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.

CNRL (operators of Horizon) charged in foreign slave-labour deaths

EDMONTON — The Alberta government announced Tuesday that 53 charges have
been laid in the deaths of two foreign workers at an oilsands site two years
ago.

Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Sinopec Shanghai Engineering Company Ltd.,
and SSEC Canada Ltd., have been charged under the Occupational Health and
Safety Act.

A breakdown of the charges was not immediately available.

Alberta Employment Minister Hector Goudreau said the charges signal to the
world that Alberta's oilsands remain a safe place to work.

Meeting set in Lindsay on Keystone XL pipeline project

Meeting set in Lindsay on pipeline project
Published on Tuesday, April 21, 2009.
By The Gazette Staff

Property owners and others along the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline are invited to hear from experts on landowner alliances and pipeline safety Sunday at 6 p.m. at the Lindsay Community Hall in Lindsay.

Lindsay is halfway between Glendive and Circle on Montana 200.

Council approves call to halt tar sands

Council approves call to halt tar sands
Cara Loverock
Northern News Services
Published Friday, April 17, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A motion to stop new tar sands approvals in Alberta until certain measures are put in place was passed on Tuesday.

Nexen, Opti Canada may be targeted in tar sands deals

Nexen, Opti Canada may be targeted in oil sands deals
By Joe Carroll, Bloomberg
April 3, 2009

Nexen Inc. and Opti Canada Inc. may be among Canadian oil companies targeted for takeovers as a price collapse triggers a rush by larger producers to amass holdings in the biggest crude deposits outside Saudi Arabia.

Alaska Highway Pipeline competitors update legislators about progress

Despite the continuation of the little side show designed to make us believe that this pipeline is set to go to "markets in the lower 48", there is still both the maps of where the gas is to go (the Alberta Grid) and the basic math which tells us that the pipeline is *needed* in order to get to the production targets for the tar sands of Alberta-- over 5 million barrels a day of tar sands bitumen/ mock oil.

--M

Pipeline competitors update legislators about progress
GAS: Transcanada says it has expertise; Denali sees concerns with partnership.
Petroleum News
April 15th, 2009

Tar sands water hearings due in Wood Buffalo in May

Oilsands hearings due in Wood Buffalo in May
CAROL CHRISTIAN // April 16, 2009
Fort McMurray Today staff

The federal hearings on the impact of oilsands development on fresh water will be heading to the Wood Buffalo area next month, prompted by the urging of Edmonton MP Linda Duncan.

While hearings have been held in Ottawa since they resumed in March, hearing from government witnesses first, it was a bit of a battle to get them to Alberta, a victory that Duncan says was hard-fought.

Big-league players step up for tar sands-- US lobbying

Big-league players step up for oil sands
U.S. lobbying
By Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
March 11, 2009

As Alberta's oil sands industry struggles with depressed oil prices and opposition from the environmental movement, a new front is emerging to support it -- in Washington.

"Pipe From India Incenses Illinois Town" [Keystone]

Pipe From India Incenses Illinois Town
Dan Gill for The New York Times

Steel pipes marked "Made in India" sat ready for the Canada-to-Oklahoma pipeline at the Port Authority in Granite City, Ill.

April 15, 2009

GRANITE CITY, Ill. — Jeff Rains, a retired steel worker at the sprawling mill here, made the discovery. Out walking a month ago, he waited impatiently at a rail crossing while a freight train slowly passed, its flatbed cars stacked with steel pipes, each wide enough for a child to crawl through. Then he noticed “Made in India” stenciled on the pipes.

Suncor fined over $1-million [re: Firebag]

Suncor fined over $1-million
Apr. 02 2009
ctvcalgary.ca

Suncor and one of its contractors have been ordered to pay over $1 million in fines after pleading guilty to breaching environmental laws.

Suncor pleaded guilty to not having emissions controls at its Firebag oilsands facility.

The lack of pollution control equipment meant hydrogen sulphide and other compounds were released into the air.

For this violation, Suncor Energy Inc. has been fined $675,000.

Suncor is also in trouble for allowing sewage to be dumped into the Athabasca River.

Petro-Canada Cuts 200 Jobs, blames Fort Hills

Petro-Canada Cuts 200 Jobs From Oil-Sands Unit On Proj Delay
* APRIL 15, 2009

OTTAWA (Dow Jones)--Petro-Canada (PCZ) is cutting some 200 jobs in its oil-sands unit as its Fort Hills project remains stalled amid weakened oil prices and the stuttering economy.

The layoffs, which will affect nearly a third of the department's employees, are "absolutely not at all connected" to the merger with Suncor Energy Inc. (SU) announced last month, said Petro-Canada spokeswoman Kelli Stevens.