Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Social Impacts

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.

warning: Creating default object from empty value in /var/www/drupal-6.28/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.pages.inc on line 33.

National Energy Board schedules a hearing on Keystone XL pipeline project

CALGARY, May 12 /CNW/ - The National Energy Board (NEB) has scheduled an
oral hearing on an application from TransCanada Keystone Pipeline GP Ltd.
(Keystone) to construct and operate the Canadian portion of its proposed
Keystone XL pipeline project.

The hearing is scheduled to start on Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 9:00
a.m. at a location to be determined.

The proposed project is a crude oil line that would run from Alberta to

Crude oil leak at Burnaby Mountain tank contained: Kinder Morgan

Crude oil leak at Burnaby Mountain tank contained: Kinder Morgan
May 7, 2009 |
CBC News

Some Burnaby residents awoke to the strong smell of oil fumes after about 200,000 litres of crude oil spilled from a storage tank on Burnaby Mountain on Wednesday night.

The leak at the Kinder Morgan tank farm just east of Vancouver was spotted at about 10 p.m. by a contractor, the company said. The oil was captured in a lined containment bay surrounding the tank, and there were no leaks into the surrounding environment, the company said.

NWT Promotes Mackenzie Gas Pipeline in Texas

NWT Promotes Pipeline in Texas
By SHAWN BELL, SRJ Reporter 12.MAY.09

The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment was in Houston, Texas last week, promoting northern gas and reassuring potential investors that the GNWT still supports the Mackenzie Gas Project. Minister Bob McLeod is especially concerned about the US government’s plans to provide more than the current $18 billion in loan guarantees for an Alaskan pipeline, a situation he says weights the playing field in favour of the Americans.

Shell committed to tar sands despite $42m losses

Shell vows to press on with projects amid cost cuts and falling profits

* Terry Macalister
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 April 2009

Shell has pledged to continue with its controversial tar sands projects but has been forced to consider far-reaching cost cuts to keep the operations going after they lost $42m (£28m) in the last three months.

As Calif. aims at carbon, Canada sees itself in bull's-eye

As Calif. aims at carbon, Canada sees itself in bull's-eye
By COLIN SULLIVAN AND DEBRA KAHN, Greenwire
New York Times
Published: April 30, 2009

Canadian oil exporters fear that a low-carbon fuel standard adopted by California last week threatens to upset a thriving North American trade in petroleum if the regulation spreads throughout the United States.

Greenpeace Canada heads to Scandinavia to tackle Statoil investments in tar sands

Greenpeace Canada heads to Scandinavia to tackle Statoil investments in tar sands
May 12th, 2009

The stench of reality

The stench of reality
The Gazette
Saturday, April 25 2009

The tar sands suddenly are a root metaphor for every pressing issue we face both as Canadians and as members of the human species, writes The Gazette's William Marsden in his essay The Perfect Moment. Here is an excerpt:

Suncor Posts Second Straight Loss After Oil Plunges

Apparently buying out Petro Can wasn't enough...!

--M

Suncor Posts Second Straight Loss After Oil Plunges
04/ 23/ 2009
By Gene Laverty

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Suncor Energy Inc., the oil-sands producer that agreed last month to buy Petro-Canada, posted a second straight quarterly loss after the global recession dragged down crude prices.

Leech Lake, Say No to Tar Sands Pipeline ( Indigenous nations in Minnesota)

Leech Lake, Say No to Tar Sands Pipeline
April 29, 2009

By Nellis Kennedy and Winona LaDuke

Keep your children close, your inhalers in hand and don't forget to stock up on drinking water, as a new pipeline is proposed for northern Minnesota.

Warning: Corporate Redwash

Kitimat project worth $1 billion to First Nations

Scott Simpson,
Canwest News Service
Victoria Times Colonist
April 30, 2009

Some First Nations stand to gain more than $1 billion in profits, taxes
and business opportunities from a proposed liquid natural gas project in
northern British Columbia, Canwest News Service has learned.

Proponents of a $4-billion project that includes a 463-kilometre gas
pipeline and a liquefied natural gas plant at Kitimat are still ironing
out final details of a landmark agreement among aboriginal groups,