Social Impacts

350 More Ducks Killed In Canada's Toxic Tar Sands Tailing Ponds

by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 10.28.10
Science & Technology

Just days after Syncrude was fined over C$3 million for , there are more duck deaths to report. At last count, the Vancouver Sun reports 350 ducks have been killed.

The birds landed on the Mildred Lake tailing pond in northern Alberta and had to be euthanized after coming into contact with tarry bitumen floating on the surface. Ducks were found to have landed at similar tailing ponds at Suncor Energy and Shell tar sands facilities.

Senators Assail Clinton Over Tar Sands Pipeline Comments

Concern that State Department is pre-judging the outcome of a pipeline permit without adequate analysis

By Stacy Feldman

Leading Senate Democrats are scolding the State Department for hastily moving to approve a Canada-to-Texas pipeline that would nearly double U.S. oil sands imports and cut through the nation's largest underground aquifer.

US Tea Party's Deep Ties to Oil Sands Giant

Owners of Koch Industries, a major processor of Alberta crude, spent millions to foment and support a movement against Obama's climate change policies.

By Geoff Dembicki, November 1, 2010, TheTyee.ca

The Tea Party movement, poised to help shift the U.S. legislature to the right and stymie President Obama's green agenda, has financial and organizational ties to Koch Industries, one of America's biggest processors of Alberta oil sands crude.

[Keep following this story; apparently it may also be Suncor and hundreds more than this article suggests...]

At least 125 ducks die in latest Syncrude incident

By Scott Haggett And Jeffrey Jones –
Tue Oct 26, 2010

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – About 125 ducks had to be euthanized after landing on a toxic waste pond owned by Syncrude Canada Ltd, just three days after the oil sands producer was penalized C$3 million for a similar incident two years ago that killed 1,600 waterfowl.

Idaho road becomes oilsands battleground
By Shaun Polczer,
Calgary Herald
October 23, 2010

A twisting highway in the scenic Pacific Northwest has become the latest battleground for anti-oilsands activists hoping to block development of the world's second-largest oil reserves.

More than 200 process modules for Imperial Oil's $8-billion Kearl oilsands mine began arriving in Vancouver, Wash., on Oct. 3 and are being barged up the Columbia and Snake rivers to Lewiston, Idaho, without permits from state authorities to ship them 1,300 kilometres overland to the Alberta border.

J.P. Morgan aims at Canadian oil sands
Broker initiates coverage of names from the Great White North
Oct. 25, 2010,
By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — J.P. Morgan on Monday launched coverage of six Canadian oil stocks as it took aim at the vast oil sands of Alberta as oil prices stabilize at or above $80-a-barrel.

J.P. Morgan analyst Katherine Lucas Minyard said the move reflects the conclusion that the oil sands will provide in increasingly important source of oil.

First Nations Women to Speak Out in Toronto against Tar Sands
By Kathleen Airdrie
Published Oct 25, 2010

National First Nations Women's Speakers Tour on Tar Sands will hold an event October 27, 2010 at the University of Toronto.

The women’s tour is sponsored by several organizations concerned with the devastation caused by the massive projects’ degradation of the land.

First Nations Women Speaking Out

Utterly amazing that this puff piece-- a letter to the editor-- would be sent to the pro-industry paper of record in Canada. As a clarion call to alert tar sands operators that from now on, Tides (and those they fund, such as Greenpeace, Canadian Boreal Initiative, David Suzuki Foundation and the "invisible to the outside" North American tar sands coalition itself) is no longer going to allow itself to be a part of this crap about "shutting down the tar sands" but instead will be a part of a fake deal that greenwashes while development continues.

Shell hammered at hearing over refinery

Produced 90,000 barrels per day. Company must dismantle refinery and decontaminate soil

By KEVIN DOUGHERTY,
The Gazette
October 20, 2010

Nicolas Houle, director of Shell Canada's Montreal East oil refinery, got a rough ride yesterday at special National Assembly hearings challenging the company's decision to shut down the facility.

"Why should I give you a permit to dismantle it?" asked Natural Resources Minister Nathalie Normandeau.

Enbridge Energy could be Minnesota's BP
Oil company has friends on the PUC
By Justin Horwath Wednesday, Oct 20 2010

The Midwest is a new market for companies with leases in Alberta, Canada's tar sands fields, which constitute the largest untapped oil supply in the world outside Saudi Arabia.

Enbridge Energy and other pipeline companies have been in a race to tap the Gulf and East Coast markets, and soon enough, companies with leases in the tar sands will have access to the entire U.S.