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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Biggest
Oil Development in N. America Threatens Canadian Boreal Forests
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
5/23/96
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE by EE
The
Taiga Forest Network reports in econet's taiga.news conference (email
contact
is taiga@nn.apc.org) on oil development slated for Alberta, Canada,
which
will significantly impact large areas of ecologically significant
boreal
forest. Fully 65% of intact boreal
forest in Canada is under
threat. "The Alberta oil sands occupy a vast
area in the boreal forest
zone
about the size of New Brunswick. The oil sands contain approximately
one
third of the world's oil resources; it is estimated that some 300
billion
barrels of oil are ultimately recoverable, equal to or greater than
the
reserves of Saudi Arabia." In
Alberta, in addition to this huge oil
development,
the "transnational forest destroyers, Mitsubishi and Daishow"
recently
were given 15 percent of Alberta's land base to log.
Must
all the world's forests fall before alternatives are found to oil and
virgin
timbers? Whether the world's forests
persist through the current
worldwide
resource binge will have a major impact on future quality of
life. The Canadian government, despite a squeaky
clean environmental
image,
is party to the clearing of its own forest heritage, as well as
involvement
in proposed industrial rainforest logging in Guyana, South
America. Shame on Canada.
g.b.
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/**
taiga.news: 287.0 **/
**
Topic: ALBERTA: OIL SANDS PROJECT THREATEN **
**
Written 1:36 PM May
8, 1996 by nn:rogols in cdp:taiga.news **
Canada
OIL
SANDS MEGA-PROJECT THREATENS BOREAL FOREST IN ALBERTA
/From
Taiga News no 17/
THE
BIGGEST OIL DEVELOPMENT SCHEME in the history of North America is about
to
commence in northern Alberta. An array of oil company consortiums and
corporate
investors are planning to invest $25 billion over the next twenty
years
into the mining of the Alberta oil sands.
The oil
sands project is the latest industrial attack on the boreal forest,
which
has been under siege by transnational corporate clearcutters such as
Mitsubishi,
Daishowa, Weyerhauser, Louisiana Pacific, Repap and others.
Over 65
percent of Canada's boreal forest is under long term tenure to
timber
companies for the purpose of logging. The boreal forest, with its
shallow
soils, harsh climate and slow growing season, is especially
vulnerable
to the ravages of massive clearcutting and industrial
development.
As oil sands development accelerates, enormous areas of boreal
forest
will be stripped bare, excavated and turned into moonscapes,
destroying
carbon sinks, damaging biodiversity and substantially increasing
the
emission of greenhouse gases.
Alberta
environmentalists are calling on the federal government to include
assessments
of oil and gas export projects in the Canadian Environmental
Assessment
Act.
ANOTHER
SWEETHEART DEAL
The
boosterism of the Alberta media, spurred on by a public relations
onslaught
by the oil industry, touting the myriad of benefits Albertan
society
will reap from the oil sands has created a climate of near
hysteria.
If one is to believe all the "Happy Days Are Here Again" hype
coming
out of Wild Rose Country, the miraculous oil sands are going to
bring
about everything from world peace to a cure for the common cold.
The oil
industry demanded and were given major tax breaks and sweetheart
royalty
regimes by the Alberta provincial government and the Canadian
federal
government for oil sands development. Under a new royalty regime
recently
announced by the province, companies will pay a one percent
royalty
on all oil sands production in yet another larger-than-life Alberta
style
natural resource give-away. Remember, this is the same province where
two of
the most infamous transnational forest destroyers, Mitsubishi and
Daishowa,
were basically handed over an area of boreal forest amounting to
15
percent of the entire land base of Alberta.
One
dissenting voice of reason in the federal government has been Charles
Caccia,
Member of Parliament (MP) from Toronto. Caccia has recommended in
the
Report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable
Development that "the federal government refrain
from injecting any
additional
tax assistance into oil sands development." The report further
states
that oil sands development is a highly polluting industry that is
already
the beneficiary of significant tax largesse. Caccia accurately
summarizes
the oil sands issue vis-a-vis government subsidies with the
comment
that "...government assistance continues to be biased towards a
polluting
energy industry at the expense of energy efficiency and renewable
natural
resources." Caccia's call for environmental sanity has been drowned
out at
the federal level by Minister of Natural Resources Anne McClellan.
ONE
THIRD OF THE WORLD RESOURCES
The
Alberta oil sands occupy a vast area in the boreal forest zone about
the
size of New Brunswick. The oil sands contain approximately one third of
the
world's oil resources; it is estimated that some 300 billion barrels of
oil are
ultimately recoverable, equal to or greater than the reserves of
Saudi
Arabia. The oil industry claims that the oil sands reserves hold
enough
recoverable oil to supply Canada for 200 years. Industry estimates
also
claim that by the year 2020, the oil sands will be producing as much
as 1.2
million barrels a day, a significant amount of which will be
exported
to the U.S. market.
The
profligate consumption of natural resources by the U.S., Japan and
western
Europe continues to drive the destruction of Canadian
wilderness.
International trade agreements such as the FTA, NAFTA and
GATT
will force Canada to feed the seemingly insatiable American,
Japanese
and European appetites for pulp, timber, oil,
natural gas,
etc.
For example, Article 409 of the FTA states that with regard to
natural
resources, if Canada for whatever reason declares a shortage,
it
cannot impose restrictions on exports to the United States.
Not
surprisingly, the development of additional pipeline capacity to the
U.S.
market is in the works. Alberta environmentalists have raised
questions
about the environmental impacts of the proposed "Express
Pipeline,"
as it is planned to be routed through native prairie grasslands,
a
highly threatened ecosystem supporting more than 100 endangered species
in
Alberta. The company behind the pipeline project, the Alberta Energy
Company,
says the Express Pipeline is needed to provide an impetus for
further
oil sands development.
SEVERE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
A
report by conservation biologist Brian Horejsi of Western Wildlife
Environments
Consulting details the staggering scope of habitat
fragmentation
currently in Alberta from oil and gas development: in
total
over 225,000 wells have been drilled to date; 1.5 million kilometers
of
seismic road access have been cut; 750,000 kilometers of all-weather
road
access built; and 500,000 kilometers of pipeline right-of-way cut,
none of
it subjected to provincial or federal environmental impact
assessment.
The existing threats to ecosystem integrity and the ecology of
wildlife
populations from widespread oil and gas development will only be
exacerbated
by the oil sands mega-projects.
The oil
sands are located at various depths, from surface outcroppings to
several
hundred meters below the ground. Reserves at or near the surface
are
recovered using large scale strip mining techniques. Huge mounds of oil
sand
are excavated and moved by gargantuan trucks to extractors, where the
material
is heated until the sand separates from the oil. About 85 percent
of the
oil sand is sand and the rest is oil. It takes two tons of sand to
produce
one barrel of oil.
Since
opening its operation in 1978 one company, Syncrude, has excavated
1.5
billion tons of so-called overburden, the 20 meters deep layer of
muskeg,
gravel and shale that sit atop the actual oil sands. More soil has
been
excavated by Syncrude than from the construction of the Great Pyramid
of
Cheops, the Great Wall of China, the Suez Canal and the 10 biggest dams
in the
world combined. Syncrude has possibly created the largest surface
mine in
the world.
DRYING
UP THE BOREAL
The deeper
oil sands reserves are recovered by drilling horizontal wells
and
injecting massive amounts of steam far into the ground. Using this
method
of extraction, it takes nine barrels of water to produce one barrel
of oil.
Alberta environmentalists report that a Shell Canada oil sands
plant
has dried up one lake and has lowered the level of another lake so
low
that it froze solid, killing all the fish. Shell is currently taking
enormous
amounts of water from the Peace River for its oil sands
production.
There is serious concern as to what the long term adverse
environmental
impacts of the steam injection process (with its immense
water
requirements) will be on boreal hydrology.
"The drying up of the
boreal
from oil sands development and processing, combined with global
warming
and increased fire patterns, will transform the boreal forest into
a huge
carbon bomb," says Gray Jones, Executive Director of the Western
Canada
Wilderness Committee's Alberta Branch.
INDIGENOUS
PEOPLES AFFECTED
Oil
sands development will directly affect indigenous peoples in the boreal
forest,
overlapping upon much of the 10,000 square kilometer unceded
traditional
territory of the Lubicon Cree. The Lubicons are already
struggling
to preserve their boreal forest homeland from industrial
forestry,
conventional oil and gas development and the underhanded
political
machinations of the provincial government. In the rush to
accelerate
the mass exploitation of the oil sands, the potentially
devastating
impacts on the Lubicon Cree people and their traditional lands
aren't
even an after thought.
INCREASING
GLOBAL WARMING
The
aforementioned examples of Syncrude and Shell are just the tip of the
iceberg
in terms of what is to come. Oil sands development produces four
times
more upstream greenhouse gas emissions than does conventional oil
reserves.
The oil sands are already the biggest single emitter in Alberta
of
sulphur dioxide, a component of acid rain and greenhouse gases. Alberta
emits
500,000 tons of sulphur dioxide annually .
Petroleum operations in
Alberta
and nearby parts of British Columbia constitute the second largest
source
of sulphur emissions in North America, next to the industrial
regions
of Eastern Canada and the United States. A draft report by the
province's
environmental research center disclosing the harm being caused
to
domestic livestock from prolonged sulphur dioxide exposure is being
suppressed
by the Alberta government because of oil industry pressure and a
fear
that it could affect beef exports. The controversial report also
reveals
that the oil industry practice of spreading drilling wastes on land
used to
grow cattle feed can expose the animals to toxic heavy metals such
as
cadmium and mercury. The report goes on to state that "humans who eat
beef
may then be exposed to high concentrations of toxic substances."
SLASHING
THE ENVIRONMENTAL BUDGET
So what
has been the response of the far right Alberta provincial
government?
Premier Ralph Klein's solution has been to slash the budget
for the
provincial Environment Department. In the next three years the
Klein
government will cut 500 jobs from the department and reduce the
department's
budget by $164 million. The Environment Department's staff
has
been cut 1,360 positions since 1992. In addition, Klein has announced
that
the oil industry will essentially be handed over responsibility for
the
monitoring of emission levels in water and the atmosphere. Sounding
like
Big Brother in Orwell's 1984, Klein says that as a result of his
budget
cuts and deregulation, Alberta will see more environmental
protection,
not less. This is an integral part of the "Alberta Advantage,"
Klein's
ongoing strategy of rolling out the red carpet to big business.
FINAL
NAIL IN THE COFFIN
Aside
from being important carbon sinks, it is believed that boreal forests
also
store vast amounts of frozen methane in the permafrost zone, a
greenhouse
gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. When boreal
forests
are clearcut, the micro climate is affected. Changes in micro
climate
can affect regional climate. Loss of forest cover and higher
temperatures
have the potential to thaw and cause retreat of the boreal's
frozen
peat lands, releasing methane. The more methane released, the warmer
the
climate becomes, and the more northward shift of the permafrost zone.
Even a
warming of one degree celsius has the potential to eradicate 25
percent
of the boreal forest. Climatologists forecast the boreal forest
will be
reduced by 50 to 90 percent in the next century, being widely
eliminated
west of James Bay. Given this scenario, one has to wonder if the
development
of the oil sands will be the final nail in the coffin of
Alberta's
great boreal forest.
CHRIS
GENOVALI
PACIFIC
ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES CENTER
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