2
The Tar Sands of Alberta OVERVIEW The tar sands in the western Canadian province of Alberta are one of the largest deposits of oil in the world, second only to reserves in Saudi Arabia. 1 The tar sands are a complex mixture of sand, water, clay and bitumen—a thick tar-like substance that can only be made into synthetic crude oil through intensive processing. It takes huge amounts of energy, water and other resources to remove and refine the oil trapped in the sands 2 ; extracting the oil has serious environ- mental, social and economic costs. The tar sands lie underneath 140,800 square kilometres of forests and wetlands. 3 To process them, much of this area – greater in size than Greece, or Portugal and Denmark combined 4 – is being deforested, drained of clean water and polluted with toxic effluent. 5 There has never been a comprehensive assessment of the negative impacts of developing the tar sands. Despite the environmental destruction that results from extracting oil from tar sands, Canada’s “dirty oil” is sought after by the United States. Canada is considered much more stable and reliable than the Middle East and is now the number one exporter of oil to the U.S. 6 As a result, multinational oil corporations are proceeding at a frenetic pace to convert tar sands to dirty oil. But the costs are high. They include: Greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) The tar sands development is a major contributor to greenhouse gases, determining Canada’s role as one of the top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases in the world. 7 Loss of carbon storehouses The boreal ecosystem holds 22 per cent of the total carbon on earth; destroying it removes a vital carbon depository – and re- leases huge amounts of GHGs into the atmosphere. 8 Loss of fresh water One of North America’s most beautiful rivers, the Athabasca, flows through the tar sands region. 9 Current tar sands projects remove about 370 million cubic metres of water each year. 10 Much of it is contaminated with toxins and must be diverted to tailings ponds, depleting freshwater from the Athabasca-Peace-Mackenzie Delta – a World Heritage Site. 11 Devastated boreal wilderness Pristine forests and wetlands, and the wildlife that live there, are damaged beyond recovery by tar sands operations. 12 Human health costs Of the First Nations people who hunt and fish for their food, those living downstream from tar sands developments are seeing de- formed fish and animals and experiencing rising rates of cancer in their communities. 13 Socio-economic costs Rapid population growth in communities, such as Fort McMurray, which serve the tar sands industry and house workers, has caused severe shortages in housing and medical facilities and increases in homelessness, substance abuse and family violence. 14 Open pit mines Twenty per cent of tar sands reserves are close enough to the surface to be mined using open-pit techniques. Even before the mining starts, waterways are diverted, wetlands are drained, the boreal forest is clear cut and the “overburden” of muskeg, soil and rocks above the deposit is scraped off and hauled away. Two tonnes of bitumen-rich material must be extracted for every one barrel of oil produced. 15 In situ drilling operations At least 80 per cent of tar sands reserves are too deep to mine and must be extracted using in situ techniques. Supporting structures for these operations, such as seismic lines and pipelines, severely fragment the natural habitats of the bear, moose, caribou and birds that live there, resulting in their annihilation. 16 Toxic tailings lakes Waste water from both in situ and open-pit mining operations is stored in tailings ponds, the world’s largest impoundments of toxic waste. These immense ponds, filled with acutely toxic chemicals known to cause cancer in humans and deformities in fish and animals, seep into the surrounding soil and the groundwater, which feeds lakes, rivers and aquifers. 17
