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INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK
RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK
NEWSFLASH...August 30,2010
Read the latest comprehensive scientific study published on toxicity of the Tar Sands that contradicts government claims.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/08/30/TarSandsStudy/
The following statements were extracted from Andrew Nikiforuk’s book entitled TAR SANDS, Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.
Declaration of a Political Emergency
Northern Alberta’s bituminous sands, a national treasure, are the globe’s last great remaining oil field. This strategic boreal resource has attracted nearly 60 percent of all global oil investments. Every major multinational and nationally owned oil company has staked a claim in the tar sands.
Investments in the tar sands now totals approximately 200 billion. The tar sands boom has become the world’s largest energy project. No comprehensive assessment of the megaproject’s environmental, economic or social impact has been done.
Since 2001, Canada has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the largest single exporter of oil to the United States. Canadian crude now accounts for nearly one fifth of all U.S. oil imports. If development continues unabated, Canada will soon provide the fading U.S. empire with nearly a third of its oil, while half of Canada’s own citizens remain dependant on insecure supplies from the Middle East.
Bitumen is one of the world’s most water intensive oil products. Each barrel requires the consumption of three barrels of fresh water from the Athabasca River, which is part of the world’s third largest watershed. Every day, Canada exports one million barrels of bitumen to the United States and three million barrels of virtual water.
Industry in the tar sands uses as much water every year as a city of 2 million people. 90 percent of this water ends up in the world’s largest impoundments of toxic waste: the tailings ponds. Industrial water monitoring on the Athabasca River is a fraud. Canada has no national water policy and one of worst records in pollution enforcement of any industrial nation.
The tailings ponds, located along the Athabasca River, leak or seep intro groundwater. For the last decade, the downstream community of Fort Chipewyan has documented rare cancers. Bitumen projects will never be sustainable. The megaproject will eventually destroy and industrialize a forest the size Florida and diminish the biological diversity and hydrology of the region forever.
Every Canadian who drives a car is part of this political emergency. And every Canadian can be part of the solution.
We must begin today.
TAR SANDS, Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
pg. 1-4
TAKE ACTION:
Check out any one of these courageous organizations and join their campaigns against the tar sands.
