Canada's oil rush fuels environmental concerns

The oil industry's Maynard also said companies would be able to develop techniques to protect the environment in the same way they made the process of oil sands extraction commercially viable over the past 20 years. "It will take time," he added.

Premier Stelmach said Alberta's oil sands caused less than 1/10th of 1 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions and that Canada caused just 2 percent of global emissions. He also said emissions from oil sands were overstated — compared to those from conventional crude — because the figures do not take into account the emissions it takes to ship overseas oil to North America.

But David Suzuki, Canada's most prominent environmentalist, argued that introducing the shipping issue distorted the statistics. He also cautioned against accepting the argument that the oil industry would develop safer techniques such as carbon capture storage, noting that the time and money needed to determine such methods could not be predicted.

"They say, 'No, no we're going to do research and really clean up our act.' Well, you can't give these guys permission to go ahead on the promise that something is going to happen in the future," Suzuki said.

He and other critics warn the environmental ramifications are too dire to ramp up oil sands production. They argue that Canada's boreal forest, one of the largest intact ecosystems in the world, is being torn up to make way for the mines.

They also say that not enough was done to safeguard the environment while two smaller Canadian firms — Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude Canada Ltd. — extracted the oils sands for decades and that the situation is becoming alarming as major oil companies become more involved.

"For 40 years a couple of oil companies worked on the tar sands extraction process, not its environmental impacts. It was Alberta's massive expansion of tar sands leasing over the last few years, ignoring serious unanswered environmental and public health concerns, that created this mushrooming crisis," said Gary Stewart, a senior adviser to the International Boreal Conservation Campaign.

Refineries in the U.S. Midwest are retooling and expanding so they can process the thicker oil, raising concerns about more emissions.

Many also are worried about the amount of water taken from Alberta's Athabasca river. The extraction process uses 2 to 4 1/2 barrels of water for each barrel of oil produced, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit think tank.

Tailing ponds are deadly
There are concerns, too, about the tailing ponds that sit next to the river. The ponds contain waste made from the separation of oil from sand. The toxic ponds look more like lakes and take up 50 square miles of northern Alberta.

Jeff Short, a U.S. government scientist who studied the long-term effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, said if one of the ponds spilled into the river, the impact would be felt for decades — or centuries.

"It would be the equivalent of several hundred Exxon Valdez oil spills," Short said.

A flock of 500 migratory ducks recently died after landing on one of Syncrude's ponds, and an accidental discharge from a Suncor waste treatment plant in 1982 caused the closure of the commercial fishery downstream in Lake Athabasca for three years.

Residents of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta's oldest settlement about 170 miles downstream from the projects, are worried that toxins from the ponds could seep into the river and drift into their drinking water. They say they have caught deformed fish in Lake Athabasca and the river that feeds it.

John O'Connor, once the doctor of the native community of 1,200, found five cases — an unusually high incidence — of cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile duct. The illness is so uncommon it is usually seen in one in 100,000 people.

The government disputed O'Connor's diagnosis of five cases. It said O'Connor was raising undue alarm and accused him of professional misconduct in a formal complaint. O'Connor has since left the community and officials have yet to issue final judgment on his case.

"There are major health issues at Fort Chip," O'Connor said. "I'm just one of a chorus of people that are concerned."

The government only recently announced it would study the cancer rate. Aboriginal leaders have urged a definitive study for years.

Aboriginals, environmentalists and some opposition members of the Canadian Parliament are urging a moratorium on new development until more is known about environmental and health effects of oil sands mining.

New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton calls the size and scope of the projects staggering and said the environmental problems are being left for future generations. Liberal Party Leader Stephane Dion opposes a moratorium but urged the federal government to use its authority under environmental laws to ensure a more rational growth of the oil sands industry.

But the Conservative government doesn't want to get in the way of Canada becoming an energy power. The oil sands have created thousands of jobs and a booming economy in western Canada. Fort McMurray's population has burgeoned from 33,000 in 1996 to 65,000 last year. Mayor Blake of Wood Buffalo said it will be more than 100,000 soon.

High school graduates can make more than $100,000 driving a truck, but living costs are extraordinary and the quality of life poor. Workers are separated from their families because of a housing shortage — the average one-family house costs over $600,000 — and drugs and prostitution are rampant.

"It's unfathomable what's going on here," said George Poitras, a former chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation in Fort Chipewyan. "While we don't disagree that the resources should be exploited for human consumption, we are saying it should be done in a way that's manageable, responsible, sustainable. There are gross negligent environment and health issues being observed."

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