Ugh. I’m personally deeply concerned about climate change and the environment, and I’m a former subscriber of Outside Magazine. But that article is just pandering to the enemy of the day for American environmentalists. It’s really, really bad. I don’t even know where to begin.
Just understand that oil sands are located in a first world democracy in a country with open media reporting. The resource is managed by a universe of government regulations and monitoring, university research teams in probably every single science and even social discipline, and an industry that is so paranoid about it’s negative image that it offers high-paying jobs to the most vocal environmentalists and actually get them to help manage the resource. That will get you closer to understanding the actual context of the oil sands.
Like I said, I don’t know where to start. You can try googling, this looks interesting: http://www.ianas.org/books/Environmental_and_health_impacts_of_canadas_oil_sands%20Industry.pdf
Briefly:
Land disturbance, ‘looks like Hiroshima’. Yes, when you remove vegetation and top-soil it looks like dirt. All extraction permits require reclamation (that means restoration). Of course, it takes decades and to get a pass on the reclamation requires the environment to be truly restored (again we’re in Canada, the inspector isn’t going to give a pass for a $50 bill under the table). Getting the pass is very difficult, so not that many square miles have passed yet. But it is happening.
Tailings ponds, ‘the size of enormous lakes’. Absolutely a huge concern. The clay particles that get washed out of the sand are so fine in tailings that they simply don’t settle. They are contaminated and they just stay suspended in the water. Much research has been done, but it simply takes years to settle to the bottom. No it’s not released into the river, yes leeching is monitored closely and they use geofabrics to prevent it. Where spills occur it’s cleaned up and remediated. Given the production rates the ponds are huge.
Climate change. The GHG emissions are a bit higher than from traditional extraction methods, but not as bad as you think. Downstream (the people that burn the oil and gas, that is we the public) produce more GHG emissions than extraction. Of course, the general public is not such an easy target, is it?
What else. The ducks. Yes that incident in 2008 was tragic. It was also the worst incident, 1,600 ducks. At the time it was front page news for days and days. I like how the article makes it sound like it’s literally a daily occurence, like the consumption rate is 1,600 ducks per day. In reality the oil companies have staff and robots dedicated full-time to keeping waterfowl away from the ponds. The robots listen for their sounds and shoot environmentaly-friendly-lead-free shotgun blanks to scare them away. That day several circumstances, possibly freezing rain, conspired to shut them down. But they do what they can.
Like I said there’s just too much. One more point. The total disturbed area is something like 1,000 square kilometers. That is much less than the lost land from single hydrolelectric dams in the US and Canada, and those lands would never be reclaimed.
Anyway do some research, there are huge concerns with the oil sands, much room for improvement too. I personally think they are being mined faster than Alberta or Canada needs and we would be better off leaving some of it in the ground for future generations. But they are being managed.
