Social Impacts. Overnight injections of migrant workers will not build healthy communities and can have severely adverse impacts on existing communities, especially those of indigenous nations on their traditional lands. Such development brings vices and long term displacement too often. Drugs, alcohol and associated violence spreads. Hunting becomes difficult when the land is threatened, leading to a further loss of culture and tradition. In towns like Fort McMurray there is no planning for the future, but merely consumption in the present. However transient the individuals may be, the populations will not leave, as “development” takes on a logic all its own. All levels of run away development are subordinate to that development, not social need.
October 21, 2007
The Tar Sands and Canada's Food System
Are beans the only cure for natural gas?
by Dru Oja Jay
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
Canada’s industrial food system is deeply reliant on natural gas.
Tar sands opponents point out that burning natural gas, a relatively clean fuel, to extract oil will result in massive increases in greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, some experts say the implications of using natural gas go far beyond global warming.
The Energy Challenge
Fight Against Coal Plants Draws Diverse Partners
Robin Loznak/The Great Falls Tribune
By SUSAN MORAN
Published: October 20, 2007
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Richard D. Liebert turned his back against a hard wind the other day, adjusted his black cap and gazed across golden fields of hay. Explaining why he is against construction of a big coal-burning power plant east of town, Liebert sounded like one more voice from the green movement.
Richard D. Liebert, who owns the Windwalker Ranch near the planned site, is a vocal, and unusual, opponent of the power plant.
Beaufort find is oil, not gas
Devon Canada gas hunt yields oil; company seeks partners; oil poses challenges
By Gary Park
For Petroleum News
Devon Canada has posted the first oil find in the Canadian Beaufort Sea in 25 years — a twist of fortune for the company which had been hoping for trillions of cubic feet of gas to spur progress on the Mackenzie Gas Project.
“We had expected gas, so we are somewhat surprised, but this is a lot better than just water,” Dennis Johnston, Devon Canada’s frontier exploration manager, told Petroleum News.
Expert: Oil would pass near water supply
Some question safety of aquifers with proposed pipeline
By Terry Woster
twoster@midco.net
October 18, 2007
PIERRE - A proposed crude-oil pipeline would pass near some shallow underground water sources in Marshall and Brown counties, an expert says.
The route proposed for a Trans-Canada Keystone Pipeline through South Dakota was altered during planning stages to limit the distance across shallow aquifer areas that the line would travel, Heidi Tillquist said in testimony filed with the state Public Utilities Commission.
Playing politics with pipe
TransCanada’s Keystone project wins NEB approval, but disdain from unions for exporting refining jobs to the United States
Dale Lunan
Back in the day, opposition to big-inch pipeline projects would come from a host of stakeholders with a direct connection to any new pipeline: First Nations protecting sacred grounds and traditional hunting territories; environmentalists concerned about the impact of pipeline construction on fragile ecosystems; farmers and ranchers worried about the loss, temporary or otherwise, of productive land.
Two Rallies On Oil Royalties
Oct, 17 2007 - 10:20 AM
CALGARY/AM770CHQR - With just days to go until the premier announces his decision on whether to hike oil and gas royalties in Alberta, two rallies are being held with two very different messages.
Quattro Energy Services is urging any and all grassroots oilworkers to come to the steps of the Legislature at 11 a.m. Wednesday for a rally against royalty increases.
Quattro President Derrick Jacobson warns this province shouldn't bite the hand that feeds it.
ATCO Frontec and Fort MacKay First Nation to Build 500 Room Oilsands Lodge
CALGARY, ALBERTA--(Marketwire - Oct. 17, 2007) - ATCO Frontec and the Fort MacKay First Nation have entered into a partnership to build and operate a critically needed new 500-room lodge in the booming Alberta oilsands region north of Fort McMurray.
Phase one of the Creeburn Lake Lodge will open February 2008, offering important new accommodations for oilsands workers and an array of career opportunities for members of the Fort MacKay First Nation.
Alberta oil sands fire forces mass evacuation of facility
By: Canadian Occupational Health & Safety News
October 15, 2007
FORT MCMURRAY (Canadian OH&S News) -- More than a thousand workers from an Alberta-based energy company were sent home following an early morning oil sands fire at a facility 25 kilometres north of Fort McMurray earlier this month.
Canada needs word of common purpose
Oct 16, 2007 04:30 AM
James Travers
OTTAWA - Imagine a throne speech that sets Canada's direction instead of putting it on course for an election. Imagine, too, a prime minister boldly beginning a frank discussion on the challenges clouding a bright future.
How much would that change the words Governor General Michaëlle Jean speaks tonight for Stephen Harper? Dramatically.
Video footage shot by oilsandstruth.org with the Dominionpaper.ca & Msguided.org over the course of the summer, huddled together into amateur documentary form (click on the story to view all five parts):
Part one:
Part two:
