Susan Casey-Lefkowitz's Blog: Curbing Pollution

Resolved: Tar sands are an expensive and risky investment

2010-05-12T12:15:03Z

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that an independent committee of the Board prepare a report (at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information) on the environmental damage that would result from the company’s expanding oil sands operations in the Canadian boreal forest. The report should consider the implications of a policy of discontinuing these expansions and should be available to investors by November 2010. [ConocoPhillips shareholder resolution May 2010]

Welcome to what is likely to be a very uncomfortable annual general meeting season for the oil companies. Shareholders are concerned about oil companies going after ever riskier and more uncertain forms of oil such tar sands oil.

At its annual general meeting today, ConocoPhillips is facing a shareholder resolution for more information on the environmental risks of tar sands oil investment from the California Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), Trillium Asset Management Corporation and 17 other co-filers. A similar proposal received an unprecedented 30% support in 2008 and 2009 and has received the support of the influential proxy advisory firm RiskMetrics Group for 2010. The resolution proponents rightly point out that tar sands is an expensive bet on the long-term viability of consistently high oil prices. Identified environmental threats include First Nations legal challenges, greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution (including acid rain), water pollution and water withdrawals, damage to Boreal forest ecosystems, and threats to human health.

Next up are similar tar sands related shareholder resolutions for Shell on May 18 brought by FairPensions (UK) and for ExxonMobil on May 26 brought by Green Century Capital Management.

BP is likely glad that it got its AGM behind it before the tragic Gulf oil spill. Just last month, 15% of BP shareholders asked for information about the risks associated with tar sands operations – a high percentage for a British firm. Undoubtedly today, with BP share prices falling and estimates of spill clean-up costs in the billions, the number of votes would have been much higher.

The push to invest in tar sands oil expansion despite its risks and uncertainties stands in stark contrast to the recent U.S. approval of the East Coast’s first big offshore wind farm. It is this type of investment that our government and our companies should be supporting, along with investment in electric cars, environmentally sustainable biofuels, and support for measures that increase fuel efficiency and decrease miles travelled. Instead, over the next 15 years, an anticipated US$379 billion will be invested by energy companies in Alberta’s tar sands – money that a recent WWF-UK report shows would benefit us more if put into clean energy instead.

When investors ask for transparency and accurate assessments of the risks and liabilities associated with tar sands oil, it is very helpful. Only by moving oil companies away from riskier forms of fossil fuels to alternative forms of clean energy can investors trust that their investments will have long-term sustainable returns and help build a better future for us all.

New tar sands pipeline means high gas prices, over-capacity, and losing supply to Europe

2010-05-10T15:02:50Z

Several new reports came out today all with a common message: tar sands is not the right choice for our energy future. These reports are especially timely since the United States is considering a proposal to build yet another tar sands pipeline. This newest TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would bring tar sands oil to the U.S. Gulf across the states that are home to the fragile Ogallala Aquifer. The question is whether America should pay the high environmental costs of tar sands oil to our aquifers, water, air, climate and health. The answer is that we should not. Tar sands oil is not worth it. As we see in the most recent analysis, tar sands oil is dirty, dangerous, expensive and doesn’t meet our energy security needs.

Plains Justice reports that the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline is not needed as it will be too expensive and as we have better solutions. The policy brief finds that past development rates in Canada and current economic trends indicate that much of the Keystone XL’s capacity will not be needed for years, possibly not until well after 2020, with the result that per barrel pipeline shipping rates will be much higher than estimated. Further, shippers have alleged substantial cost overruns in the Keystone Pipeline that will also increase shipping rates. Combined, toll and cost overrun increases will cut into shipper profits and increase costs at the pump. The primary concern driving development of the Keystone XL pipeline is the ability to use U.S. Gulf Coast refining capacity to process tar sands crude oil, especially in the event of lost imports from Venezuela, Mexico and Nigeria. However, other more cost-effective and environmentally responsible solutions exist including more flexible use of our existing crude oil pipeline system and energy efficiency efforts that will be better for consumers. You can read the Plains Justice policy brief here.

Corporate Ethics International (CEI) also reports that tar sands oil means high gas prices. In addition to the reasoning also found in the Plains Justice report specifically regarding the high costs and over-capacity of the proposed Keystone XL report, CEI describes how the growth in tar sands production needed to fill the Keystone XL pipeline will only occur if oil prices keep rising. Tar sands production exerts little if any influence over global oil prices because it maintains no spare production capacity. Tar sands production is a symptom of high oil prices and not a basis for lower prices. You can read the CEI report here.

And Greenpeace UK released a report today exposing Europe’s role in Canada’s dirty tar sands oil trade. The report shows that if the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is built to the U.S. Gulf – it will not even necessarily mean security of oil supply for the United States. Gulf Coast refineries ship fuel to Europe and already some tar sands from Gulf Coast refineries is reaching European markets. The report explains how a lack of diesel production capacity in Europe means that the continent is now importing more diesel than ever before from the U.S. Gulf Coast. At least seven refineries operating in the U.S. Gulf Coast region source oil from the Canadian tar sands and the report reveals how at least three of these also export diesel to Europe. With the new pipeline built many more refineries could be engaging in the trade, including BP’s Texas City refinery as well as plants owned by ExxonMobil and Valero.

The U.S. government has the authority to put the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline on hold if it is not in the national interest. And it clearly is not. The pipeline will contribute to higher gas prices. But more importantly, it is not necessary. Not only do we have better choices for our transportation solutions than expensive tar sands oil, there is not enough oil to fill the proposed pipeline. Initially planned at a time of an anticipated boom in tar sands oil extraction, that boom has turned into a trickle and oil companies themselves are challenging the necessity for yet another tar sands oil pipeline to the United States.

Gulf spill is a wake-up call to stop dirty, dangerous and expensive fuels such as tar sands oil

2010-05-07T20:01:35Z

The BP deep oil rig accident in the Gulf Coast is a tragic example of the very high dangers and costs of going after fuels that in the past we considered too difficult, dangerous or expensive to access. I have been shocked to see a series of articles over the past week almost gloating that Gulf oil spill “takes the heat off” the equally dirty and dangerous Canadian tar sands oil. Although one article acknowledges that “to appear triumphalist in the face of the calamity in the Gulf would be insensitive,” another stated on behalf of the tar sands industry that “while it's tough to take advantage of a competitor knocked to the canvas, it's time to seize the moment.” Even Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has been in D.C. this week touting his province’s tar sands oil as a safer alternative to deep offshore wells. This is exactly the wrong lesson to take from the BP oil spill. The right lesson is that we need to end our addiction to fossil fuels so that this type of accident and the dangers of the climate change that fossil fuels bring will be a thing of our past.

We are still groping to understand the impacts in terms of lives, health, local economies, and wildlife of the Gulf oil spill. Yet the daily harm and potential for serious accidents is there in all of the newer efforts of the fossil fuel industry to go after harder to access fuels. Canadian tar sands leak 2.74 million gallons of toxic tailings waste every single day into the vast Athabasca watershed. The tar sands produce miles and miles of toxic ponds that are growing and leaking into the natural environment, home to millions of migratory birds, indigenous communities and one of the world’s largest remaining freshwater supplies.

Even more, those making comparisons between the Gulf oil spill and tar sands imply that pipelines overland are safe – and that leaks are easily remedied. Tell that to farmers in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. What these comparisons do not take into account is that the tar sands pipelines from Canada will cross America’s heartland bringing the potential of contamination to low-lying aquifers on which our farmers depend. For example, the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would bring bitumen from Alberta to the Gulf Coast through fragile sand hills over the Ogallala Aquifer. This is one of the worst possible areas to run such infrastructure as any leaks would be quickly absorbed like a sponge, contaminating the drinking water and agricultural irrigation waters in America’s heartland from South Dakota to Texas. The Ogallala Aquifer is already imperiled by being overused and many researchers are concerned it will dry up in coming decades, threatening drinking supplies for many states. The toxics spilling from a tar sands pipeline could be devastating. Local landowners are very concerned that leaks can occur and not be noticed for days. Just in April, an Enbridge pipeline in Minnesota had a leak and reportedly did not realize it until local fire crews reported it to the company.

The newer tar sands pipelines are all high-pressure pipelines meant to transport corrosive and dirty bitumen. They have all asked for waivers of safety standards that allow them to use less steel to save costs. In the United States, we are increasing our reliance on Canadian tar sands oil seemingly without regard for the very real dangers. With tar sands production currently at roughly 1.3 million bpd, roughly 800,000 bpd is imported by the United States. The rest stays in Canada with no other available market. Three new pipelines are underway to bring more dirty tar sands oil to the United States: TransCanada Keystone at almost 600,000 bpd capacity, Enbridge Alberta Clipper at roughly another 800,000 bpd capacity and the newly proposed TransCanada Keystone XL with eventual capacity of roughly 900,000 bpd. These new pipelines will be responsible for expansion of tar sands production in Canada and for devastating harm in Canada and in the United States.

The expansion of raw bitumen coming into the United States also means expansion of upgrading capacity of refineries in the United States – and expansion of greenhouse gas emission, air pollution and water pollution. Already EPA is cracking down, having cited the BP Whiting tar sands refining operation for violations of the Clean Air Act and objecting to the Indiana permit for expansion to take tar sands oil at the BP Whiting facilities as not dealing adequately with air pollution.

We have written many times before about the higher greenhouse gas emissions from the production of tar sands oil– as much as 3 times that of conventional oil production and roughly 20% higher from well to wheels. The threat to our climate from a continued production and use of fossil fuels is one that is already being felt in the United States and in Canada.

The environmental and health problems with extraction in Canada are well documented and growing. Even beyond the international outcry raised by a single incident of 1,600 ducks dying after landing on a tar sands mine waste pond in Canada, Environmental Defence Canada has documented every-day business-as-usual leakage of 1 billion gallons per year (or 2.74 million gallons per day) of poisonous waste from the tar sands tailings ponds. And a recent study found that industry deposited enough bitumen on the snow to create a 5,000 barrel a year oil spill on the Athabasca River. A rupture of a tailings pond into the Athabasca River would devastate a watershed that reaches all the way to the Arctic Ocean. Downstream from the tar sands mines, the community of Ft. Chipewyan is concerned about unusually high rates of cancers normally linked to petroleum pollution. My colleague Dr. Solomon who is currently helping communities in the Gulf Coast, was just visiting in Ft. Chipewyan and has written about the community concerns with their high cancer rates calling it “the other oil disaster.”

Yet oil companies are putting dirty, dangerous and expensive sources of fuel such as tar sands oil forward as a “transition” fuel to the clean energy economy. This is a wrong choice given the very real risks and liabilities of tar sands oil. Alberta has an active public relations campaign to promote its tar sands oil deposits instead of taking action to clean them up. Tar sands promoters use the argument of energy security, claiming that Canadian oil is safe oil. This is a false security. The truth is that we do not need these dangerous new forms of fuel. In a world where climate security is one of our greatest threats, we gain energy security when we stop being dependent on oil. We have the technology and know-how to move straight to better transportation solutions by increasing fuel efficiency, reducing miles driven, and rapidly transitioning to environmentally sustainable low-carbon fuels. The best energy, climate and economic security is home-grown, clean energy.

Tar sands oil undermines green jobs in U.S. and Canada

2010-05-04T12:31:42Z

Today, I’ll be speaking at the Green Jobs, Good Jobs conference in DC. When we first envisioned the topic for the U.S.-Canada climate policy panel, we did not realize that we would be in the midst of a political impasse over climate legislation in the United States. At that time some months back, the Canadian federal government was saying it would wait to see what the United States would do and follow. We were hopeful that we’d have comprehensive climate legislation on its way in the United States which would, in turn, force the Canadian federal government to live up to its promise and introduce its own federal climate legislation.

Yet here we are in early May with the U.S. climate legislation in limbo and federal climate legislation in Canada still on hold. We need to reexamine what we can do to put climate change front and center on the political agenda in both of our countries. And we need to come to an understanding of what is keeping our countries from moving climate legislation forward.

So why don’t we have federal climate legislation in the United States and Canada? I believe that the answer can be found in the undermining of our clean energy economy by our continued dependence on fossil fuels. We need to acknowledge that our continued dependence on fossil fuels is not good for our health, not good for the environment, not good for our economy, and not good for our security. The United States and Canada each need comprehensive climate legislation that places a strict limit on greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors. Both of our countries also need measures that reduce our use of fossil fuels – especially for transportation. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is a choice that will not only free us from ever more dirty, dangerous and expensive fossil fuels, but will increase our investment in clean energy jobs and economic development and security at home.

The BP deep oil rig accident in the Gulf Coast is a tragic example of the very high dangers and costs of going after fuels that in the past we considered too difficult, dangerous or expensive to access. The oil rig accident was a dramatic incident and we are still groping to understand the impacts in terms of lives, health, local economies, and wildlife. Yet these types of costs are evident in all of the newer efforts of the fossil fuel industry to go after harder to access coal (think mountain top removal for devastation and recent coal mining accidents for safety issues) and harder to access oil (think 1,600 ducks dying after a single incident where they landed on a tar sands mine waste pond in Canada). Yet oil companies are putting dirty, dangerous and expensive sources of fuel such as tar sands oil forward as a “transition” fuel to the clean energy economy. This is a wrong choice given that looking just at tar sands oil, we see higher greenhouse gas emissions, yearly leakage of an incredible 1 billion gallons of poisonous waste from the tar sands tailings ponds, and downstream community public health concerns about elevated rates of cancers that are linked to petroleum pollution. Alberta has an active public relations campaign to promote its tar sands oil deposits and to lobby against legislation that might curtail tar sands expansion – in the United States and more recently in Europe. Moreover, the Canadian federal government and Alberta are encouraging the United States to build an infrastructure of tar sands pipelines, including the latest proposed TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, and are encouraging the United States to expand tar sands oil refining capacity. Canada uses the argument of energy security, claiming that Canadian oil is safe oil. This is a false security. In a world where climate security is one of our greatest threats, the truth is we gain energy security when we stop being dependent on oil. The best energy, climate and economic security is home-grown, clean energy.

All of this stands in stark contrast to last week’s U.S. approval of the East Coast’s first big offshore wind farm. The United States has already taken a number of steps to encourage clean energy production and this is an area where Canada is lagging behind. The Pembina Institute estimates that in 2010, the United States is set to outspend Canada nearly 18:1 per capita on renewables and more than 8:1 per capita overall on clean energy programs. A new report by Environmental Defence Canada shows that Canada is falling behind by approximately 66,000 new, green jobs because of this lag in clean energy investment. Yet, in the United States we also need to do much, much more. For both of our countries to be competitive in the future, we need a strong investment in clean energy that will bring millions of jobs (with 1.7 million jobs already committed in existing and proposed U.S. legislation) for carpenters, electricians, steelworkers, machinists, wind turbine technicians and electric car manufacturers. Instead, over the next 15 years, an anticipated US$379 billion will be invested by energy companies in Alberta’s tar sands – money that a recent WWF-UK report shows would benefit us more if put into clean energy instead.

Since the political stalemate occurred over the Senate climate bill – ironically, the very weekend I was helping with the Earth Day climate rally on the National Mall – the number of voices calling for new climate legislation has been increasing daily. In the past week, business executives, labor unions, religious groups, and environmental organizations have said loud and clear that they want our lawmakers to pass a clean energy and climate bill now.

We can’t sit by and watch our future be held hostage to political maneuvering. Climate should not be a partisan issue and our future should not depend on oil companies’ love of their profits. Curbing climate change is about creating jobs at home, protecting the health of our children, saying no to fossil fuels, and trusting in our ability to move quickly to a clean energy economy.

The question is: Will our two countries acknowledge that fossil fuels are not the right choice and instead give us a real choice for a healthy and prosperous future.

Gulf Oil Spill Threatens Breeding and Migrating Birds

2010-05-04T03:25:07Z

We all watched with horror as the oil rig accident took the lives of eleven workers of the Deepwater Horizon rig and injured more. The still uncapped oil spill is growing and heading on a path of devastation through precious Gulf of Mexico fisheries and towards coastal wildlife sanctuaries. There are many people, communities and wildlife species that will not recover from this blow. One group of species that is likely to be hit at a particularly sensitive time are the birds of the region who are breeding on the shores and in the coastal marshes and estuaries or making critical feeding and rest stopovers during their migration north. Oil gets on their feathers and into their bodies, it kills the aquatic species and insects upon which they feed, and it poisons their nesting grounds.

It is evening as I write and I looked up the current status of the spill today nearly two weeks after the accident. Reuters reports that BP indicates “some progress” toward capping the mile deep underwater well. Hmmm, “some progress” sounds to me as though the oil is still gushing out. Reuters also reports that as of this evening the slick is at least 130 miles by 70 miles or about the size of the state of Delaware. It reports that BP expects the capping operation to take two to three months to complete. In the meantime, the daily leak estimates (thought to be on the low side) are at 5,000 barrels per day.

At the moment, key wildlife sanctuaries and breeding ground along the coastline and waters of four states are threatened by the oil – most immediately Louisiana, but Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are also at risk. The Gulf coastal waters, marshes and estuaries are a rich feeding and breeding ground for all types of sea, air and land creatures. The spreading oil threatens "Important Bird Areas," sites identified by Audubon and other conservation experts as vital to the health or even the survival of entire species.

For example, around 3,400 Brown Pelicans – the state bird of Louisiana - are currently nesting and laying eggs on the Chandeleur Islands in Breton National Wildlife Refuge. The Brown Pelican was just removed from the federal endangered species list last fall. It is to be hoped that this does not cause it to go back on the list. The Gulfport area has one of the country’s largest nesting colonies of the endangered Least Tern –locals report that you can hear the whistling and chirping of the several thousand birds nesting on the beach right now. If the oil comes on the beach and hits the eggs, the birds and their young will likely die be lost. The oil also threatens their food supply: if the fish disappear, the birds will starve. As with most birds, the Least Tern is at its most vulnerable now during the breeding season. The eggs are laid on the beach and it takes 20 days for them to hatch and 20 days for the chicks to be ready to leave the nest. The only ducks that breed along the Gulf Coast are the Mottled Ducks (known as “summer ducks” locally). They feed and nest in coastal salt marshes. Other local birds likely to be harmed by the oil as it approaches the coast include Royal Terns, the endangered Snowy Plover, Laughing Gulls, the Reddish Egret, Seaside Sparrows, and the Louisiana Heron. Rescue efforts are being planned throughout the region and those interested n volunteering can find a list of agencies here.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that, despite assurances from oil companies, exploratory drilling is dangerous. Instead of going after these forms of fossil fuels that we used to think too difficult to access, we should be focused on clean forms of energy that do not have this same terrible risk in terms of loss of lives, livelihoods and wildlife. We deserve better. The wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico deserves better. And our birds deserve better.

For larger map, go to American Bird Conservancy site here.

Europeans Say No to Tar Sands Oil

2010-04-20T12:54:36Z

Today a letter went from 17 Members of the European Parliament to the European Commission in protest of tar sands oil. This is the second letter protesting tar sands oil coming from Parliamentarians in the past half year and it shows a growing concern that Europe not open its doors to this higher carbon intensity fuel.

Today’s letter focuses on the European Fuel Quality Directive which sets up a framework for Europe to clean up its transportation fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is similar to what California did with the low carbon fuel standard. However, both in Europe and in California the success of the law will depend on how it is put into practice. The Parliamentarians rightly say that to be effective, the fuel standard needs to take into account that fuels of different carbon intensities cannot all be lumped together. Europeans want to know if their fuel is coming from higher-carbon intensity sources such as tar sands or oil shale. The letter from Parliamentarians follows an earlier letter showing that the European environmental community joins with U.S. and Canadian environmental groups in recognizing the dangers of tar sands oil.

The Parliamentarian letter also rightly notes that without being able to distinguish among the carbon intensity of fuels, Europe will end up negating emissions savings coming from low carbon alternative fuels and other climate legislation. European Parliamentarians will continue the debate over tar sands oil on May 5 in a Brussels forum “Tar sands – undermining EU climate ambitions? This is the right question to be asking. Tar sands imports are already undermining U.S. clean energy and climate goals. If the United States increases tar sands imports by 3 million barrels per day, this would increase the carbon in the fuel supply by 3.4%. The increasing import of tar sands oil to the United States could offset all the gains made under the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard.

Despite increasing public scrutiny and outrage in Europe, oil companies are fighting hard to stay entrenched in our fuel supply. Just last December, a group of 11 European Members of Parliament wrote to the leaders of four European oil companies (Shell, Statoil, BP and Total) to stop producing oil from Canadian tar sands. Norwegian Statoil has already been under scrutiny in last year’s elections for its role in tar sands oil extraction. More recently, investors have voiced their displeasure with British Petroleum’s tar sands investments.

And Canada, the source of tar sands oil, seems to be teaming up with the oil companies. Over the last year, Canada has written to the European Commission asking that tar sands be treated like any other oil – grossly downplaying the significant lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of tar sands. Canada did the same thing in California, writing to the Governor and openly threatening trade repercussions should the California low carbon fuel standard acknowledge the higher lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of fuels such as tar sands.

“The EU should send a clear signal now that it is serious about its climate commitment and about the decarbonisation of transport fuel,” today’s letter states. That means making sure that tar sands oil imports are held to a rigorous and transparent scrutiny so that consumers can decide if tar sands oil is worth the high cost in greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, water pollution, wildlife habitat destruction, and destruction of Boreal forests and wetlands – one of the world’s great remaining carbon reservoirs.

Seventeen Members of the European Parliament signed this letter. And they come from a range of parties and countries throughout the region. Good for them taking a stand for clean energy and against dirty fuels such as tar sands. The European Commission should listen.

You can find the text of today's letter at: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/sclefkowitz/media/2010%2004%20Hedegaard_FQD_final.pdf

Clearing the Waters on Tar Sands Tailings Waste

2010-04-14T16:22:57Z

It is depressing that a topic as vast as 50 square miles of tar sands oil tailings waste lagoons from strip-mining the Boreal forest should be even murkier than the toxic waters stored in them. In order to clear the waters on the actual harm and impacts of tar sands tailings ponds, today, NRDC joined Environmental Defence Canada and several community members from Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories in a petition to the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation (CEC). For a long time, it has been clear that the Canadian government is failing to enforce the anti-pollution provisions of its federal Fisheries Act by allowing the tar sands tailings waste ponds to leak pollution into both surface waters and groundwater. The Alberta and Canadian governments are simply not taking enforcement action. The CEC has the power to start an investigation to help us get to the bottom of what is really going on in the interconnected watersheds reaching from Alberta to the Arctic. Specifically, the submission asks the CEC to prepare a factual record of the allegation that Canada is not enforcing its Fisheries Act against tar sands tailings pond water pollution.

Communities in the watersheds potentially impacted by leaks from tar sands tailings ponds have long been concerned. John Rigney lives downstream from the Alberta tar sands mines in the community of Ft. Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca. He said, “I live downstream from the tailings ponds, and not a day goes by that I don’t worry about what they are doing to the rivers and lakes where I hunt, fish and live. When will the boosters of the tar sands learn that you can’t drink oil?”

Canada keeps saying it wants better environmental management in the tar sands, yet it is failing to enforce laws already on the books that could make this happen. If Canada is sincere and wants to deal with tar sands pollution, it should put the focus and resources it currently dedicates to green-washing the tar sands into enforcing its existing laws at home to limit some of the worst pollution impacts. Instead, Canada is pushing tar sands oil in the United States without disclosing the enormous potential for damage to North American waters and without disclosing that lack of enforcement of environmental laws amounts to an unfair subsidy of tar sands oil production.

The citizens’ submission documents cases where contaminated tailings leakage has reached surface waters in addition to the ongoing massive and increasing leakage from un-lined tar sands tailings ponds into the region’s groundwater. The Fisheries Act prohibits the discharge of substances harmful to fish, yet the federal government has never prosecuted documented infractions nor has it enacted regulations that would permit the discharge.

The tar sands tailings ponds currently contain around 190 billion gallons of waste water from strip-mining the Boreal forest for the bitumen that is eventually turned into fuels for our cars, trucks and airplanes. In melting the bitumen from the soil, tar sands producers are left with water mixed with naphthenic acids, ammonia, benzene, cyanide, oil and grease, phenols, toluene, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, arsenic, copper and iron. None of these are nice substances for fish or humans. Environmental Defence Canada estimates that the tailings ponds already leak 1 billion gallons each year, with projections that this figure could reach over 6.6 billion gallons within a decade should proposed projects go ahead. There are documented cases of contaminated tailings substances reaching or projected to reach surface waters in Jackpine Creek (from Shell), Beaver Creek (from Syncrude), McLean Creek (from Suncor) and the Athabasca River (from Suncor).

Under subsection 36(3) of the Canadian federal Fisheries Act, you may not put “deleterious substances” into waters frequented by fish or any place where they could enter waters frequented by fish. The tar sands tailings ponds clearly fit this description and yet the Canadian government is not enforcing the law.

Hopefully the CEC will do what it was set up to do: ensure that the environmental laws of Canada, the United States and Mexico are fairly enforced to avoid unfair trade situations and to protect the public health and environment. We need to have some public clarity around the lack of enforcement of Canada’s laws that require cleaning up and shutting down tar sands tailings ponds, but instead are lying unused and silent in the face of devastating pollution.

Pipeline to the Past: Tar Sands Oil Holds Back Our Clean Energy Future

2010-04-10T00:02:18Z

Late this afternoon, the State Department made available on its webpage its draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The DEIS is oddly dated one week from now and it seems as though no Federal Register notice has been published. We can only hope that its premature release is a trial balloon and that initial reaction will be considered before the real publication occurs.

Why? Because State should have waited for completion of a new White House guidance on incorporating greenhouse gas emissions impacts into environmental impact statements. And, State should have been taking a hard look at whether this pipeline is in the national interest before investing in a draft EIS.

I wrote earlier here about what this pipeline would mean for America’s heartland. But the pipeline also has broader impacts on how the United States handles climate change and greenhouse gas emissions moving forward. This pipeline would double the amount of tar sands oil currently being piped into the United States. And equally as alarming, what will be piped in through this pipeline will be bitumen, the dirtiest, least refined product they can push through a pipe. Much of the tar sands oil we received in the past was already refined to a synthetic crude oil, more like common oil. Bringing in the raw bitumen in the new pipeline means that the upgrading and refining has to take place in the United States, resulting in increased emissions of greenhouse gases, heavy metals, and other pollutants.

That’s part of the reason why the White House guidance is so important. The other reason is all the pollution upstream in the extraction of this oil. The production of synthetic crude oil from tar sands causes three times the greenhouse gas emissions of the production of conventional crude oil per barrel and tar sands – over its entire lifecycle – has 20% more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil. Also, because tar sands oil is heavy and full of impurities, it requires additional carbon-intensive refinery processes. Thus, replacing 900,000 barrels per day of conventional oil with tar sands oil would result in approximately 38 million metric tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions per year, equal to adding over 6 million cars to the roads.

Transboundary pipelines such as this one also require a national interest determination separate from the EIS. Certainly in this case, the national interest determination is a critical step that should be made based on climate change factors, greenhouse gas emissions, and whether there is a need for the tar sands oil to start with. If TransCanada’s shaky assumptions about future growth in demand for expensive, heavy oil prove false, the Keystone XL could become a nearly 2,000-mile-long boondoggle.

Rather than moving forward prematurely with the permit process for the Keystone XL pipeline, the United States should stay focused on developing our home-grown clean energy future. As Paul Krugman recently wrote: "we know how to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We have a good sense of the costs — and they’re manageable. All we need now is the political will."

A first start is to make sure that the Administration puts EIS for projects with the potential for high greenhouse gas emission impacts on hold until the new greenhouse gas emissions guidance can be applied. That means that the State Department should be waiting for and following this guidance as it conducts the EIS for the Keystone XL pipeline.

In the meantime, we’ll be reviewing the DEIS and preparing comments. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline should not be built. Instead of increasing our reliance on dirty tar sands oil, the United States is poised to fill our transportation needs with cleaner sources of energy and solutions that reduce our demand for oil. That is the path to the future. Another tar sands pipeline will only take us backwards.

Crude Awakening: Audubon Magazine Tells the Tale of Tar Sands and Bird Habitat

2010-03-08T14:48:54Z

Last summer, Audubon Magazine reporter Barry Yeoman travelled north to the open pit mines in Alberta, Canada where a dense form of oil is dug from the earth like coal. He saw the devastation caused by these tar sands mines first hand and has written about them and the surrounding Boreal forests and wetlands in a well-crafted article just published this month. The story includes striking photographs by Jon Lowenstein. The article tells the story of the high price of an oil addiction that leads oil companies to go after ever more costly and destructive forms of fuel for our cars and trucks. The Peace-Athabasca Delta, downstream from the tar sands mines, is critical bird habitat and nesting area for many of America’s migrating birds. Water use and water and air pollution from the tar sands are helping to kill it – not to mention the fears that local communities have for their health.

Barry describes the Delta aptly in this way:

The boat glides between banks lined with cattails and bulrushes that bow as we pass. The only houses along some stretches were built by beavers. A dozen kingfishers keep pace with us, and we spot pelicans and pileated woodpeckers. Marcel points to a distant flash of movement: a bald eagle. This avian display, he says, is nothing. “Some days in the springtime, when the birds are migrating north—oh, man! For days on end there are flocks in the thousands.” The delta, part of North America’s 1.5-billion-acre boreal forest, serves as the convergence point for all four major North American flyways. Some 215 species—including the endangered whooping crane and neotropical migrants like the olive-sided flycatcher and the American wigeon—use its freshwater wetlands for breeding, nesting, or stopping over.

I travelled with Barry to the tar sands and the Peace-Athabasca Delta last summer and I saw and felt the truth that his words describe. Read his story and you’ll have a good sense of the beauty and the danger in this remote part of Canada that is so closely connected to us through the birds that we love. Go to NRDC’s BioGems action page for the Peace-Athabasca Delta and you’ll be able to send a letter to the Environment Minister of Canada asking for tar sands oil expansion to stop so that the birds of the Peace-Athabasca Delta can be protected.

Photo by Jon Lowenstein, Noor Images

Visit NRDC and Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s new social networking site: www.welovebirds.org

Tar sands oil trial underway – Charge: the death of 1,600 ducks

2010-03-02T19:44:45Z

Yesterday in Canada, one of the tar sands oil giants went to court to defend itself. The charge: killing 1,600 ducks. The oil company: the aptly named Syncrude a joint venture whose owners include ConcoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil. Their defense: not guilty, they claim. The birds did die in the waste lagoon, but we are above the law. Trial: throughout March and April.

I reported on the start of this case a year ago here. As shown in NRDC’s report on the impact of tar sands on migratory birds, tailings ponds may cause the deaths of 8,000 to 100,000 birds every year, most of which go unreported. The glittering waters of tar sands open waste dams already span 50 square miles of what used to be Alberta’s Boreal forest and wetlands.

These ducks were flying to nesting grounds in spring 2008 when they landed and died in Syncrude’s tar sands waste dam. I flew over the tar sands most recently last summer. The Syncrude tailings ponds stretch out for miles in the sun. I can imagine for a duck, it would be like the siren’s call: attractive, but deadly. Each spring more than half of America’s birds flock to the Canadian Boreal forest to nest. The Boreal forests and wetlands provide safe nesting habitat for songbirds and waterfowl. Yet almost all the biggest oil companies strip-mine these critical forests and wetlands . They are literally scraping away the trees and gouging out the wetlands to reach a tarry substance called bitumen. With a high cost in water and natural gas, bitumen can be turned into synthetic crude oil and from there into gasoline and diesel. Athabasca River water is heated and used to separate the bitumen from the sand after it is dug up and the water waste – now contaminated with bitumen and other contaminants sits for years behind open dams of waste.

Bird watchers in the United States say no to tar sands oil, when they learn that the United States is on the brink of helping expansion of the tar sands mines and operations that destroy and fragment bird nesting habitat. Oil companies try to make tar sands sound attractive, clean and safe. But it is impossible to make the abrupt death of 1,600 ducks sound like anything but what it is: the sign of an industry whose destructiveness is not worth it.

If convicted, Syncrude faces fines of nearly $800,000. Oil industry profits mean that companies can likely pay a fine of this level without pain. Since the 1,600 ducks died nearly two years ago, new requirements for industry to deal with its wastewater are in place. Yet, most companies are not taking even these new and weak requirements seriously. Syncrude has accumulated more liquid tailings than the whole of the industry put together – about 132 billion gallons of the total 221 billion gallons in 2010. And yet, true to form, Syncrude has submitted tailings management plans that will not comply with these new requirements, and has some of the weakest plans of any tar sands oil operator.

Clearly, we need more. Oil companies need to clean up the tailings waste ponds. They need to be held accountable for their pollution so that it does not harm bird habitat, forests, wetlands, rivers, and the public health of downstream communities.

Tar sands expansion will continue along its destructive path until its main market – the United States – says no to more bird deaths, no to new pipelines, no to expansion of refineries, and yes to clean energy solutions for our transportation needs.

For more on the duck trial, see the blog from our colleagues at the Pembina Institute.

Tar sands oil lobby revolving door

2010-03-01T20:48:50Z

Many people think of Canada as large tracts of pristine forests and a strong environmental ethic. Indeed, the Canadian people and provincial governments such as Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia are working hard to fight climate change. Yet, the Canadian federal government and Alberta are undermining U.S. efforts to build a clean energy economy. Why? The answer can be found in extraction of a tar-like substance (bitumen) that can be upgraded to a synthetic crude oil at the cost of millions of acres of Boreal forests and wetlands and vast quantities of water and natural gas. Once oil prices went high enough, this expensive and destructive source of fuel for our cars and trucks became a boom for the oil industry. A New York Times article today shows that once the hunger for oil profits started driving Canada’s actions, the government became shameless in pushing the United States backwards towards an oil addiction that comes at a great price to our environment and our health. With oil prices going down in recent times, the pace of development has slowed, but big oil and Canada want to see profits again – despite the fact that tar sands mean a step back from a clean energy economy and a step towards high oil prices.

Oil companies have long been known for their big lobby presence in Washington. Tar sands oil operators include oil majors such as BP, ConcoPhillips, and ExxonMobil. Big oil lobbyists now not only work for the oil companies, they also are diplomats from Canada and the tar sands province of Alberta. There is an active and dishonest lobby seemingly connected to the oil industry that is targeting climate legislation and state low carbon fuel standards. Less well known perhaps is the amount of lobbying that Canadian taxpayers are underwriting to undermine U.S. low carbon fuel standards and efforts to build a clean energy economy nation-wide. Legally, foreign agents and lobbyists are required to register. Their reports tell a tale of the governments of Canada and Alberta hiring lobbyists to sell tar sands oil despite the environmental, health and economic costs. The province of Alberta also has its own diplomatic office in the Canadian embassy in D.C. – from which it pushes a rosy view of tar sands oil. I don’t think that Canadian taxpayers would be happy to see their money going towards helping big oil and hurting our climate.

In the meantime, the revolving door of Canadian pro-tar sands politicians visiting Washington, D.C. continues. Recently it was Canada’s Environment Minister – an apologist for tar sands - and later this week, Alberta’s Sustainable Resource Development Minister comes for an energy conference where he will undoubtedly tout tar sands oil.

Uncommon Ground over Tar Sands and Climate

2010-02-18T21:58:32Z

Over the next few days, Canadian provincial leaders are visiting Washington, D.C. for the National Governors Association conference – finding common ground with their neighbors to the south that they are not finding with Canadian tar sands provinces and the Canadian federal government.

The most vocal Canadian lobby in Washington these days on energy are tar sands oil supporters – in the shape of the oil industry, the Canadian federal government and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. So, it will be refreshing to welcome provinces that are focused on building a clean energy economy this week.

Just last December at the climate conference in Copenhagen, divisions in Canada over climate and tar sands erupted in public. Ontario and Quebec – home to two-thirds of Canadians - called on Canada to take a tougher position on greenhouse gas emissions. These provinces see Canada’s protection of the tar sands oil industry as unfair and are not willing to bear a higher carbon emissions reduction burden to allow tar sands oil pollution a free range.

If the United States expands imports of tar sands oil, we will also be expanding import of pollution. The high pressure oil pipelines that transport the tar sands to refineries in the United States have been known to leak and spill and they will be crossing America’s agricultural heartland. To accommodate this drastic increase in imports of heavy crudes, many refineries would have to be retooled with expensive, carbon-intensive, and polluting equipment. Refining tar sands oil creates vast amounts air, water, and global warming pollution. Further, this new infrastructure in the United States would cost billions of dollars that could be put to use for creation of clean energy jobs here at home.

The U.S. and Canadian leaders will also find a lot of common ground through their existing work together in the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord (in which Manitoba is a member and Ontario an observer) and the Western Climate Initiative (in which British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec are all members and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia are observers). Of interest to all of these initiatives are questions about coordinating regional programs to cap greenhouse gas emissions, putting renewable energy into the electricity grid, increasing clean energy jobs, and reducing transportation greenhouse gas emissions.

But hopefully, they will also find common ground in pushing back against high-carbon fuels and in fighting for economy-wide limits on greenhouse gas emissions in both of our countries. Canada has said that it will follow what the U.S. does on climate change pollution regulation, yet it has long-standing commitments to fight climate change that it has not yet implemented. And tar sands oil interests have been actively lobbying to weaken U.S. climate initiatives. This week’s meetings should send a message that we need the federal governments to implement economy-wide caps on greenhouse gas emissions and limits on expansion of high-carbon fuels such as tar sands oil.

See this backgrounder for further information.

What tar sands oil means in America’s heartland

2010-02-17T23:15:01Z

With Elizabeth Shope, NRDC advocate

One of Canada’s largest pipeline companies, TransCanada, is proposing to build a 1,800-mile-long pipeline that would cut through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas (map). This high-pressure pipeline, the Keystone XL, would carry the dirtiest crude oil on the planet – tar sands strip-mined and drilled from Canada’s boreal forests and wetlands – to the Gulf States for refining. Such a pipeline anticipates a more than tripling of the amount of tar sands dirty crude coming to our cars and trucks at precisely the time that America is working to become a leader in clean energy. A tar sands pipeline will keep the United States addicted to oil.

TransCanada has said that the farms and ranches along the pipeline’s path are less deserving of protection than urban areas and has asked for permission to operate in these communities at high pressure with a weaker pipe than will be used in urban areas. The pipeline company is asking the Department of Transportation to waive safety regulations so that it can use less steel in its pipe. This will save TransCanada a lot of money. But what will it gain farmers and ranchers through whose land the pipeline passes? What will it gain local police and emergency responders who will have to deal with pipeline leaks and explosions?

Ironically, the decision about the tar sands pipeline is not in the hands of our climate experts, nor of folks whose land the pipeline will trample. Instead, it is the Department of State that makes the final decision of whether to grant the pipeline a permit – simply because it starts in another country. This authority comes with a requirement to do an environmental review, the draft of which we are awaiting, and to determine if the pipeline is in the national interest.

TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline would be the third tar sands pipeline being planned from Alberta into the United States. In 2008, the Bush State Department approved a first TransCanada Keystone pipeline which will bring 590,000 bpd of tar sands from Hardisty, Alberta to Wood River and Patoka, Illinois, and to Cushing, Oklahoma. Just last summer, Obama’s State Department approved Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper tar sands oil pipeline, which would have an ultimate capacity of bringing up to 800,000 bpd to Superior, Wisconsin. An additional 900,000 barrels per day from the Keystone XL pipeline would mean that the United States was either locking itself into using 2.3 million bpd of this dirty fuel for decades to come, or that these pipeline companies are wasting billions of dollars on this infrastructure – dollars that could be put to use for renewable energy development. To accommodate this drastic increase in imports of heavy crudes, many refineries would have to be retooled with expensive, carbon-intensive, and polluting equipment such as cokers and hydrocrackers.

This may sound like a good idea, or at least like a necessary risk, in order to provide our cars with fuel, but the reality is that importing Canadian tar sands crude is dirty and expensive. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in the national interest. If approved, the Keystone XL pipeline will undermine our efforts to combat climate change, put local communities at risk, and expand the destruction of Canada’s Boreal forests and waters in Alberta.

Approving a new tar sands pipeline hurts U.S. credibility on clean energy

2009-08-21T17:59:21Z

Yesterday, the State Department issued a permit for a new transboundary pipeline that will bring heavy tar sands oil to the U.S. Midwest for upgrading and refining.

The United States is preparing for the Copenhagen meeting having made a commitment to fight climate change and to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As lead U.S. negotiator Todd Stern was quoted saying, "high-carbon goods and services will become untenable" in the wake of international efforts to address climate change.

Issuing permits for new pipelines that will carry an expansion of the heavily polluting tar sands oil into the United States should not be done pipeline by pipeline with only the impacts of that individual pipeline taken into account. The new U.S. commitment to fight global warming means that we need to look big picture at the pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from these pipelines and the heavy oil upgraders and refinery expansions that they will enable.

Putting in place a climate policy that will truly fight global warming needs to happen at all levels - from the negotiations in Copenhagen to the debate in the House and Senate and even to the level of consideration of a pipeline permit. If we allow individual projects to move forward without sufficient analysis of how they link to the goal of building a clean energy future - we undermine our own policy commitments and priorities.

It is not in our national interest to invest in pipelines and refineries that will lock us into the high levels of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil production, transportation and upgrading. Instead of pipelines for tar sands oil, we need to be building the infrastructure for our clean energy economy so that in the future, we will not depend on oil - and especially not on the even dirtier tar sands oil.

No Ducking Charges for Deaths in Tar Sands Mining Waste Ponds

2009-02-10T15:24:21Z

From a birds eye view, the Syncrude tar sands mining waste ponds stretch out glistening attractively in the sun. On a long migration north to nest, I can see how 500 ducks would decide to land on one of those vast stretches of water. The ducks wouldn't realize they'd be landing in waters with so much oil that they would be unable to fly again. The cannons meant to keep them away were not turned on and the scarecrows placed over the surface of the water weren't much of a deterrent. Last April, those 500 ducks all died. Yesterday, Alberta and Canada brought charges against Syncrude under provincial environmental law and under the federal migratory bird law.

Canada's Boreal forest is prime nesting grounds for waterfowl and songbirds from throughout the Americas. As shown in our report on the impact of tar sands on migratory birds, tailings ponds may cause the deaths of 8,000 to 100,000 birds every years most of which go unreported. The death of 500 ducks captured the imagination of people around the world. Of course, the ducks are a warning - the canary in the tar sands mine - one in a growing number of warnings that include concerns about local cancer rates, leaking waste ponds, and increasing global warming pollution.

The governments of Alberta and Canada have not been very quick to enforce environmental laws against tar sands companies. This is the first case of its kind that I know of - charging a tar sands company with not meeting its obligation to protect migratory birds. And yet, if the Canadian migratory bird law was truly enforced, the tar sands mining waste ponds could not exist. The law is very clear and says that you may not "deposit a substance that is harmful to migratory birds, or permit such a substance to be deposited, in waters or an area frequented by migratory birds or in a place from which the substance may enter such waters or such an area." A one time fine of up to $800,000 is unlikely to have much impact on a tar sands oil company. What we need is a decision to clean up the existing waste ponds and to prohibit the creation of any new ones.

Alberta and Canada may hold up these charges as an example of how they are enforcing environmental laws in the tar sands. Yet, it took workers at Syncrude blowing the whistle on the company for us to even know about the oiling of the ducks. It took a private prosecution by EcoJustice, Sierra Club and ForestEthics to start the enforcement case rolling.

Next week President Obama will visit Canada on exactly the same day the private prosecution of this case was due to go to court. Both Alberta Premier Stelmach and Canadian Prime Minister Harper have indicated that they want to protect tar sands from global warming regulation. Alberta and Canada have likely taken this case over from a private prosecution in part to send a message that they are doing something about the many environmental problems in the tar sands. But one prosecution in the midst of so many problems is not enough to make the tar sands look green.

President Obama has been talking about a new way forward for a green energy economy. Tar sands oil extraction does not fit in a green economy. Dead ducks do not fit in a green economy. But Alberta has lots of potential to be a major player with wind energy and across North America we need to be working together to develop environmentally friendly energy and transportation options.