The Dominion - Fort Chipewyan

Tar Sands & Water

Van Ferrier — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:04:58 +0000

Interviews with mostly members of the Fort MacKay and Fort Chipewyan communities, discussing cultural and environmental impacts of living downstream of the tar sands

Youth protest against the tar sands in Fort Chipewyan

dawn — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:45:05 +0000

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Youth from Fort Chipewyan marched through the streets to protest against the tar sands in -32 degree temperatures this afternoon.

The march was organized by 10 year old Robyn Courtoreille, who got other youth involved in the protest.

"Syncrude and Suncor have been poisioning our water, air, so we protested to let them know we want a future not cancer," said Dailen Powder, 12, after the protest.

"I was protesting because I dont want anymore deformed two jawed fish in our lake," said Cherish Kaskamin, 11.

There is another protest in Fort Chipewyan planned for January 12th.

What in Tar Nation?

dru — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:12:22 +0000

Life among the tar sands

We leave Fort McMurray and hitch a ride to Fort MacKay, a Native community 40kms north, where we stay for three days.

Celina, the elder with whom we stay, speaks of the trap lines from which she and her husband Edward once gleaned a life, and of the bushes teeming with berries that tickled this land before the tar sands plants opened, and stole their land, along with the health of the fish and animals. She lists the kinds of berries: raspberries, high bush cranberries, Saskatoon berries. She lists them off in circles, repeating the names, once, twice, three times, drawing attention to the abundance that she has no pictures to prove. She pauses after each name, breaking in remembrance to taste each one.

We talk about quality of life. About how apples and tomatoes, rumour has it, aren't as robust, tasty or nutritious as they were in our parents' generation and that our parents' apples and tomatoes didn't measure up to those of previous generations either. Oranges and celery; mangoes and carrots; fish, moose; the vitamins of life. I read an article about it that recites percentages, that recaps parentages.

Since the Alberta government implemented its Mineable Oil Sands Strategy in 2005, its priorities have been easier to justify and enforce: the area has been declared a "co-ordinated zone within which mining has the highest priority; policy is in place that specifically stipulates wildlife in the tar sands zone will not be protected before or during mining, "according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Young people, old people and people in-between are dying of cancer. The air here is laced by unrelenting stacks. Oil and water meet but refuse to coalesce in harmony. Like Celina, the people of Fort MacKay who live upstream from the plants get their drinking water from a source other than the river. Celina doesn't trust the water anyway and has met with oil plant representatives and observed for herself their unwillingness to drink tap water. As a result of one such meeting, Syncrude agreed to provide and pay for all the bottled water that she and her husband can drink. She smiles when she tells us that they hate her big mouth. The people living downstream from the plants, most notably in the isolated Native community of Fort Chipewyan (farther north and only accessible by plane), draw water directly from the Athabasca and are the most affected. Five cases of a rare cancer of the bile duct, cholangiocarcinoma, have occurred in Fort Chip's population of 1,200 in the past five years. Normally, only one in 100,000 people contract it. Years ago, Celina tells us, white, non-native people in the neigbouring town of Fort McMurray complained of difficulty breathing, and of green-black, deadly smoke being emitted from a Syncrude plant. As a result, the plant was closed down.

She shows us pictures, not of high-bush cranberries, but of people she's known, and some she's loved. She tells us about her eldest son, who died six years ago. She speaks of how good-looking and kind he was. The neigbouring town of Fort McMurray, where he died, seems almost entirely populated by oil rig workers, or by those in close association. The town has seen massive growth in recent years: more people, more trucks, more drugs, violence and money. Before her son was stabbed in the heart by somebody she doesn't know, Celina knew it had happened.

Our last morning in Fort Mackay we wake up to find that Celina has not returned from Bingo the night before. Just as we're beginning to worry, she arrives. She has spent the night in the hospital with her youngest son, Murray. "I think he ate a bad hamburger," she says. "Maybe food poisoning," she seems to hope. I find myself hoping as well. How serious can food poisoning be? White people who eat in fancy restaurants get it, so it can't be fatal. "The barbecue was brand new," she says. "You can't just cook meat on a brand-new barbecue. There are toxic chemicals all over these things--you have to get the factory off of it before you use it to cook with." She shakes her head at the floor and places her hand on the kitchen table to steady herself. "I don't trust other people's cooking. I don't trust it unless I've cooked it myself. I just don't trust it at all." She continues to shake her head, sadly. "A lot of people don't have a clue. They don't know how to cook a burger right. The woman who cooked it didn't even know that you can't just buy something from the store and use it right away. She probably had no idea. Half the time people have no idea they're eating poison," she says.

We meet Billy in the only restaurant in Fort Chip. He works for Parks Canada as a firefighter, away from home. On days off, he has a few drinks. He drinks and has a lot to say. He tells us of his job at a tar sands plant, how it lasted three months. "They clear cut these huge areas," he says, "but instead of giving it to the elders for firewood or something like that, they just bury it all underground with their huge machines." He raises his voice in anger. "They've taken fish from this river with sores and puss all over them. They've even found fish with two heads," he says, eyes wide. "Indians are supposed to live to 100," he smiles, "but I know sooner or later, I'm going to catch something." He is well-built, athletic, and seems healthy to me. "These plants know exactly what they're doing," he says. "They don't care if they kill us all off. If we survive, it's a bonus, but if some of us die of cancer, oh well." I find myself wanting him to become the community activist, the one who makes the noise. He's got it; he should start something. "I buy all my food in the store. I don't touch any wild meat," he says. "Would you eat a fish with puss all over it?" When we ask if he drinks the water, he nods, solemnly. "My baby bathes in it."

The fish plant in Fort Chip, not surprisingly, has gone straight downhill in the last 10 years. But the biggest problem, according to one employee, is the lack of fishermen. Apparently the government is making it harder and harder to get a fishing license. People can't afford to fish, and so they don't. Many believe that this is a government tactic, to keep the actual number of sick fish quiet.

Billy invites us to sleep at his house and we meet his wife and three-year-old daughter. He is generous with his home and his food and insists that we help ourselves to anything, that when he visits Montreal he will expect the same.

In the morning Billy seems to have lost some steam. He seems dejected and less eager to talk about the tar sands. But when we show him a video interview with Celina he pulls his chair up close and leans in to hear. He seems to agree with his entire body. On-screen Celina says: "Once they take all the oil out of this place, what are our kids going to live on? You can't drink oil. You can't eat money."

"She knows what she's talking about," he says when it's over, shaking his head. "But what can you do?" He exhales, leans back in resignation and pats his daughter's head. I can see him thinking and I hear his outrage shifting back into motion by the sound of his breathing and the grinding of his jaw. He continues to stroke his daughter's hair. After a while, he says, "You know, maybe I will get some guys together and start something." He sits up straighter. We shake hands to say goodbye. When the door is closed I lose sight of everything but Billy and his daughter and a sad part of me wants him to leave while he can.

Mackay Sky

Oil Versus Water

dru — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:26:41 +0000

Toxic water poses threat to Alberta's Indigenous communities

Alberta is replete with precious oil. Recovery of that oil from the tar sands, however, is putting another precious resource at risk: water. Dene and Cree First Nations people live close to and in the midst of the largest tar sand deposit in the Athabasca River region and oil extraction is harming their water supply.

The recoverable oil reserves in Alberta's tar sands are so bountiful that they vie with oil reserves in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for top status. Compared to Saudi Arabia, however, the oil extraction process is very expensive. What is extracted is bitumen, a form of crude oil, mixed with clay and silica that must be refined to produce a barrel of oil. Current high oil prices make the extraction and refinement of bitumen very profitable.

Scientists at the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta have warned that the excessive water demand will result in the disappearance of the Athabasca River, having a devastating impact on the largest boreal delta in the world---a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

First Nations communities who live along and depend on the Athabasca River are also at possible risk from tar sands operations. There have been reports of increased illness and signs of toxic chemicals affecting wildlife.

Some elders with Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) are concerned with the environmental monitoring of the Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA), an NGO that is supposed to represent "all levels of government," First Nations and other stakeholders.

ACFN elder Pat Marcel said that CEMA was "dead" in the eyes of the elders because the Athabasca River is not being protected. "The corporations have to deal with us. We've got environmental agreements with every one of them," Marcel said.

"If you're not able to honour the treaty that we signed," said Marcel, "we might as well do away with that treaty and you can get your scrap of paper back and we can get our country back."

George Poitras, a member of the Mikisew Cree First Nation, also in Fort Chipewyan, explained:

"There's been a de facto extinguishment of our treaty rights because the government continues to take up land without any consideration or consultation with the First Nations." The treaty, Poitras told the Dominion, "obligates the government to consult with us any time there is a potential or adverse impact on our treaty rights--to hunt, fish, trap and so on."

But the government is not doing that.

"Historically," said Poitras, "they attempted to colonize us through policies and legislation that are paternal, colonial, imperial and they continue that attitude...[the government is] simply not dealing with us as priority rights holders of these lands."

University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler, winner of the 1991 Stockholm Water Prize (known as "water science's Nobel Prize"), expressed concern over industry-related chemicals found in the water and their effect on human health.

In an interview shown in a video documentary produced by OilSandsTruth.org Schindler said his biggest concern is the possibility of a breach of massive tailing ponds near Fort McMurray, which now cover an estimated 50-square kilometres. "Those ponds are acutely toxic material, so they would affect things probably well down the Athabasca and into the Slave River, and possibly beyond the Slave Delta."

Such a breach, said Schindler, could conceivably occur in the event of extreme rainfall or an earthquake. But it's not just the extreme possibility that has Schindler concerned.

"We know that those [tailing pond] dykes do seep some material. They try to catch it at the bottom and pump it back over the top. I don't know what per cent efficiency they have, but very few things are 100 per cent efficient."

In Fort Chipewyan, there have been reports of increases in diseases and cancers.

A local doctor, John O'Connor, reported disproportionately high incidents of colon, liver, blood and bile-duct cancers in the community. "There have been several different kinds of cancer, as well as what we call auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, various skin rashes," O'Connor told the Dominion. "The malignant--the cancerous diseases have been the biggest concern."

One condition, Cholangiocarcinoma, normally occurs in one out of 100,000 people. But in Fort Chipewyan, "We've had two tissue biopsy confirmed cases...and possibly another three or four, which didn't actually get to tissue biopsy diagnosis."

"In a population of between 750 and 1200, that's very unexpected."

"There are all kinds of sicknesses going on," said Allan Adam, a councillor with ACFN. "The elders say that before, in the 70s, people weren't sick like they are now. That's when all the oil sands started developing."

Warning signs of toxicity have also turned up in animals. "Some people say that they've seen spots inside the animals, that they won't eat the moosemeat because there's a different taste in it now," said Adam. "Fish have different growths on them, that weren't there before. Pusses growing out of their skin, and the gills are deformed on some of them"

After O'Connor took his claims public and called for an inquiry into the effects of the tar sands operations on water, he became the subject of an official complaint by officials at Health Canada. He subsequently gained the support of the community, environmental groups and First Nations. The Alberta Medical Association unanimously passed a resolution defending his "professional obligation and his right to speak out when he observes something."

Chief Roxanne Marcel of the Mikisew Cree First Nation has issued an appeal: "Our message to both levels of government, to Albertans, to Canadians and to the world who may depend on oil sands for their energy solutions, that we can no longer be sacrificed any longer."

Toxins from tailing ponds aren't the only problem on the Athabasca, however.

Estimates have oil production at 3 million barrels per day by 2015. At this rate, the Athabasca tar sands are projected to last over 400 years. But along with the effects of climate change, water usage will exacerbate the drying of the Athabasca.

Because the Athabasca River is iced-over for long periods, it is susceptible to low oxygen levels from decomposing organic matter. Diminished flows could exacerbate low oxygen levels further. This threatens high flows that flood shallow-side channels and perched basins in the delta, which are critical spawing grounds for fish like walleye.

"About the most positive thing I can say is that I'm glad I'm a human being and not a fish in Alberta," said Schindler.

While Fort Chipewyan and other communities downstream from the tar sands are the first to suffer, scientists say Alberta is not far behind.

The 1900s, said Schindler, has been unusually wet in Alberta, but that is not likely to remain the case. "Any farmer will tell you that it was pretty borderline for agriculture here in the twentieth century, and a good part of the province had to rely on irrigation water."

"If we get a return to those earlier conditions with the effects of climate change and with the high population and industrial growth here, we have the makings of a perfect storm with respect to effects on water."

While oil companies pumping over 100 billion gallons of water out of the Athabasca ever year will be the main problem for life downstream on the Athabasca, it is likely to be climate change--fed increasingly by the tar sands--that will affect the water supply of Edmonton and Calgary.

"Alberta's saving grace has been the water that flows out of the Rocky Mountains," said Schindler. "The only reason we have developments like Calgary and Medicine Hat is because of that water. That water is drying up."

"It's a little bit ironic that the province that's been opposing greenhouse-gas regulations the most is going to be the first to suffer, but that's where we are," said Schindler in May of this year.

That tar sands mining is the cause of toxins in the water and the recent upturn in diseases and cancers is a foregone conclusion for many residents of Fort Chipewyan.

Nonetheless, O'Connor says that the way forward lies in getting the government to investigate the problem and verify the source of the illnesses.

"I've asked for a baseline health study to be done in the community. This has been asked for before," said O'Connor. "If the population south of here is concerned about the health of this community, I would expect further pressure for such a study to be done will result in it being done and will shed much-needed light on what is happening."

Schindler says that the immediate solution is for the government to install a water treatment plant in Fort Chipewyan, to address the problem with the drinking water, and then investigate.

For George Poitras, the battle over the ongoing mining comes down to the fundamental right to exist.

"If we don't have land and we don't have anywhere to carry out our traditional lifestyle, we lose who we are as a people. So if there's no land, then it's equivalent in our estimation to genocide of a people."

"Here, we're living in a G8 country, fully developed, one of the most advanced countries as far as quality of life and as Indigenous people, we're still fighting for our existence."

Playing by Lake Athabasca

Water Intake