Josh Mogerman's Blog
Freak Fish? There's just no tar sands euphemism for this…
September 5, 2008
Posted by Josh Mogerman in Moving Beyond Oil
We know that tar sands oil produces 3-5 times the climate changing emissions of traditional petroleum oil production on a per barrel basis. But what about it’s mutating power? Perhaps, that is increased too? Just check out this photo of a fish, recently caught downstream from “the Patch” (the Albertans euphemistic name for the tar sands mining area). Two mouths make him look pretty angry, eh?
All kidding aside, this photo, taken by Ling Wang of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, has gotten a lot of attention in Canada where it symbolizes the angst that many Canucks are feeling over tar sands production. It is a cash cow---but what are the larger costs?
Beyond the climate change impacts, there are huge concerns over the water-intensive process of boiling water and using it to “wash” the low-grade oil substitute bitumen out of sand. To produce 1 barrel of oil from the Patch requires 2-5 barrels of water---most of which becomes so contaminated it cannot be returned to the river and gets dumped into the euphemistically-named “tailing ponds.” These are huge lakes of waste water so toxic that 500 ducks recently died after landing in one… Communities nearby have long been concerned over the potential for the tailing ponds to contaminate the nearby Athabasca River and the regional water table.
While fish mutations can occur for a variety of reasons, to many this fish exemplifies their fears of what is the likely true cost of tar sands mining, along with the elevated cancer rates already being felt in nearby native communities.
The folks in Alberta can certainly be creative with the English language. But I doubt that they will be able to come up with a euphemism to explain away this sick swimmer.
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