Ducks in Alberta died a crude death
May 1, 2008 7:29 AM Subscribe
Ducks die a crude death. Alberta's oilsands (previously) (map) have a new emblem -- hundreds of ducks coated and killed in oily toxic sludge. About 500 birds landed and died in an oil sands pond. The pond full of toxic sludge sits along a major flight path for migrating waterfowl.
News of the dying ducks wasn't disclosed until Alberta deputy premier Ron Stevens completed meetings with government and business officials in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. His five-day trip is part a new $25-million marketing campaign to counter negative perceptions of the oilsands and sell the province as a source of secure and environmentally sustainable energy.
More news reports.
Previously on MetaFilter.
News of the dying ducks wasn't disclosed until Alberta deputy premier Ron Stevens completed meetings with government and business officials in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. His five-day trip is part a new $25-million marketing campaign to counter negative perceptions of the oilsands and sell the province as a source of secure and environmentally sustainable energy.
More news reports.
Previously on MetaFilter.
Well, if the river was oil sand, and I was a divin' duck
Well, if the the river was oil sand, I'd be a dyin' duck
Well, I would dive to the bottom, never would I come up.
posted by Floydd at 8:02 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
Well, if the the river was oil sand, I'd be a dyin' duck
Well, I would dive to the bottom, never would I come up.
posted by Floydd at 8:02 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
About 12 million migratory ducks got killed by hunters in the U.S. alone last year. That doesn't count other game birds. 500 more of those ducks being killed by accident is hardly noteworthy. There was a plan in place, it got screwed up this year, they'll get fined and fix it.
posted by Ragma at 8:19 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Ragma at 8:19 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
Thank you so much for posting this story. I read about the ducks earlier in the week, and it nearly brought me to tears.
Fort McMurray is my hometown. I grew up there, and even though I haven't been home in six or seven years, it's always going to be my hometown.
Fort McMurray is a difficult place to explain. The crazy pace of industrial progress is the most immediately obvious feature, but I feel there is more to it than that. For one thing, even though I grew up and went to school in the middle of nowhere, my classmates came from all over the world and all sorts of cultures. I went to school with Sikhs, with Hindus, with Muslims, with people from the Caribbean, from northern Africa, from Europe. I can't really express how much that has shaped my outlook. I feel very fortunate to have had that exposure to people who weren't just like me. The nature of the tarsands industry brought all those different people to one place to work together.
The environment... the region really is beautiful. There were beaver dams about 10km from the house where I grew up, and we could go and watch them build in the spring. Bears coming out of hibernation about the same time would be less of a spectacle and more of a "hide your garbage cans and keep your pets inside" event in the spring. Ditto for the wolves. Moose and deer were also easy to spot just outside of the city. I'll admit that the fens and marshes weren't really attractive for hiking or picnicking, and the monotony of black and white spruce along the highways could get to you, but they have their appeal for me as well.
One of the most beautiful things I can remember about my hometown is a winter sled ride. It was only seven or eight o'clock, but it's already deep night, the stars are bright and the moon is a sliver. The snow is almost purple in the weak starlight. The trees are a black border above which the auroras are quivering and winding upwards. Seeing the colour of the stars was amazing... some red, some blue, some a faint yellow. The only thing I could hear, other than the jingling of the horses' harness, was that sound of still snow that discourages people from speaking, for fear of interrupting it.
All of these positive memories I have are hard to balance against the environmental punishment that's taking place there. As a child in school, we were always told (during school trips and such) that the plants did everything in their power to try to help minimise the damage. The noisemakers that malfunctioned in the story described here have been in use for at least 20 years. I think they're motion activated, but I can't quite recall. We were also taught about how much was done for soil reclaimation, replanting efforts, and in the last ten years a bison herd has been re-introduced to the region. But even with all these things, everyone there knows that much more needs to be done. The efforts the plants have taken are a first step and only that, but they've been on that first step for 25 years. Everyone knows it's not enough, but no one there is willing -- or able -- to speak up, without risking their livelihood. The rate of development means that the city and the plants are going to consume themselves, and leave nothing behind.
Does that make it alright? Of course not. Please don't take this (longwinded, rambling) post as an apologia. I am genuinely afraid for the future of my hometown. I want to be able to return there, maybe with my children, and show them all the wonderful things I was able to experience. But that's just not going to happen unless people in Alberta, and people who invest in the projects there, are willing to make some changes. I hope this story is able to convince some people of how immediate the need for change is. Thank you so much for giving it more exposure.
posted by vesper at 8:23 AM on May 1, 2008 [5 favorites]
Fort McMurray is my hometown. I grew up there, and even though I haven't been home in six or seven years, it's always going to be my hometown.
Fort McMurray is a difficult place to explain. The crazy pace of industrial progress is the most immediately obvious feature, but I feel there is more to it than that. For one thing, even though I grew up and went to school in the middle of nowhere, my classmates came from all over the world and all sorts of cultures. I went to school with Sikhs, with Hindus, with Muslims, with people from the Caribbean, from northern Africa, from Europe. I can't really express how much that has shaped my outlook. I feel very fortunate to have had that exposure to people who weren't just like me. The nature of the tarsands industry brought all those different people to one place to work together.
The environment... the region really is beautiful. There were beaver dams about 10km from the house where I grew up, and we could go and watch them build in the spring. Bears coming out of hibernation about the same time would be less of a spectacle and more of a "hide your garbage cans and keep your pets inside" event in the spring. Ditto for the wolves. Moose and deer were also easy to spot just outside of the city. I'll admit that the fens and marshes weren't really attractive for hiking or picnicking, and the monotony of black and white spruce along the highways could get to you, but they have their appeal for me as well.
One of the most beautiful things I can remember about my hometown is a winter sled ride. It was only seven or eight o'clock, but it's already deep night, the stars are bright and the moon is a sliver. The snow is almost purple in the weak starlight. The trees are a black border above which the auroras are quivering and winding upwards. Seeing the colour of the stars was amazing... some red, some blue, some a faint yellow. The only thing I could hear, other than the jingling of the horses' harness, was that sound of still snow that discourages people from speaking, for fear of interrupting it.
All of these positive memories I have are hard to balance against the environmental punishment that's taking place there. As a child in school, we were always told (during school trips and such) that the plants did everything in their power to try to help minimise the damage. The noisemakers that malfunctioned in the story described here have been in use for at least 20 years. I think they're motion activated, but I can't quite recall. We were also taught about how much was done for soil reclaimation, replanting efforts, and in the last ten years a bison herd has been re-introduced to the region. But even with all these things, everyone there knows that much more needs to be done. The efforts the plants have taken are a first step and only that, but they've been on that first step for 25 years. Everyone knows it's not enough, but no one there is willing -- or able -- to speak up, without risking their livelihood. The rate of development means that the city and the plants are going to consume themselves, and leave nothing behind.
Does that make it alright? Of course not. Please don't take this (longwinded, rambling) post as an apologia. I am genuinely afraid for the future of my hometown. I want to be able to return there, maybe with my children, and show them all the wonderful things I was able to experience. But that's just not going to happen unless people in Alberta, and people who invest in the projects there, are willing to make some changes. I hope this story is able to convince some people of how immediate the need for change is. Thank you so much for giving it more exposure.
posted by vesper at 8:23 AM on May 1, 2008 [5 favorites]
Well, we Albertans do have the best government that Big Oil can buy.
posted by isopraxis at 8:23 AM on May 1, 2008
posted by isopraxis at 8:23 AM on May 1, 2008
It's really sad, I've heard that to extract the sludge, fresh clean water is pumped into the ground. This water can never be retrieved. It turns into a sludgy mixture that is entombed forever. And the price of oil is going to ensure that this method of extraction is economically viable from here on out.
posted by kuatto at 9:02 AM on May 1, 2008
posted by kuatto at 9:02 AM on May 1, 2008
Oilsands activity threatens water supply.
I suppose the issue that I should have included in the FPP was the fact that extracting and creating synthetic crude from oil or tar sands uses an incredible amount of water: the gooey, tarry sand has to be blasted with superheated steam to claim the crude. Most, if not all of the water is pumped into massive, toxic settling ponds (often quite close to the Athabaska River). It's an environmental disaster financed by peak oil.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:03 AM on May 1, 2008
I suppose the issue that I should have included in the FPP was the fact that extracting and creating synthetic crude from oil or tar sands uses an incredible amount of water: the gooey, tarry sand has to be blasted with superheated steam to claim the crude. Most, if not all of the water is pumped into massive, toxic settling ponds (often quite close to the Athabaska River). It's an environmental disaster financed by peak oil.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:03 AM on May 1, 2008
It's a real blow to our messaging that we are working very, very hard ensure that we do have sustainable development
I feel bad for the messaging. That's rough news for messages everywhere.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:05 AM on May 1, 2008 [2 favorites]
I feel bad for the messaging. That's rough news for messages everywhere.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:05 AM on May 1, 2008 [2 favorites]
A particularly grisly and disturbing version of the canary in the coal mine-- like murder magnified to genocide-- and a dark augury for all of us.
For one thing, even though I grew up and went to school in the middle of nowhere, my classmates came from all over the world and all sorts of cultures. I went to school with Sikhs, with Hindus, with Muslims, with people from the Caribbean, from northern Africa, from Europe. I can't really express how much that has shaped my outlook. I feel very fortunate to have had that exposure to people who weren't just like me.
A few months ago I ran across an article quoting a 19th or early 20th century industrialist who used a lot of immigrant labor in his factories advising his peers to be sure to hire many different ethnic groups and national origins for any given installation because that way, the inability to communicate and mutual hostility and suspicion of the separate groups would make it impossible for the workers to effectively organize.
But your experience shows that though the sins of the fathers are almost inevitably visited upon the sons, they can be redeemed by those sons too, vesper.
I'd guess this is a ancient strategy of overlords; the story of the Tower of Babel looks to me like a typical misunderstanding of one of the enslaved peoples, the Jews, of the employment of this trick by the Babylonians for the construction of their Ziggurats.
posted by jamjam at 9:26 AM on May 1, 2008
For one thing, even though I grew up and went to school in the middle of nowhere, my classmates came from all over the world and all sorts of cultures. I went to school with Sikhs, with Hindus, with Muslims, with people from the Caribbean, from northern Africa, from Europe. I can't really express how much that has shaped my outlook. I feel very fortunate to have had that exposure to people who weren't just like me.
A few months ago I ran across an article quoting a 19th or early 20th century industrialist who used a lot of immigrant labor in his factories advising his peers to be sure to hire many different ethnic groups and national origins for any given installation because that way, the inability to communicate and mutual hostility and suspicion of the separate groups would make it impossible for the workers to effectively organize.
But your experience shows that though the sins of the fathers are almost inevitably visited upon the sons, they can be redeemed by those sons too, vesper.
I'd guess this is a ancient strategy of overlords; the story of the Tower of Babel looks to me like a typical misunderstanding of one of the enslaved peoples, the Jews, of the employment of this trick by the Babylonians for the construction of their Ziggurats.
posted by jamjam at 9:26 AM on May 1, 2008
A few months ago I ran across an article quoting a 19th or early 20th century industrialist who used a lot of immigrant labor in his factories advising his peers to be sure to hire many different ethnic groups and national origins for any given installation because that way, the inability to communicate and mutual hostility and suspicion of the separate groups would make it impossible for the workers to effectively organize.
This is the weirdest thing I've read on MetaFilter for a while.
Anyway, petrochemical engineers are a cosmopolitan bunch - many of the companies operating in Fort McMurray are transnational companies with a highly mobile labour pool; people come from all over the world. As well, wages are higher in Fort Mac, which is attractive to recent immigrants to Canada who have trouble entering the workforce.
And I think vesper's experience directly contradicts your... theory, jamjam. People from different cultures learn to live and work together (it's not hard), and trust each other.
So, in other words...FAIL.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:37 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
This is the weirdest thing I've read on MetaFilter for a while.
Anyway, petrochemical engineers are a cosmopolitan bunch - many of the companies operating in Fort McMurray are transnational companies with a highly mobile labour pool; people come from all over the world. As well, wages are higher in Fort Mac, which is attractive to recent immigrants to Canada who have trouble entering the workforce.
And I think vesper's experience directly contradicts your... theory, jamjam. People from different cultures learn to live and work together (it's not hard), and trust each other.
So, in other words...FAIL.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:37 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
Also, this is just the beginning, the tar sands are barely online and as KokuRyu notes, they use massive amounts of water. Water vs. Oil -- the perfect storm of the 21st century.
Oh, wait, it could be more perfect: they are planning a nuclear reactor to process the tar sands. That should go well.
posted by Rumple at 9:40 AM on May 1, 2008
Oh, wait, it could be more perfect: they are planning a nuclear reactor to process the tar sands. That should go well.
posted by Rumple at 9:40 AM on May 1, 2008
I'm in Alberta too, and rumour has it that there's a tailing pond 10km2 up there and to stop the ducks and geese from landing on it they have torches shooting flames in the air to scare them away. Can anyone confirm this?
posted by furtive at 9:41 AM on May 1, 2008
posted by furtive at 9:41 AM on May 1, 2008
What makes the timing of this so beautiful is that the government just started a campaign to convince the world that the oilsands aren't an environmental disaster.
What seems to be really telling, to me as an Albertan, is that I have to keep going to media outside the province to get a full story.
posted by never used baby shoes at 9:50 AM on May 1, 2008
What seems to be really telling, to me as an Albertan, is that I have to keep going to media outside the province to get a full story.
posted by never used baby shoes at 9:50 AM on May 1, 2008
We got plenty of ducks.
You can never have enough ducks. Now, loser-duck-wannabes like geese, those can get tiresome. But ducks? They rule.
posted by quin at 9:53 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
You can never have enough ducks. Now, loser-duck-wannabes like geese, those can get tiresome. But ducks? They rule.
posted by quin at 9:53 AM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
great to see that ducks have done for the tar sands catastrophy what a bunch of indians with cancer failed to do.
get noticed, that is.
posted by klanawa at 10:31 AM on May 1, 2008 [3 favorites]
get noticed, that is.
posted by klanawa at 10:31 AM on May 1, 2008 [3 favorites]
Since when did Canada become the bad guys? What happened to your government?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:34 AM on May 1, 2008
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:34 AM on May 1, 2008
Ah, brings back memories of "document digesting" on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal case. Duck deaths was a subject code there, too.
posted by maxwelton at 11:01 AM on May 1, 2008
posted by maxwelton at 11:01 AM on May 1, 2008
Since when did Canada become the bad guys? What happened to your government?
we elected it. after gaping in horror at the slow-motion car wreck that is the george bush presidency, we up and elected our own series of provincial and federal copycat regimes. the difference being that ours are far more competent at achieving, and cultivating support for, their destruction of our country in the name of money and power.
posted by klanawa at 11:12 AM on May 1, 2008
we elected it. after gaping in horror at the slow-motion car wreck that is the george bush presidency, we up and elected our own series of provincial and federal copycat regimes. the difference being that ours are far more competent at achieving, and cultivating support for, their destruction of our country in the name of money and power.
posted by klanawa at 11:12 AM on May 1, 2008
Terrorist Ducks. It was them or us.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:27 AM on May 1, 2008
posted by blue_beetle at 11:27 AM on May 1, 2008
Since when did Canada become the bad guys? What happened to your government?
While our current federal government pretty much stinks, resource extraction is in the hands of the provincial government, in this case Alberta's, which has a long and glorious history of letting anyone grab whatever they want and not caring at all about the environmental consequences. Alberta's political climate is different in many ways than that in the rest of Canada and the people of Alberta have shown again and again that they are going to vote for whoever is most likely to keep the money flowing into their pockets (the most egregious example being that a few years ago the Alberta government decided they had too much oil money and went ahead and cut everyone in the province a cheque). Environmental policy in much of Canada is pretty bad as well, but Alberta is even worse.
Nearly three decades ago, the current prime minister (Trudeau) tried to exert more federal control over oil extraction (though mostly in grabbing some of the revenue stream) and Albertans are still griping about it to this day, so there isn't much hope that anyone else in Canada is going to have much say.
posted by ssg at 11:43 AM on May 1, 2008
While our current federal government pretty much stinks, resource extraction is in the hands of the provincial government, in this case Alberta's, which has a long and glorious history of letting anyone grab whatever they want and not caring at all about the environmental consequences. Alberta's political climate is different in many ways than that in the rest of Canada and the people of Alberta have shown again and again that they are going to vote for whoever is most likely to keep the money flowing into their pockets (the most egregious example being that a few years ago the Alberta government decided they had too much oil money and went ahead and cut everyone in the province a cheque). Environmental policy in much of Canada is pretty bad as well, but Alberta is even worse.
Nearly three decades ago, the current prime minister (Trudeau) tried to exert more federal control over oil extraction (though mostly in grabbing some of the revenue stream) and Albertans are still griping about it to this day, so there isn't much hope that anyone else in Canada is going to have much say.
posted by ssg at 11:43 AM on May 1, 2008
Not just oil and the blame is on both sides of the border. Recently.
Water's gonna be the next hot commodity. While some may not give a rat's ass about a few ducks, I bet they will care when their water becomes scarce or poisoned. Just how much crap do we humans have to have before our greedy little wants are satisfied? The idea of getting gold out of the ground to make money is ludicrous when it comes with a price that high. Base our economy on something else, like walnuts or something, 'cause they're all nuts anyway.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 12:34 PM on May 1, 2008
Water's gonna be the next hot commodity. While some may not give a rat's ass about a few ducks, I bet they will care when their water becomes scarce or poisoned. Just how much crap do we humans have to have before our greedy little wants are satisfied? The idea of getting gold out of the ground to make money is ludicrous when it comes with a price that high. Base our economy on something else, like walnuts or something, 'cause they're all nuts anyway.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 12:34 PM on May 1, 2008
Since when did Canada become the bad guys? What happened to your government?
we elected it. after gaping in horror at the slow-motion car wreck that is the george bush presidency, we up and elected our own series of provincial and federal copycat regimes.
Oh, come on, you can't be serious. Even the neo-liberal regimes that have popped up in BC and Quebec have been slowed down by democracy in action, plain and simple, and have moved to the centre since the middle of the decade.
Besides, environmental stewardship has nothing to do with political stripe in Canada, and we have been causing great environmental harm here long before GWB took office.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:35 PM on May 1, 2008
we elected it. after gaping in horror at the slow-motion car wreck that is the george bush presidency, we up and elected our own series of provincial and federal copycat regimes.
Oh, come on, you can't be serious. Even the neo-liberal regimes that have popped up in BC and Quebec have been slowed down by democracy in action, plain and simple, and have moved to the centre since the middle of the decade.
Besides, environmental stewardship has nothing to do with political stripe in Canada, and we have been causing great environmental harm here long before GWB took office.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:35 PM on May 1, 2008
slowed down, how? for every instance of a policy that the BC government has had to withdraw due to public outcry, there are ten that have either gone through unnoticed or been forced through anyway. besides, i would rather have a government that did the right thing without having to endure a shitstorm of protest first. having a government that's responsible to some kind of moral imperative rather than bad PR would be nice, no?
political stripe has everything to do with environmental stewrdship. the BC liberals get their ideological guidance from the fraser institute. for our american friends, the FI is pure grover norquist. that means 100% private ownership, trade liberalization and deregulation, each of which make effective environmental stewardship damn near impossible.
just because canadian neo-liberals don't use religion and prejudice as instruments of control the way their american cohort does, doesn't mean their economic ideologies aren't identical.
finally, my point about GWB is not that he caused any of this, but that we, smug sons o' bitches that we are, pointed and laughed and then turned around and voted for the same things we pretended to oppose.
posted by klanawa at 1:50 PM on May 1, 2008
political stripe has everything to do with environmental stewrdship. the BC liberals get their ideological guidance from the fraser institute. for our american friends, the FI is pure grover norquist. that means 100% private ownership, trade liberalization and deregulation, each of which make effective environmental stewardship damn near impossible.
just because canadian neo-liberals don't use religion and prejudice as instruments of control the way their american cohort does, doesn't mean their economic ideologies aren't identical.
finally, my point about GWB is not that he caused any of this, but that we, smug sons o' bitches that we are, pointed and laughed and then turned around and voted for the same things we pretended to oppose.
posted by klanawa at 1:50 PM on May 1, 2008
I just don't see how politics, with respect to the environment, have changed very much if at all, ever, in Canada. The utter devastation of the old growth forests in BC happened long before the Campbell government came to power.
And even the most rightwing government in Canada (Campbell) would still come off as socialist when compared to GWB. Even Harper's conservatives aren't particularly right wing. They blocked the sale of MDA, for heaven's sake, when 99% of the company's shareholders said they wanted to sell the company. If that doesn't fly in the face of free markets, I don't know what does. And you can't say that Canadians voted in Harper after we "laughed and then turned around and voted for the same things we pretended to oppose," because Harper has a minority government.
Alberta is curious in that they refused to throw out an incompetent Conservative government, but why should people have to choose an even more incompetent Liberal, NDP or Green alternative?
And if you want a lesson about how the electorate can really force a neo-con government to revisit and radically revise policy, look at how much Charest and the Liberals in Quebec have been forced to change how they do things.
Anyway, the NDP in the 90s were locking up environmentalists merely for holding up protest signs on logging roads. I think my point has been made.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:12 PM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
And even the most rightwing government in Canada (Campbell) would still come off as socialist when compared to GWB. Even Harper's conservatives aren't particularly right wing. They blocked the sale of MDA, for heaven's sake, when 99% of the company's shareholders said they wanted to sell the company. If that doesn't fly in the face of free markets, I don't know what does. And you can't say that Canadians voted in Harper after we "laughed and then turned around and voted for the same things we pretended to oppose," because Harper has a minority government.
Alberta is curious in that they refused to throw out an incompetent Conservative government, but why should people have to choose an even more incompetent Liberal, NDP or Green alternative?
And if you want a lesson about how the electorate can really force a neo-con government to revisit and radically revise policy, look at how much Charest and the Liberals in Quebec have been forced to change how they do things.
Anyway, the NDP in the 90s were locking up environmentalists merely for holding up protest signs on logging roads. I think my point has been made.
posted by KokuRyu at 2:12 PM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
Kokoryu: I don't like Campbell much at all, but to call the BC government the most right-wing in Canada is pretty silly.
posted by ssg at 3:17 PM on May 1, 2008
posted by ssg at 3:17 PM on May 1, 2008
KokoRyu, let me give you a history lesson:
the liberals were pieced together from the remains of the social credit party. in the 50s the socreds took bribes in exchange for tree farm licenses that covered most of the province. the rape of the forests peaked in the mid-to-late 80s. what i'm telling you is that the liberal party, by what ever name you care to use, was responsible for that crime and continues to be, and that many of todays players oversaw the destruction.
one of the reasons that the socreds ceased to be is because they (and their direct progeny, bc reform) had taken a cue from gingrich and tried to use wedge issues to control the electorate. remember all that hysteria about gay-friendly books in abbotsford schools? it didn't work. the right got smarter and and found a hard-right - but secular - golden boy in gordon campbell.
note that gordon campbell's press secretary is michael moore, the former head of share BC. share BC is based on the wise-use movement in the US which is, in turn, a business-supported, violent hub of christian-militia, white-supremecist, anti-environmental activity in that country. moore's son was even charged with assault for a cowardly attack during the clayoquot actions - which i attended - during which he and some buddies allegedly dropped a large log on a tent with sleeping environmentalists inside. like all assault charges against logging sympathizers at that time (including the ones that rearranged my buddy's face) these were dismissed for "lack of evidence."
i don't know where you get the idea that these guys are centrists, but they sure have you convinced...
posted by klanawa at 3:18 PM on May 1, 2008
the liberals were pieced together from the remains of the social credit party. in the 50s the socreds took bribes in exchange for tree farm licenses that covered most of the province. the rape of the forests peaked in the mid-to-late 80s. what i'm telling you is that the liberal party, by what ever name you care to use, was responsible for that crime and continues to be, and that many of todays players oversaw the destruction.
one of the reasons that the socreds ceased to be is because they (and their direct progeny, bc reform) had taken a cue from gingrich and tried to use wedge issues to control the electorate. remember all that hysteria about gay-friendly books in abbotsford schools? it didn't work. the right got smarter and and found a hard-right - but secular - golden boy in gordon campbell.
note that gordon campbell's press secretary is michael moore, the former head of share BC. share BC is based on the wise-use movement in the US which is, in turn, a business-supported, violent hub of christian-militia, white-supremecist, anti-environmental activity in that country. moore's son was even charged with assault for a cowardly attack during the clayoquot actions - which i attended - during which he and some buddies allegedly dropped a large log on a tent with sleeping environmentalists inside. like all assault charges against logging sympathizers at that time (including the ones that rearranged my buddy's face) these were dismissed for "lack of evidence."
i don't know where you get the idea that these guys are centrists, but they sure have you convinced...
posted by klanawa at 3:18 PM on May 1, 2008
be sure to hire many different ethnic groups and national origins for any given installation because that way, the inability to communicate and mutual hostility and suspicion of the separate groups would make it impossible for the workers to effectively organize.
Offtopic, but cruise lines do this all the time. Galley crew is hired from India, laundry from China, hotel service from the Caribbean, engine room from the Phillipines, engineers from eastern Europe, captains from Scandinavia, etc.
posted by anthill at 3:26 PM on May 1, 2008
Offtopic, but cruise lines do this all the time. Galley crew is hired from India, laundry from China, hotel service from the Caribbean, engine room from the Phillipines, engineers from eastern Europe, captains from Scandinavia, etc.
posted by anthill at 3:26 PM on May 1, 2008
i might add to my little screed there, that during the environmental protests, share BC photographed protesters at rallies and gave slideshows at a local highschool featuring many close-ups of the activists, some of whom were subsequently assaulted, including my friend.
and i repeat, the head of that organization is now campbell's press secretary.
i mean, they don't do things like that in our country.... do they?
posted by klanawa at 3:34 PM on May 1, 2008
and i repeat, the head of that organization is now campbell's press secretary.
i mean, they don't do things like that in our country.... do they?
posted by klanawa at 3:34 PM on May 1, 2008
KokoRyu, let me give you a history lesson:
Let me give you a kick in the pants, you condescending nincompoop.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:01 PM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
Let me give you a kick in the pants, you condescending nincompoop.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:01 PM on May 1, 2008 [1 favorite]
I don't want to get into this dogfight between homies, but I have to agree, the most recent NDP government was not very good for the environment. I suspect that systematically they are more tied to forestry, mining and fishing interests than the right wing is, i.e., they have less latitude to cut ties to their core constituency, which is why they haven't moved into the Green party territory while maintaining their more-or-less centrist policies otherwise.
I don't mind some things about the current Liberals, I jsut wish they would spend some of that fucking surplus on something worthwhile and lasting, like new schools all over the place, new ferries, infrastructure and big fucking parks, not just in the middle of scrub forest but real core rainforest stuff. And settle the fucking treaties already.
Oh yeah, and you can't really call the opposition in Alberta incompetent until they've had a chance to prove it by actually being government, which they may never be. Fucked up province, that one.
posted by Rumple at 4:26 PM on May 1, 2008
I don't mind some things about the current Liberals, I jsut wish they would spend some of that fucking surplus on something worthwhile and lasting, like new schools all over the place, new ferries, infrastructure and big fucking parks, not just in the middle of scrub forest but real core rainforest stuff. And settle the fucking treaties already.
Oh yeah, and you can't really call the opposition in Alberta incompetent until they've had a chance to prove it by actually being government, which they may never be. Fucked up province, that one.
posted by Rumple at 4:26 PM on May 1, 2008
Oh, wait, it could be more perfect: they are planning a nuclear reactor to process the tar sands. That should go well.
It will go well. Right now they use obscene quantities of natural gas. A reactor here not only makes good economic sense, it preserves resources and increases the ERORI of the tar sands.
posted by Crotalus at 4:43 PM on May 1, 2008
It will go well. Right now they use obscene quantities of natural gas. A reactor here not only makes good economic sense, it preserves resources and increases the ERORI of the tar sands.
posted by Crotalus at 4:43 PM on May 1, 2008
it preserves resources.... except for uranium, which they have to dig out of the ground (giving MORE indians, and probably more ducks, cancer) using fossil fuels, and a crapload of water.
posted by klanawa at 5:34 PM on May 1, 2008
posted by klanawa at 5:34 PM on May 1, 2008
I understand the rationale for the reactor, but, future generations will think it madness that we introduce a nuclear reactor whose sole purpose is to make fossil fuels: short term maybe you get to keep your SUV, but, long term -- global warming AND radioactive waste, so worst of both worlds.
posted by Rumple at 5:57 PM on May 1, 2008
posted by Rumple at 5:57 PM on May 1, 2008
I've been following this. It's pretty screwed up that filling the water with tailings isn't considered a big deal until there's an obvious species impact. I don't know how many of you are aware, but that is the Canadian legislative take on protection of all waterways -- usually only when fish are involved. The fact that this is being treated as a "mishap" because "the noisemakers would have kept the ducks away" from their toxic mess makes me sick.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 6:55 PM on May 1, 2008
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 6:55 PM on May 1, 2008
I've spoken with my family in Fort McMurray about the duck story. The problem was that an unusually heavy April blizzard basically shut down the town and at least one of the plants. This is basically unheard of, even for a place that far north; I can not remember a single day the city shut down for weather in the eighteen years I lived there. Due to the heavy snow, the noisemakers were not deployed at the tailings ponds (or all of them, I'm not certain) in time for the duck migration.
I should mention that unless procedures have changed greatly since I lived there, the tailings are not dumped into existing bodies of water. New ponds, with some manner of insulation from the surrounding groundwater, are produced to hold the tailings. There are no fish in these ponds, although amphibians probably try to spawn in them (I have no information on this either way). I'm sorry that I can't provide a more detailed description of how the ponds work, but they aren't just dumping the tailings into the marsh. While I'm sure I learned it at some point in time, I can't for the life of me recall how the tailings ponds were eventually reclaimed (if at all; I'm certain they were, though).
In a nutshell, the process for extracting oil from tar sands has been to dig up earth, crush it into manageable chunks, and then essentially boil the mixture, causing the oil and some contaminants to float, while the aqueous and substrate phases settle out. The water is often very acidic and has a variety of very bad contaminants in it. This is the "tailings" in the tailings ponds. I should also add that the oil (or warmed bitumen, really) routinely seeps out from the river banks and into the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers on hot summer days. There is undoubtedly some contamination due to plant activity, but there is also natural contamination happening, independent of (and probably some related to) the tailings purification process. (Disclaimer: this is my school memories. The new plants opening may use a major variation on this over-simplified description.)
Klanawa, I understand entirely what you're saying: it isn't fair that the drastic change in life and health of the people in that region isn't as high profile as an incident involving wild life. It's wrong. I read your link, but didn't find any hard numbers on the health impact. Do you happen to know of any studies done, or any underway? I'd really be interested to see them. I entirely agree with the proposal in your link of a moratorium on expansion in the tar sands region, by the way.
KokuRyu, you hit the nail on the head. Most of those kids I went to school with had fathers and mothers who were engineers. "Albertans" (those born in the province) are a plurality of the population at best. More recently, non-engineering positions have been filled by migrant workers hired through firms. Apparently there is a booming Chinatown in Fort McMurray now, with unfortunate problems for the migrant workers, including cultural and virtual isolation from the rest of the city (and often, their co-workers) due to language barriers. It's also become economically practical to fly in workers periodically from as far as Labrador, meaning there's a large transient (but relatively affluent) population. As an aside, there was also a sizable tent city for a time, largely for migrant and newly arrived labour. Winters in Fort McMurray routinely reach -40C, and last from mid-October until late April.
A few other things I got out of my conversation with my family revealed a few factual inconsistencies in my earlier post. Some people are protesting the current situation, but not specifically the environmental problem. I'm afraid I don't have a link to support it, and anecdotal evidence is not data, but apparently many old hands at the plants have been quitting their very lucrative jobs and abandoning their sizeable pensions offered through the company. Syncrude, the largest and one of the oldest projects in the region, have changed much of their upper management and consequently changed a lot of the practices in terms of safety in particular, and other areas as well. The change in upper management changed after the plant largely fell into American hands, making the "dirty oil" legislation referred to in this article an especially hard pill to swallow for some of the former employees. Change needs to happen, and soon. No one in Fort McMurray wants to see it become another Uranium City.
(I'm sorry for another long winded post... I really wanted to be brief.)
posted by vesper at 7:59 PM on May 1, 2008
I should mention that unless procedures have changed greatly since I lived there, the tailings are not dumped into existing bodies of water. New ponds, with some manner of insulation from the surrounding groundwater, are produced to hold the tailings. There are no fish in these ponds, although amphibians probably try to spawn in them (I have no information on this either way). I'm sorry that I can't provide a more detailed description of how the ponds work, but they aren't just dumping the tailings into the marsh. While I'm sure I learned it at some point in time, I can't for the life of me recall how the tailings ponds were eventually reclaimed (if at all; I'm certain they were, though).
In a nutshell, the process for extracting oil from tar sands has been to dig up earth, crush it into manageable chunks, and then essentially boil the mixture, causing the oil and some contaminants to float, while the aqueous and substrate phases settle out. The water is often very acidic and has a variety of very bad contaminants in it. This is the "tailings" in the tailings ponds. I should also add that the oil (or warmed bitumen, really) routinely seeps out from the river banks and into the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers on hot summer days. There is undoubtedly some contamination due to plant activity, but there is also natural contamination happening, independent of (and probably some related to) the tailings purification process. (Disclaimer: this is my school memories. The new plants opening may use a major variation on this over-simplified description.)
Klanawa, I understand entirely what you're saying: it isn't fair that the drastic change in life and health of the people in that region isn't as high profile as an incident involving wild life. It's wrong. I read your link, but didn't find any hard numbers on the health impact. Do you happen to know of any studies done, or any underway? I'd really be interested to see them. I entirely agree with the proposal in your link of a moratorium on expansion in the tar sands region, by the way.
KokuRyu, you hit the nail on the head. Most of those kids I went to school with had fathers and mothers who were engineers. "Albertans" (those born in the province) are a plurality of the population at best. More recently, non-engineering positions have been filled by migrant workers hired through firms. Apparently there is a booming Chinatown in Fort McMurray now, with unfortunate problems for the migrant workers, including cultural and virtual isolation from the rest of the city (and often, their co-workers) due to language barriers. It's also become economically practical to fly in workers periodically from as far as Labrador, meaning there's a large transient (but relatively affluent) population. As an aside, there was also a sizable tent city for a time, largely for migrant and newly arrived labour. Winters in Fort McMurray routinely reach -40C, and last from mid-October until late April.
A few other things I got out of my conversation with my family revealed a few factual inconsistencies in my earlier post. Some people are protesting the current situation, but not specifically the environmental problem. I'm afraid I don't have a link to support it, and anecdotal evidence is not data, but apparently many old hands at the plants have been quitting their very lucrative jobs and abandoning their sizeable pensions offered through the company. Syncrude, the largest and one of the oldest projects in the region, have changed much of their upper management and consequently changed a lot of the practices in terms of safety in particular, and other areas as well. The change in upper management changed after the plant largely fell into American hands, making the "dirty oil" legislation referred to in this article an especially hard pill to swallow for some of the former employees. Change needs to happen, and soon. No one in Fort McMurray wants to see it become another Uranium City.
(I'm sorry for another long winded post... I really wanted to be brief.)
posted by vesper at 7:59 PM on May 1, 2008
Haha, idiot ducks.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2008
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 8:25 PM on May 1, 2008
klanawa: not that it makes much difference, but Mike Morton is no longer Campbell's press secretary (see here.)
Have to confess I am more with Kokoryu & Rumple on this one, perhaps because I've not been in BC (or Canada) long enough to get tied up in the long term grudges that seem to characterize so much of BC politics. Haven't liked the liberals much, but they have at least brought in the Carbon Tax - and watching the NDP attempts to undermine it have been a pretty unedifying spectacle which show them to be much more attached to special interest groups than the environment.
posted by pascal at 9:16 PM on May 1, 2008
Have to confess I am more with Kokoryu & Rumple on this one, perhaps because I've not been in BC (or Canada) long enough to get tied up in the long term grudges that seem to characterize so much of BC politics. Haven't liked the liberals much, but they have at least brought in the Carbon Tax - and watching the NDP attempts to undermine it have been a pretty unedifying spectacle which show them to be much more attached to special interest groups than the environment.
posted by pascal at 9:16 PM on May 1, 2008
And even the most rightwing government in Canada (Campbell) would still come off as socialist when compared to GWB. Even Harper's conservatives aren't particularly right wing.
You can not use the US parties as the metric! The US Democrats would be considered right-wing in every other modern democratic country. It's like saying "even John Wayne Gacy comes off as a sane when compared to Charles Manson."
posted by five fresh fish at 10:58 PM on May 1, 2008 [2 favorites]
You can not use the US parties as the metric! The US Democrats would be considered right-wing in every other modern democratic country. It's like saying "even John Wayne Gacy comes off as a sane when compared to Charles Manson."
posted by five fresh fish at 10:58 PM on May 1, 2008 [2 favorites]
They blocked the sale of MDA, for heaven's sake, when 99% of the company's shareholders said they wanted to sell the company. If that doesn't fly in the face of free markets, I don't know what does
That's perhaps a little disingenuous if my recollection that the MDA sale was blocked for national security reasons is correct. The so-called "free markets" have never legitimately included acts that are akin to treason (a word too heavily loaded with implications to accurately apply here, but you get the drift.)
posted by five fresh fish at 11:03 PM on May 1, 2008
That's perhaps a little disingenuous if my recollection that the MDA sale was blocked for national security reasons is correct. The so-called "free markets" have never legitimately included acts that are akin to treason (a word too heavily loaded with implications to accurately apply here, but you get the drift.)
posted by five fresh fish at 11:03 PM on May 1, 2008
You can not use the US parties as the metric!
Oh, I agree, but I believe klanawa *ahem* started it (by comparing recent Canadian electoral choices with what's happened in American politics):
we elected it. after gaping in horror at the slow-motion car wreck that is the george bush presidency, we up and elected our own series of provincial and federal copycat regimes.
For what it's worth, I don't believe it's a useful comparison. Sure, I'm more or less happy with Canadian politics (except for the fact that no political party in Canadian history - oh, and by the way, fuck the Greens - has been good for the environment) because I live in Canada, not the US. I'm sure an American observing Canadian politics would kind of wonder how something as arcane as equilization payments can stir the blood of so many Canadian voters.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:25 PM on May 1, 2008
Oh, I agree, but I believe klanawa *ahem* started it (by comparing recent Canadian electoral choices with what's happened in American politics):
we elected it. after gaping in horror at the slow-motion car wreck that is the george bush presidency, we up and elected our own series of provincial and federal copycat regimes.
For what it's worth, I don't believe it's a useful comparison. Sure, I'm more or less happy with Canadian politics (except for the fact that no political party in Canadian history - oh, and by the way, fuck the Greens - has been good for the environment) because I live in Canada, not the US. I'm sure an American observing Canadian politics would kind of wonder how something as arcane as equilization payments can stir the blood of so many Canadian voters.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:25 PM on May 1, 2008
The Liberals are definitely hit and miss, but they have understood that their right-wing policies would lose them future elections and have (selectively) abandoned them. They have still failed a great deal, notably in their eradication of many essential social programs - support for the mentally ill, as an example, is now basically nonexistent. I also resent their privatization of valuable public resources, and their wholesale theft of public property via the "run of the river" public-private partnership bullshit.
Anyway, with regards to Alberta, ultimately it's up to Albertans to care.
posted by mek at 1:25 AM on May 2, 2008
Anyway, with regards to Alberta, ultimately it's up to Albertans to care.
posted by mek at 1:25 AM on May 2, 2008
Dilbert [warning: cursed Flash interface] has a water-into-oil joke today.
I'm not sure I see a problem with injecting water into the ground to release the oil. Any fresh water we lose will be restored through the water cycle. Most of our fresh water comes from evaporation, and probably evaporation from the oceans (and respiration from trees). It's not like it's not going to be replenished.
kokoryu: well, shame on klanawa, then!
posted by five fresh fish at 7:29 AM on May 2, 2008
I'm not sure I see a problem with injecting water into the ground to release the oil. Any fresh water we lose will be restored through the water cycle. Most of our fresh water comes from evaporation, and probably evaporation from the oceans (and respiration from trees). It's not like it's not going to be replenished.
kokoryu: well, shame on klanawa, then!
posted by five fresh fish at 7:29 AM on May 2, 2008
Off topic. FFF, didn't you used to live in Massachusetts?
posted by a3matrix at 8:13 AM on May 2, 2008
posted by a3matrix at 8:13 AM on May 2, 2008
kokoryu: well, shame on klanawa, then!
Well, to quote Bob Dylan:
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view
posted by KokuRyu at 11:16 AM on May 2, 2008
Well, to quote Bob Dylan:
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view
posted by KokuRyu at 11:16 AM on May 2, 2008
a3matrix: Not so far as I'm aware. Sorry.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:50 PM on May 2, 2008
posted by five fresh fish at 3:50 PM on May 2, 2008
Blargh. And of course only the 5th article I've read on it mentions that it's a tailings pond. Sorry about that. I am still pissed about the state of CEPA and how it is used, and comments above about how tailings are managed are dead on, but I can see how this particular mess came about now.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:00 PM on May 2, 2008
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:00 PM on May 2, 2008
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posted by resurrexit at 7:52 AM on May 1, 2008