and plant toxicity)—-direct links are hard to establish but impossible to either rule out or ignore, especially where tarsand operations constitute overwhelmingly the greatest change to the environment in most corners of the continent effected directly by tarsand infrastructure.
IN MY HOMETOWN: Enbridge plans new pipeline
Kevin Bonham Grand Forks Herald
Published Monday, December 22, 2008
While the controversial Keystone Pipeline is being built across North Dakota — from Hardisty, Alta., to Illinois and Oklahoma — another pipeline company continues to expand in the region.
Reflections of Fidel
The unjustifiable destruction of the environment
CAN capitalist society avoid it? News about the issue is not encouraging. In Poznan, they are discussing the project to be presented in December of next year in Copenhagen, where the agreement that will replace the Kyoto Protocol will be discussed and voted on.
Vandals target another B.C. gas pipeline
Thu Dec. 18 2008
ctvbc.ca
Vandals have targeted another set of natural gas well sites in northeastern British Columbia, but authorities aren't immediately linking the latest attacks to three earlier bombings to EnCana pipelines in October.
Const. Jackelynn Passarell said Thursday valves were tampered with and shots were fired at well sites operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (TSX:CNQ) and Iteration Energy (TSX:ITX).
A moving speech by Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation in Oklahoma on the
theft and industrial devastation of their lands. Many Ponca are dying
from cancer in what is now Oklahoma´s refinery "hub". Now there are new
plans for refineries to process tar sands bitumen from Alberta.
Then, Dave Malka went to the Coalition Yes rally early in December and
collected a few interviews of attendees. Some opinions about the coalition
you might have missed on the mainstream radio.
http://www.cjsr.ualberta.ca/news/news.php?s=riseup
Downloadable link:
Thumbs down: Oil slick
by Editors Dec 10, 2008
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is refusing a request by the Post-Tribune in Merrillville to provide a calendar showing when meetings were held dealing with the BP oil refinery’s air permit. IDEM approved a construction permit for BP in May, but environmentalists say it was improperly granted. IDEM has refused to release information on meetings leading up to the approval twice now — and has given two different excuses. The Post-Tribune is appealing.
Council of Canadians blasts Alta. gov’t (over possible censorship of film productions)
By CAROL CHRISTIAN
Fort McMurray Today staff
The Council of Canadians is asking Albertans to say no to censorship after the province recently suggested rethinking the funding of productions critical of the oilsands.
Who's dishing real oilsands propaganda?
Gov't decries environmentalist agenda, but refuses to subject data to non-partisan scientific scrutiny
By David Schindler December 15, 2008
This week, Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner is in Poland, expected to defend the oilsands from being considered as a source of "dirty oil." I don't envy him. In the past, international criticism has been largely based on the high emissions of greenhouse gases from mining the oilsands. This is changing rapidly in recent weeks.
Midwest oil mining a crude idea to many
Minneapolis City Pages
December 3, 2008 // By Beth Walton
Some 1,500 miles northwest of Minneapolis, the luscious green boreal forests that once lined the banks of the Athabasca River have been flattened. All that's left is an empty, lonely, gray moonscape. That, and the drills.
Polluted tar sands ponds leaking, report indicates
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT / ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
December 9, 2008
The tailings ponds storing waste water left over from the processing of Alberta tar sands oil are leaking an estimated 11 million litres of contaminated water every day, according to a new report.
The figure, one of the first publicly available on the scale of the seepage from tailing ponds that dot the landscape in Northern Alberta, is being released today in a report by Environmental Defence, a Toronto-based conservation advocacy group.
15 undocumented workers arrested in BP raid
December 10, 2008
By Andy Grimm Post-Tribune staff writer
WHITING - Immigration authorities arrested 15 janitorial workers in an early morning raid at the BP plant.
The raid came after at two-year investigation of United Building Maintenance, a Carol Stream, Ill.,-based cleaning company that had been hired by BP. The cleaning crews had access to sensitive areas of the refinery, said Gary Hartwig, special agent-in-charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations in Chicago.
