Land, regardless of whether covered by forests, tundra or grasslands, is threatened by mining operations such as Alberta’s vast open tar pit operations, or through incredible networks of “right of way” cuts for pipelines that extend in the hundreds of thousands of miles, all told, and across the continent in four directions and to three oceans—either through feeding the tarsand operations with fossil fuel energy or through feeding energy markets from tarsand operations after production. In the case of pipeline right of ways, they can blast directly through mountains or be buried in permafrost if needed, to get the energy to move.
Alberta Regulator Quietly Halts Steam Bitumen Mining Near Fort Mac
by Andrew Nikiforuk, originally published by The Tyee | March 13, 2014
The Alberta energy regulator has suspended the fastest-growing source of bitumen production around Fort McMurray due to concerns about fracturing the region’s cap rock.
Hundreds of Students Arrested at White House Protesting Keystone XL
Posted: 03/02/2014
I just came back from the White House, where the police are still arresting the hundreds of students who are taking part in what will likely be the largest act of youth civil disobedience at the White House in a generation.
This is XL Dissent: a massive surge of protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and a powerful show of solidarity with all communities who are fighting the fossil fuel industry and confronting the impacts of the climate crisis.
Alberta doctor tells U.S.: Canada is ‘lying’ about tar sands’ health effects
Thursday, 27 February 2014
American Senators told that oil sands are linked to a huge spike in cancer, despite Canadian government claims
Mychaylo Prystupa
Vancouver Observer
A northern Alberta doctor warned U.S. Senators on what he says have been the devastating health impacts of the tar sands on families – effects, he says, that have been willfully “ignored” by the Canadian and Alberta governments.
Another Enbridge pipeline proposed for Canadian tar sands oil
Duluth News Tribune
By: John Myers
March 4, 2014
Enbridge Energy said today it plans to build yet another new oil pipeline into the Northland, on top of two expansion projects already in the works.
Enbridge said it would end service of its aged Line No. 3 from Alberta to Superior and replace it with a larger capacity line to bring northwestern Canadian oil into the U.S.
13 Towns Pass Anti-Tar Sands Resolutions
VPR
By Amy Kolb Noyes
Voters in Albany, Barton, Glover, Hartland, Jay, Richmond, Sheffield, Shelburne, Stannard, Stafford, Sutton, Westmore, and Wheelock passed anti-tar sands resolutions at Town Meeting this year.
The issue was also on the Town Meeting warning in Burke, but voters there decided to table a vote after some discussion.
Tar sands experts on tap for town hall
by Jennifer Feinberg - Chilliwack Progress
Mar 5, 2014
The risks and the realities of pipelines are the focus of a town hall meeting March 7 at the Best Western Rainbow Country Inn, hosted by the PIPE UP Network.
The timing has to do with the National Energy Board gearing up for hearings on the proposed pipeline project by Kinder Morgan, which is planned to cut through communities across the Lower Mainland.
Oil’s new Arctic passage to Europe
Jeffrey Jones
Calgary — The Globe and Mail
Aug. 15 2013
As some of the biggest players in Canada’s oil industry fight for proposals to move the product west, south and east, a new plan is emerging to move crude north.
Omnitrax Inc., a private U.S. company that owns Churchill, Man.’s port, may provide a new channel for moving crude to markets on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Canadian group pitches Alaska rail line for oil sands
Posted on February 4, 2014
By Jennifer Canfield
Juneau Empire
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Could a $15 billion railroad project reduce the cost of living in Alaska overnight? Matt Vickers, a lead member in the startup group G7G Railway Corp., thinks it can.
Mining Tar Sands Produces Much More Air Pollution Than We Thought
Research shows that emissions of a class of air pollutants are two to three orders of magnitude higher than previously calculated
By Joseph Stromberg
February 3, 2014es
Environmental health risks of Alberta oil sands likely underestimated: study
John Cotter
EDMONTON — The Canadian Press
Feb. 03 2014
A new study suggests the environmental health risks of oilsands operations in Alberta’s Athabasca region have probably been underestimated.
Researchers say emissions of potentially hazardous air pollution that were used in environmental reviews done before approving some projects did not include evaporation from tailings ponds or other sources, such as dust from mining sites.
