The Dominion - Alberta

A Dead Man’s Prints

Tim McSorley — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 02:03:34 +0000

RCMP request to fingerprint Wiebo Ludwig's corpse refused

HYTHE, AB—The day after controversial eco-activist Wiebo Ludwig died, the RCMP wanted to open his coffin and take his fingerprints one final time. His family refused.

The media-savvy reverend was seen as an "eco-warrior" by his supporters; to his foes he was an "eco-terrorist." He was best known for his run-ins with the oil and gas industry—and the police—because of his objection to poisonous leaks.

The Dutch-born preacher died from cancer of the esophagus on April 9 at his log cabin near Hythe, in northwestern Alberta. Ludwig was 70. The ink had barely dried on his death certificate when his casket was carried to a small cemetery in woods nearby and placed in an above ground concrete crypt. The previous fall I’d walked with Wiebo on a path that curves through the graveyard. At one point he stopped and, pointing with his cane, said, “This is where I’m going.”

The graveyard is a short walk from Trickle Creek, the small Christian community Ludwig founded 26 years ago. Today it’s home to nearly 60 people, a sprawling complex of chalet-type homes, machine shops, greenhouses, barns, woodsheds and a dental office.

Richard Boonstra, Ludwig’s long-time friend and a resident at Trickle Creek, called the RCMP’s request to fingerprint his corpse “odd,” “invasive” and “a terrible disrespect and interference” with human remains. Boonstra suspects the Mounties wanted to see for themselves that Wiebo Ludwig was actually dead. The request showed authorities’ discomfort with Ludwig, according to Boonstra, because, he said, Ludwig had embarrassed the "establishment."

Doris Stapleton of RCMP Media Relations says “a fingerprint is the best way to positively identify someone, and if that person has a criminal record the fingerprints are sent to Ottawa so they’re able to take the record off CPIC.” CPIC is the Canadian Police Information Center where criminal history files are kept.

The family’s attorney, Paul Moreau of Edmonton, informed the RCMP “that wouldn’t be happening.” The Mounties dropped the matter, and the heavy top covering the crypt was never raised. Moreau, a veteran criminal defence lawyer, says it was the first time he’s heard of police lifting prints off convicted criminals to close a file.

The request to fingerprint a dead and buried man came as news to recently retired correctional officer Rick Dyhm. In his 34 years as a guard at federal prisons—where numerous inmates have died—Dyhm says police never showed up to take prints off a dead inmate.

In 2001, an Edmonton judge handed Ludwig a 28-month prison sentence after finding him guilty of oilfield vandalism. He was found guilty of attempting to possess explosives and “public mischief” over $5,000 after two gas well-heads nearby Trickle Creek were damaged. One had been dynamited; the other encased in concrete. Ludwig was released after serving two-thirds of his sentence. What precipitated the vandalism was a series of sour gas leaks that poisoned people and animals at Trickle Creek. The Ludwigs say when they complained to the authorities, nothing was done. The leaks continued and the people of Trickle Creek put duct tape around their doors and windows to try and keep the toxic gas at bay.

Two years prior to his conviction, tensions reached a boiling point when a local girl, 16-year-old Karman Willis, was shot and killed at Ludwig’s farm. Willis had been riding in one of three pick-ups that tore around Trickle Creek in the dead of night. Drivers did doughnuts and tossed empty beer cans, with one truck coming to within a metre of plowing down four children sleeping in a tent. A bullet hit the radiator of one truck and ricocheted off the frame, striking Willis. No one was charged with the shooting; neither were any of the intruders charged with trespassing at night, or impaired or dangerous driving.

In January 2010, about 200 RCMP officers raided Trickle Creek to search for evidence in the bombing of a gas pipeline near Tom’s Lake, BC, about an hour’s drive from Ludwig’s farm. Mounties told reporters they had proof—DNA evidence—that Wiebo Ludwig was connected to the bombings. Ludwig was tricked into thinking he was just meeting with Mounties in nearby Grande Prairie, but was arrested and locked up for 24 hours. He was never charged with the Tom’s Lake bombings.

Boonstra finds it odd the Mounties didn’t get around to meet with Ludwig in his final days. If police believed Ludwig shot Willis—or was behind the BC bombings—Boonstra wonders why investigators wouldn’t want to see him in the hope they might get a deathbed confession.

Ludwig, a carpenter, built his own coffin in February when he realized his battle with cancer was going south.

In his final media interview, published in The Dominion, a weakened Ludwig revealed he was looking forward to what he called crossing over. “[Death] doesn’t bother me,” he offered. “It is apparent to everyone there is an afterlife, even though we repress that in our anxieties. I am eager for redemption, eager to see what’s there. I just hope I die without too much pain.”

He got his wish, thanks to a combination of herbal medicine, oxycontin and morphine. Right up to the day he died, Ludwig went for walks, often arm-in-arm with Maime, his wife of 43 years.

In his last hours, family members made their way to the log cabin where their leader, frail and lying on a couch, blessed them one by one. Wiebo Arienes Ludwig took his final breath at 11:30 am on Easter Monday. On his last day he said “...Think I’m afraid of dying? Hardly.” His last words were a request: that family members not quarrel and that they keep the faith.

No outsiders were permitted at the funeral service, held in the family’s large dining hall. I first learned of Wiebo’s death when Josh, one of his sons, phoned late that afternoon.

Family members wept openly when I played back recordings of the final interviews with Wiebo. I had called Trickle Creek on April 2 for an update on his condition. Ludwig managed to get to the phone. “Why are you calling?” he queried. I joked I was curious to see if he’d died on April Fools Day. Ludwig chuckled. It was the last time we spoke.

What has changed at Trickle Creek since Wiebo Ludwig’s death? Plenty, but much remains the same. Trickle Creek continues to be managed by a council of eight family members, its spiritual core much the way it was when Wiebo was alive.

Trickle Creek remains a strong Christian community, bordering on Old Testament-like values. Meals are followed by readings from the Scriptures. No one is addicted to cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, gambling, or television. The adults work every day except Sundays. Food and herbs are home grown, no one in the community suffers from obesity. The children have chores; they pick berries, help with the harvest, feed the chickens and milk the goats and cows. For kicks, they ride bikes, collect cattails, learn pottery and play volleyball, soccer and hop-scotch.

There are no video games at Trickle Creek. Put it this way: the apple products they admire hang on trees and the twitter comes from birds.

But a few changes have taken place. Wiebo’s log cabin was moved closer to the forest; the inside is now being refurbished and a second floor added. Plans are underway to build another multiple-story house, complete with a turret and an aerial walkway; the idea is that in cold weather people can travel between buildings without having to don extra clothes. A huge barn was recently constructed to store five thousand bales of hay and to give livestock shelter on cold winter days.

Before I pulled out of Trickle Creek I chatted with beekeeper Fritz Ludwig. “Sorry if I seem out of place here,” I explained, “I don’t go to church.” Holding a young child in his arms and swaying from side to side, the bearded Fritz smiled and replied, “neither do we.”

Byron Christopher is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Edmonton, Alberta. For more on his career, click here.

Wiebo Ludwig’s last interview was published in The Dominion on March 16, 2012. See Wiebo’s Final Battle.

Wiebo's Crypt

Wiebo Ludwig, November 2011

Wiebo’s Final Battle

Tim McSorley — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:33:18 +0000

HYTHE, AB—It’s not if, but when. Eco-warrior Wiebo Ludwig is preparing for death. With his weight now under 150 pounds, he predicts he’ll be gone in just weeks, a victim of cancer of the esophagus. Ludwig has battled the disease for the past year.

The Dutch-born patriarch of a Christian clan “living off the land” in Alberta’s Peace River country is in palliative care.

Ludwig, who turned 70 in December, takes pain medication to get through the night. “I’m trying to stay off pain killers as much as possible,” he reveals. To reduce their father’s pain, Charity, Salome and Mamie ‘Junior’ apply medical herbs wrapped in heated cloths to his chest and legs, now noticeably thin.

Ludwig’s sons recently built him a sauna. Their hope is that the wet heat will help him.

In January, surgeons in Grande Prairie placed a stent in Ludwig’s throat so he could swallow. Two weeks ago, Ludwig was rushed to hospital to have the stent lengthened after food became lodged in his throat.

For decades, Ludwig has stood as an outspoken, implacable, media-savvy foe of the oil and gas industry,as evidenced by Toronto filmmaker David York’s 2011 National Film Board documentary, Wiebo’s War.

Instead of battling energy companies, Ludwig plans to spend his final days with his family. “I feel there’s a time when you have to sign off,” he says, “you have to stop at some point.”

Ludwig’s eyes still penetrate, but he sounds exhausted.

Reverend Ludwig says he’s looking forward to ‘crossing over.’ “[Death] doesn’t bother me,” he says. “It is apparent to everyone there is an afterlife, even though we repress that in our anxieties. I am eager for redemption, eager to see what’s there. I just hope I die without too much pain …”

“I’m quite grateful about my life, in many ways a concentrated series of battles. I enjoyed the battles. They were difficult times, but meaningful. I was seldom bored, put it that way.”

Ludwig, described by his many foes as an eco-terrorist, says, “I have been somewhat persistent. I guess that’s been my one quality that’s been admired, not to give in and compromise with the BS … not to complain all day long either but to work at something that is commendable, a solution to some of our problems, hopefully.”

A carpenter and drywaller by trade, last month Ludwig completed his final project: his coffin. The simple wooden casket now rests on two metal stands in one of the modern chalet-type homes, part of a sprawling complex of industrial shops and barns known as Trickle Creek Farm.

His casket will be placed in a concrete crypt, above ground, in woods close by.

The outspoken critic of the oil and gas industry initially joked the government may go after him if he goes underground, then rationalizes why the crypt should be above ground: “in case we have to move again.”

“It’s not normal for people to build their own coffin,” I offered. Ludwig shot back, “What is normal out there, tell me?”

According to family members, their leader’s funeral will be a private affair, not open to the public or reporters. Ludwig says he wants his people to ‘retreat’ for a while after his death and “not engage much with the public.” “Not so much to mourn my dying,” he says, “but to give them some time to work their way through it.”

“I’m glad this is a bit of a process,” he offers. “I can spend time saying goodbye to the family and give them some direction on different issues. Everybody has a chance to face it…rather than ‘boom, he’s gone.’ We’ve had some beautiful conversations about the reality of us having to give up mortality,” he adds.

Ludwig spends a lot of time resting. He’s either in bed, lying on the couch or sitting in a recliner chair near a wood-burning stove. He says he’ll die at his log cabin, not in a hospital.

When he’s up to it, Ludwig and his wife of 43-years, Mamie, walk arm-in-arm on paths in the forest.

Ludwig reflected on his move to northwestern Alberta in the mid-1980s. “Many people thought I was nuts taking a family out here in the boondocks,” he says. “It wasn’t easy, but I sensed it was worth it. The alternatives looked disastrous … tasted them myself as a young man.”

“I found in the gospel a sense of realism,” he says, steering the topic to religion.

“I know people fuss with that, but I found the gospel more realistic than anything else. Today it’s almost frightening to say you’re a Christian because there’s so much bulls–t attached to it, in the public’s mind. Fortunately, I’ve had some very beautiful insights into the Word of God.”

The Trickle Creek Farm, home to nearly 60 people, many of them children and teenagers, is centerpiece of a 324-hectare parcel of land northwest of Hythe.

“I’ve seen men and women here really taking hold of this vision. They’ve come through. Many talks, many plans … they’ve come to see the beauty of withdrawing from all the riff-raff the world wants you to chase. They’ve pursued something quite steadily that has some character; has some sense again when it comes to practical issues, like raising your own food. That is almost critical.”

Son Josh Ludwig estimates they’re nearly 80 percent self-sufficient. With the addition of a windmill and solar panels, residents can now generate their own power. A large computer-controlled boiler creates heat for the houses.

As it turned out, the farm was smack in the middle of a large oil and gas field.

The people of Trickle Creek discovered that more than water trickled through their property. Sour gas leaks were followed by allegations of poisoned water, stillbirths and dead animals. “We didn’t want to be known for being environmentalists,” Ludwig says.

“We didn’t want to piss around with all their games. We wanted a place to live where they wouldn’t be puking on us … just let us be and allow us to live our lives.”

The Ludwigs complained to the authorities about the toxic leaks. After police did nothing, they say, they took matters into their own hands. Wiebo Ludwig ended up eating prison food for a year-and-a-half after an Edmonton judge found him guilty of using explosives to destroy and vandalize oilfield equipment.

“This started with the industry ‘fumigating‘ us,” Ludwig says of the conflict that vaulted him to national media attention. “How can you vilify people who object to that, and holler to authorities who don’t do anything to help them?”

It’s surprising perhaps, but Wiebo Ludwig does not blame his terminal disease on sour gas emissions. “It’s often hard to trace,” he says of his esophageal cancer, “because it’s everywhere — polluting waters, dirt and food. The oil and gas industry certainly caused a lot of trouble — including cancerous troubles — but who’s to know where we got cancer from?”

The public remains angry about the death of 16-year-old Karman Willis, a local shot in June 1999 while a passenger in a pick-up truck tearing around Trickle Creek in the middle of the night. According to police, the bullet that struck the teen ricocheted off the frame of the truck. Officers couldn’t find the shooter or his or her weapon.

People at Trickle Creek say the intruders sped around, doing doughnuts and throwing empty beer cans out the window. They point out that one of the trucks came to within a meter of running down four girls sleeping in a tent. One described it as “sheer terror” as a pick-up roared by them in the dark.

No one was charged with the shooting. Neither was anyone charged with trespassing at night, causing a disturbance or impaired or dangerous driving.

In January 2010, the RCMP swooped down on Trickle Creek, telling reporters that Wiebo Ludwig was responsible for pipeline bombings in the Tom’s Lake, BC area. Ludwig was held for a day but never charged.

Ludwig shared his thoughts about the news media. “I see the media as much the same shape as the public is in,” he offers. “Despite all of their writings and their efforts to tell us the truth, they can’t do it … they’re caught in a net of all kinds of pressures. The media is about making money and they’re scrambling to keep some clout, sacrificing all kinds of principles.”

In what may be his final advice to the oil and gas industry, Ludwig says, “get rid of this stuff and replace it as soon as possible with alternatives, and stop being so stubborn and stupid about it. My advice is, why don’t you just go for it? — do the right thing.”

“You can tell the oil and gas industry,” Ludwig says, “we knew we were right all along,” adding, “but I’ve come to see they also knew that.”

“In the end,” the reverend predicts, “good will win out over evil.”

Who takes over after Wiebo Ludwig is gone? Ludwig reveals that one of his younger sons—he refused to provide a name—has already been chosen to take the reins. “He has a good rapport with the next generation,” Ludwig says. “He has shown wonderful qualities and an excellent commitment.”

On his hope for society, Ludwig doesn’t pull any punches. “I hope it ends very soon,” he says. “I yearn for the age to come … I have for many years. I think society is definitely on a suicidal trip.” “It’s been prophesied,” he says, “the end of times are clearly with us today. Just when it all ends, is another question …”

“It’s gone that wild out there. Our social life is in shambles … family, marital … all these things are just busted up. Individualism has wrecked us terribly, made us lonely and isolated.”

Richard Boonstra, Ludwig’s right-hand man, says he’s inspired by how his old friend is handling death. “We’ve made death such a terrible thing in our society,” he says. “We’re scared to death of it, so to speak,” adding, “death has lost its sting, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a sadness around it.”

The last word goes to the dying eco-activist: “I feel very reconciled,” Ludwig says.

“My life has had some sordid chapters, especially my youthful life. But I feel a peace with the Lord and with man in terms of having dealt with those things in my soul, my spirit.”

“I’m not a person who has had small prayers,” Ludwig concludes. “I’ve asked for major things to change my life and the lives of those I’m with. I’m not disappointed.”

This article was originally published by the Vegreville Observer.

Journalist Byron Christopher, best known for his award-winning investigative journalism with CBC, is one of the only journalist Ludwig would speak to in his final days. Christopher is completing a book on Richard Lee McNair based on personal interviews and letters from the US fugitive who escaped several prisons over a period of years before being captured in Canada.

Wiebo Ludwig and Maime

Wiebo's coffin

Development on a LARP

hillarybain — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:41:26 +0000

Coalition speaks out on Northern Alberta land use plan

VANCOUVER—First Nations groups, scientists, lawyers and scholars are speaking out against the government of Alberta’s draft Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP). Critics say LARP fails to address First Nations rights and the worsening environmental and health concerns for communities impacted by the tar sands.

“There’s very little accommodation to the rights of First Nations [in LARP],” says Monique Passelac-Ross of the Canadian Institute of Resource Law, at the University of Calgary, a vocal critic of LARP's consultation process. “The government basically counts the number of times they communicate, but at the end of the day there’s no real negotiation, no real discussion.”

According to the Alberta government, LARP will identify and set resources and environmental management outcomes for air, land, water and biodiversity and guide future resource decisions while considering social and economic impacts. Some are concerned the LARP consultation is superficial, however, and serves as a formula for the government to increase expansion and development in northern Alberta without dealing with the environmental and social impacts of the tar sands.

“The government takes the information and often doesn’t give any feedback to First Nations on what they’ve submitted, so it’s a very frustrating process,” says Passelac-Ross. “Information just goes into a ‘black box’ and that has led the First Nations to the situation where they may go to court to force the government to listen.”

Local First Nations have had concerns with environmental impacts, land use planning and the future of the largest energy extraction project on earth since the 1990’s.

“I don’t think they even understand the impacts of what’s happening there and what the impacts are going to be in the near future. They haven’t really come up with a good plan on how to address them,” says Mikisew Cree First Nation Chief Roxanne Marcel.

She notes that she is not against development in the area, but wants to see a plan in place for the project to move forward without a negative impact.

“Were not opposing the oilsands, we’re opposing the way the government is implementing policies and proceeding without considering the impacts and what will occur in the future. They’re just doing all these ad hoc policies and the belief is that they will deal with whatever comes at the time.”

But Dave Ealey, who is a spokesperson for the Alberta government's Sustainable Resource Development program, believes the concerns of First Nations are addressed in the plan.

“There have been a number of media stories talking about some of the issues that the public has had about land ownership rights and Aboriginal concerns about access to traditional use areas,” he said. “We think we’ve addressed their concerns and that the final version of the LARP will have addressed a number of their (other) concerns. I think they’re already addressed in the cumulative effects monitoring that’s built into the plan.”

More recently world-renowned scientists have begun speaking out on the impacts of tar sands operations are having on communities and the environment.

In 2007 water ecologist Kevin Timoney published a study with the Treeline Ecological Research institute noting serious water contamination issues adversely effecting populations downstream from tar sands operations. Primary contaminants included arsenic, mercury and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with serious risks to those eating from the land and drinking untreated water.

Other chemical contaminants found in water included aluminum, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, phosphorus, selenium, titanium, total phenols, herbicides and pesticides as well as traces of ammonia, antimony, manganese, nickel and molybdenum.

Elevated arsenic concentrations have been associated with type two diabetes, cancers of the bile duct, liver, urinary tract, skin and vascular diseases.

With tar sands production expected to double over the next 10 years, provincial changes that take into account the concerns of local communities now could play a huge role in the future outlook of these communities.

Recommendations on environmental issues have been coming from respected scientists and numerous submissions have been made from the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations on land use planning and environmental degradation that for the most part have gone unheard.

As LARP proceeds, over 30 proposed tar sands surface mines, in-situ extraction and refinery upgrades are currently on the table to be approved by Alberta’s National Energy Board.

Although Ealey is confident that the LARP process will handle all concerns on the table Marcel is not so sure.

“We will be looking at challenging the LARP in courts if they don’t change it to reflect some of the recommendations that we have made,” said Marcel. “They have committed to meeting with our consultants and our team to review the recommendations but there’s no commitment that they will incorporate any of them.”

The final plan is expected to be finished, presented to the Alberta legislature, and provided to cabinet for approval sometime in August.

Trevor Kehoe is a journalist and photographer originally from Calgary, Alberta who is now based in Vancouver, B.C. He freelances for a number of online and print publications and blogs at Common Interest.

tarsands_2

tarsands_1

Canadian Delegation Talks Pipeline Impacts in Washington

Tim McSorley — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 05:43:54 +0000

Fears over spills, environmental impact spurr concerns on both sides of border

VANCOUVER—First Nations and environmental representatives from Canada are ratcheting up the pressure against the oil sands by taking their campaigning to the United States. In late May, a delegation headed to Washington, DC, to lobby against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline expansion and future impacts on the environment and their communities.

The controversial project would funnel over a million barrels of oil sands bitumen each day from Northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico and has caused concern over pipeline safety and environmental and land rights issues that have yet to be addressed.

“Many were intrigued that we were there. They don’t get a chance to hear from First Nations on this side of the border too often. There are a number of concerns we have with this project. Firstly there is no cohesive long-term plan on how to proceed with the Alberta oil sands. It’s really the ‘old west’ in Alberta when it comes to natural resources and downstream communities are negatively affected by this development,” said Assembly of First Nations Regional Chief for the North West Territories Bill Erasmus.

“We want to see sustainable development of this resource as well as having the downstream impacts addressed. Canada needs a strong climate change policy and right now there is no plan," he said. "We are not saying no to development, we need to take a step back, see what is truly transpiring and develop a better approach.”

Upon invitation from the US Congress and the Obama administration, Erasmus, Chief Roxanne Marcel from the Mikisew Cree First Nation and representatives from the Pembina Institute, Climate Action Network Canada and Environmental Defense Canada stated where they stood on the project.

The delegation met Assistant Secretary of Ocean and Environment Dr. Karri-Ann Jones, members from the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, members of the media and several congressmen.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline by Calgary-based TransCanada Corporation would build upon existing pipeline infrastructure that transports Alberta oil sands bitumen to refineries in the US.

Keystone pipeline infrastructure currently sends 590,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Hardisty, Alberta to refineries in Illinois, Nebraska and Oklahoma over the 3,467-kilometre trek.

The XL would add another 2,673 kilometres of added pipeline infrastructure that will cross Indigenous lands in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the United States.

Keystone has said the XL pipeline will move 700,000 bpd from Canada and US receipt points through Steele City, NB, to Cushing, OK, and down to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

About 200,000 bpd of the payload will be delivered into Cushing and the remaining 500,000 bpd will be transported to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Keystone has said their presidential permit application is requesting authority to transport up to 900,000 bpd, up from their initial capacity of 700,000 bpd.

The 6,140 km XL project would be over four times longer than the Trans Alaskan pipeline, and TransCanada has compared the undertaking to the construction of the Pyramids of Giza.

For Obama and other Americans the debate is on safety, energy security and vying for access to Canadian reserves while considering Asian and other international market competition.

Republicans are pressuring the Obama administration to approve the project before the end of 2011.

Only in operation for about a year, the Keystone pipeline has already had numerous reported spills.

Discussions of the XL expansion impacts come as TransCanada continues to clean up two recent spills in Kansas and North Dakota.

Keystone was shut down on May 9, 2011, after a spill in Bismarck, North Dakota where 21,000 gallons of oil leaked from a valve failure at a pumping station, and again May 29 after a small spill in Kansas.

A formal investigation has been set up by the North Dakota Public Service Commission into how the spill occurred and if TransCanada acted appropriately.

First Nations downstream from Albertan oil sands projects have felt the worst of the development, suffering serious health impacts, water, fish and soil contamination as well as massive amounts of water consumption, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Studies from respected scientists have shown increases in harmful contaminants in the area including arsenic, mercury, aluminum, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, phosphorus, selenium, titanium, total phenols, herbicides and pesticides as well as traces of ammonia, antimony, manganese, nickel and molybdenum.

These chemicals have been associated with type 2 diabetes, cancers of the bile duct, liver and urinary tract and skin and vascular diseases.

Industry and government sources suggest tailings pond leakage into soil, groundwater and surface water are insignificant despite reports in 2003 that found leakage rates were at 11 million litres per day.

The Alberta government, industry-funded Regional Aquatics Monitoring System has been widely criticized for using “questionable statistical methods and assumptions,” and for the “lack of details of methods, failure to describe rationales for program changes, examples of inappropriate statistical analysis and unsupported conclusions and inadequate monitoring sites.”

With no clear long term sustainable vision or plan for the oil sands, the Keystone pipeline expansion would allow for unabated increased production in Northern Alberta without considering present issues associated with the development.

Erasmus said he and other First Nations have taken their concerns to provincial and federal governments north of the border, including requesting independent environmental monitoring, but they have been all but ignored.

“To date the federal and provincial governments have not taken the concerns seriously of impacted First Nations,” said Erasmus. “They claim there is no proof the oil sands are adversely effecting communities. The project is seen as being in Canada’s national interest and that it must go ahead.”

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that Indigenous communities must have free, prior and informed consent before any projects like the Keystone XL get the go-ahead.

The US State Department has opted to hold a new round of public consultation hearings into the XL expansion in six different locations throughout impacted areas, after they release a final environmental impact statement on the project.

A decision is expected near the end of 2011.

Keystone refused to be interviewed for this article.

Trevor Kehoe is a journalist originally from Calgary, now based in Vancouver. You can read more at www.commoninterestcanada.blogspot.com, where this article was originally published.

Witnessing the Tar Sands Dead Zone

dawn — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 05:48:05 +0000

Asserting the need to heal

FORT MCMURRAY, AB—In the face of the enormous devastation that is destroying forests across northern Alberta, a peaceful group of people are steadfastly asserting the need to heal the land and waters. On June 25, 2011, the second annual Healing Walk for the Tar Sands brought together Indigenous people, Keepers of the Athabasca, elders, children and supporters, who walked 13 kilometres through the heart of where Syncrude and Suncor extract bitumen on a massive scale.

Bitumen, a tar-like substance that holds petroleum, sits below what the industry, in an Orwellian turn, calls “overburden”—not forest

The destruction we saw is so vast it goes far beyond the visible horizon. The urgent need for healing is evident to anyone who visits this barren expanse. People from many places came to support and join in—including activists who participated with Zapatista Indigenous communities and the movement in Oaxaca, Mexico. Together they chanted, “Zapata vive! La lucha sigue!”

The Healing Walk for the Tar Sands was led by elders such as Lillian, a Cree woman, and Violet, an 83-year-old elder and the oldest woman in the community of Fort McMurray First Nation. These elder women possess a wonderful sense of humor and sharp minds, and with other elders, guided the traditional prayers, smudge and ceremonies. This walk faced the enormity of the land stolen from Indigenous peoples that is now destroyed, lifeless, and empty save for ugly scarecrows called “bit-u-men” to keep out the birds from its poisoned soil. Horrid continuous booms from sound cannons scare the birds from landing in the enormous reservoirs of toxic waste. We marched beside the machinery of destruction, the surreal gigantic Tonka trucks, cranes and pipes. The air pollution, a putrid stench, gave a headache to many of the people who participated in the healing walk.

The day was rainy with occasional bursts of sun, but the walkers were not deterred by the weather. A couple walkers had brought protective dust masks, remembering how terrible they felt last year after the six-hour walk, their lungs absorbing toxic dust from the tar sands. However, it was not appealing to wear wet masks so we continued, mostly mask-less, through the rain along the shoulder of Highway 63, accompanied by a heavy police presence.

This walk was started by people heartbroken by what has happened to their traditional homelands. One of the organizers, Cleo Reece, helped to start the Memorial March for the Murdered and Missing Women when she lived in Vancouver years ago. She spoke of the murdered and missing waters in northern Alberta: an eerie, disturbing connection between the violence against Indigenous women and against Indigenous land. Colonization is not a thing of the past; it continues today in virulent, violent forms and materializes in the increased rates of cancer found in communities downstream from the tar sands.

Resistance and commitment to peace also continue, as they have for the past 500-plus years. This is a form of power that is based in love for community, a community of the living that includes not just people, but bears, eagles, rivers, wind and forests. It is a deeply humble, peaceful power that stands in ethical contrast to the forms of power that greedily exploit and forcefully violate the land and those who live on it. It is a power that cannot be bought or sold because it is freely shared, residing in a respect and a grief for the land that gives us life.

We began and ended the day at the Nistawoyou Friendship Center in Fort McMurray where a feast for the walkers had been prepared by a chef with a joyful laugh and a team of dedicated volunteers. At the closing circle, Cree Elder Lillian Shirt was presented with tobacco in gratitude for her leading the day’s ceremonies, and she shared with us stories of survival and creativity.

We learned a lot from the tar sands healing walk and from visiting the surrounding Indigenous families, some who live in crowded old trailers, accessible by unpaved, muddy roads. The living conditions on some of the reserves are not unlike those in poor communities in Latin America.

Where are the economic benefits of the tar sands to these communities? What have they gained from these industrial projects? Witnessing the poverty, health problems and environmental destruction in person helped us respond to these questions. A huge economic gap remains between the living standards of Caucasian and Indigenous communities. Indigenous communities are marginalized in Canadian politics and are fighting institutional racism as their long-term interests are undermined.

On the walk, an elder weighed the cost of lost culture, water and foods and asked what all this destruction has been for. The question points to the global interests that have developed the Alberta tar sands in order to sustain a privileged way of life for some at the expense of others. We had travelled from Vancouver, a landscape dramatically different from the tar sands wasteland but which is nonetheless endangered by the latter's economic grip on land. Our Pacific Coast is threatened by proposed pipelines, with their inevitable spills, and a rapid increase in tanker traffic. In an era of climate change, those of us who live in urban centres cannot afford the disconnect between our cities that reap the temporary benefits of this destruction and the Indigenous homelands that have been desecrated. Through global waters, winds, and ethical human relations, we are linked with the people who are witnessing the eradication of their boreal forests, traditional hunting grounds and once-pristine waters.

On the edge of the dead land and toxic reservoirs, wild flowers, forests and Indigenous families live in trailer homes. Life here is simple, humble and warm, filled with good humour and jokes. Inside, Indigenous artwork on the walls portrays wolves, traditional carvings and pictures of ancestors and grandchildren.

In this community, women, men, children, young people and elders resist their displacement and speak up about the destruction of their land, water and wildlife.

“Giving up is not an option,” said Dene Suline Elder Warrior Brian Grandbois from Cold Lake, Alberta. Brian’s community is struggling to protect Berry Point at English Bay in Cold Lake, the land where they hold ceremonies and sacred burials, smoke fish and gather medicinal plants. This sacred land is threatened to become an RV park by ministerial order. Indigenous peoples of the area have set up their peace protection camp with tipis, tents and campfires, even though police are pressuring them to leave. Colonialism, Eurocentrism, and capitalism are killing Indigenous peoples, destroying our planet, La Pachamama—our Mother Earth.

That the pollution from tar sands extraction projects has spread to affect the waters of the Athabasca River and Fort Chipewyan is no secret. Beginning in the 1990s, these waters became unsafe to drink, and people are sick as a result of their toxicity. These polluted waters empty into the Arctic. This is a fact of hydrology. Tar sands pollution as a source of acid rain in Saskatchewan is a meteorological certainty. Airborne pollutants are also reported to be concentrating in lake water in neighboring Saskatchewan, reducing the availability of certain fish species.

While the ailing of these once-healthy waters is cause for alarm, corporate negligence has been responsible for at least three recent pipeline spills in Canada and the US. In July 2010, Enbridge spilled 3.1 million litres of oil into Tallmudge Creek and the Kalamazoo River, Michigan. In May 2011 in the Plains Midwest, 4.5 million liters of oil were spilled in Lubicon Lake Cree territory, the homeland of Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a young woman from the Lubicon Cree Nation who spoke eloquently at the Friendship Center. She described the horror of experiencing 28,000 barrels of oil spilling right beside her family’s homes, in the largest oil disaster in Alberta since 1975. In June 2011, Enbridge was also responsible for about 1,500 barrels spilled near Wrigley in the Northwest Territories. This last spill is said to have been kept out of waterways, but still seeped into the soil.

Horrific spills are not the only danger posed by industrial activity in Northern Alberta. In December 2010, a gushing saltwater aquifer at Shell’s Muskeg River operation raised questions about ground water contamination. This incident was preceded by another round of duck deaths in October 2010 in a Syncrude tailings reservoir. It’s a tragic irony when cultures that see water as something that comes from a tap have to learn about the interconnectedness of the earth’s waters through violent corporate operations that destroy Indigenous people’s homelands and cultures.

The Second Annual Healing Walk in Alberta’s Tar Sands was deeply inspiring. In the midst of massive greed and destruction, a community gathered to transform ground zero into a place of solidarity and social change. The call for healing is compelling, as simple and as necessary as breathing clean air and drinking clean water. The walkers shared an understanding—respect for ecological integrity must come first.

Aidee Arenas subscribed to the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona, Christine Leclerc organizes enpipeline.org, Choo-kien Kua is an artist and Rita Wong is a poet. They are all based in Vancouver. This article was originally posted on the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Tar Sands Healing Walk

Tar Sands Healing Walk II

Lies and War Crime

hillarybain — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:35:30 +0000

Guatemalan ex-military accused of war crimes held in Alberta prison

CHIMALTENANGO, GUATEMALA—Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes, ex-member of the Guatemalan special forces known as the Kaibiles, was arrested in Lethbridge, Alberta, on January 18, 2011. He was detained at the request of the United States; the US may solicit his extradition to face charges of immigration fraud.

If proven guilty of having lied about his role in the Guatemalan military on his US application for naturalization, Sosa Orantes could face up to 10 years in prison in the United States. Meanwhile, human rights groups in Canada and Guatemala are petitioning the Canadian courts to try him for war crimes.

Sosa Orantes has been implicated in the planning and execution of the massacre at Las Dos Erres, in the northern department of Peten, where at least 252 unarmed civilians were systematically killed on December 6, 1982. This massacre was carried out in much the same manner as the more than 650 massacres committed by the Guatemalan military during the country’s 36-year internal armed conflict, which included widespread rape, torture and the mass killing of men, women and children, most of whom were Mayan.

According to Aura Elena Farfan from the Association for the Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Guatemala (FAMDEGUA)—the plaintiff organization that since 2000 has been bringing forward a case against Sosa Orantes and 16 other ex-Kaibiles implicated in the massacre—it is important that he be tried for the more serious crimes against humanity, rather than for the lie he told US immigration officials.

“Of course that lie is important,” says Farfan. “But for there to be justice, it is important that he is not only judged for that lie, but for the serious violation of human rights in Guatemala.”

Even with an unprecedented amount of evidence, including survivor testimonies, exhumation records and the testimony of a repentant ex-Kaibil who took part in the massacre, Farfan does not believe the justice FAMDEGUA seeks is possible in Guatemala.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found the Guatemalan government unwilling to live up to its judicial responsibilities to investigate and successfully prosecute those responsible for the massacre. The country is still characterized by widespread violence, while many of the intellectual and material authors—those who planned and those who carried out the massacres—retain high positions of political power in the current government and military.

Even though the Guatemalan Supreme Court issued arrest warrants in 2010 for the 17 ex-Kaibiles implicated in the massacre, Farfan believes this case is stuck in impunity. “It needs to be heard in a place where there does not exist the same danger of being bought off.” Such bribery, says Farfan “is likely to happen in Guatemala.”

Matt Eisenbrant from the Canadian Centre for International Justice (CCIJ) has called on the Canadian government to launch a full criminal investigation against Sosa Orantes.

“Usually, a trial in the place where the abuses occurred is preferable,” he says. “This should only be done, however, if all due-process guarantees can be protected and there are assurances that a fair trial can proceed without being tainted by outside influences.” The CCIJ is calling on the Canadian government to ensure that Sosa Orantes will be held fully accountable by conducting its own criminal investigation into possible war-crime charges, taking this into account when considering the extradition requests.

Legal support for the case first surfaced in 1994, after FAMDEGUA officially received an exhumation request from three families from the area. Within a year, anthropologists had found 162 complete skeletons in a 12-metre grave, 67 of which were from children under age 12.

According to a report released by Amnesty International in 2002, the findings of the exhumation matched up with survivors’ testimonies about the massacre; it involved first the mass and repeated rape of the women and young girls, followed by the killing of the children and then the women, many of whom were pregnant. The men were killed last. Anthropologists’ reports reveal that most of the victims were killed by a blunt object to the back of the head, after which they were thrown into the mass grave.

Both witnesses and FAMDEGUA have received numerous threats for bringing this case forward. Still visibly affected by the case, Farfan says that “[Sosa Orantes] did not have compassion for the victims who were asking not to be killed, not to be tortured.” She expresses the weight of the blood that was spilled in Guatemala, stating that the bodies of the young children and pregnant women should tip the scales of justice further than the lie Sosa Orantes told to gain US citizenship.

“If victims are to be satisfied and if we are to provide deterrence against such abuses happening in the future, perpetrators must be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible,” says Eisenhart.

Sosa Orantes was denied bail on March 9, 2011, by Albertan judge Suzanne Bensler who deemed him too much of a flight risk. His next court appearance is scheduled for April 20, 2011.

Valerie Croft is living in Guatemala, completing a CIDA internship with CEIBA—a Guatemalan environmental advocacy organization that works on issues related to climate justice, food sovereignty and the defense of territory.

Corn and Feet

Bike Lanes Tarred

hillarybain — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 04:09:31 +0000

Tar sands are good, but bike lanes? Not so much

Did you hear the one about the tar sands project and the bike lane?

About 13 years ago, a company called ExxonMobil thought it would be a really good idea to start a tar sands project in Alberta. Five years earlier, in Toronto, a report for the City concluded it would be a really fine idea to put a bike lane along major downtown streets called Bloor and Danforth because so many cyclists used this popular east-west route.

There are actually a few differences between a tar sands project and a bike lane:

Oil from the tar sands is used by people to fuel their cars; bike lanes let people ride their bikes so they don't need oil from the tar sands.

A tar sands project uses huge amounts of water and natural gas while destroying forests, wetlands, and wildlife habitat; a bike lane needs a painted white line.

The ExxonMobil project would emit 3.7 million tonnes (Mt) of greenhouse gases (GHGs) each year—about the same as 800,000 cars—for 50 years; bicycles don't emit GHGs.

Now, in a sophisticated country like Canada you can't just decide to mine a tar sands deposit—or to take over a bit of the road to make it safer for cyclists.

We've got rules.

For the giant open pit of a tar sands project there has to be an environmental assessment (EA) so that governments can make smart decisions that avoid damaging the environment. For the painted white stripe of a bike lane you probably don't need an EA, but you can't be too careful—so the City decided to do a rigorous EA.

In 2006, a panel of experts was appointed to study the impacts, including GHG emissions, of the tar sands project (now involving Imperial Oil). A number of months later, the experts concluded that 3.7 Mt of GHGs wouldn't cause significant negative effects on the environment. They didn't say why, they just said it didn't. The government in Ottawa carefully read this report and decided it looked really good, and approved it. Around the same time, concerned groups asked a court to review the panel's decision.

The judge ruled that the panel couldn't just decide that 3.7 Mt of GHGs was insignificant—it had to give reasons. So the experts got back together in 2008 and said it wasn't significant because there wasn't much evidence that it was significant and, anyway, the government of Alberta was on top of the problem. Ottawa decided these reasons also sounded really good—and they gave a green light to the project.

Meanwhile, back in Toronto, the bike lane wasn't doing as well.

After the 1992 report, City Hall kept saying that cycling was a really good thing and more people ought to do it. More people did cycle and in 2001 the City said it would put in lots of bike lanes, except it didn't (but that's a different joke).

Finally, in October 2007 Toronto's council ordered a study to see if it was feasible to find a bit of room for bikes on Bloor-Danforth. About a year later, the report concluded a bikeway was feasible and would hardly even interfere with car traffic. The head of the city's bicycle committee announced a bikeway would finally happen. But some councillors and other folks were unhappy so in 2009 the City said it would do another study to look at the environmental impacts of the bikeway.

It took a full year to choose a consultant to prepare the EA—maybe because studying the environmental consequences of pedaling two-wheelers is a complex business.

The City was in no rush to have the EA started, and certainly not before the fall 2010 municipal elections. (Debating issues during an election can be awkward.) The EA was scheduled to be finished in 2011. In the meantime, some candidates running for mayor* said the City already had too many bike lanes, meaning bike lanes on two per cent of the city's 5,600 kilometres of roads was excessive. Apparently bikes were causing congestion. (It hadn't occurred to the candidates that bikes need far less room than cars, and with more people on bikes there would be more room for cars.)

The tar sands project is now under way with strong government support. Cyclists in Toronto, on the other hand, are mostly left to fend for themselves while breathing the fumes of ever-increasing amounts of tar sands fuel.

Funny, eh?

Albert Koehl is an environmental lawyer, an adjunct professor in natural resources law at Osgoode Hall Law School, and a founding member of the cycling group Bells on Bloor. This article was originally posted on Rabble.

*Since this article was published, Rob Ford, a loud critic of bike lanes, was elected Mayor of Toronto.

Bike Lanes

Secret Meeting Planned, then Cancelled, between ENGOs and Tar Sands Companies

dru — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:50:54 +0000

Invitees included Tzeporah Berman, World Wildlife Fund, ForestEthics

MONTREAL—A secret meeting between top Canadian Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) and tar sands corporations was cancelled after word of the meeting spread beyond the initial invitees, according to two emails leaked to The Dominion.

Billed as a "fireside chat" and an opportunity for "deeper dialogue" in a room at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the invitation was sent by Marlo Raynolds of the Pembina Institute on behalf of himself and Gord Lambert of Suncor. Suncor is the fifth-largest oil company in North America, and the Pembina institute is a high-profile advocate for sustainable energy in Alberta. The invitation was marked "confidential."

Ten representatives each from tar sands operators and high-profile environmental groups were invited to the "informal, beer in hand" gathering. The David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Forest Ethics, Pollution Probe and Tides Canada were among the invited environmental groups. Merran Smith of ForestEthics was listed without affiliation, as was Tzeporah Berman, who worked to privatize BC's rivers as director of PowerUp Canada, and who is slated to start work this month as Greenpeace International's Climate Campaigner. Among invited oil companies were Shell, ConocoPhilips, Total and Statoil. Leading tar sands investor Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was also on the guestlist.

The event would be, the invitation explained, "an opportunity for a few ENGOs and a few companies to share their thoughts on the current state of relations and explore ideas on how a deeper dialogue might occur."

Three days later, Raynolds sent a second email, cancelling the gathering, owing to "the level of tension" between "a subset of companies and a subset of ENGOs." The followup email specified a legal dispute. Sources in Albertan environmental circles suggested pressure to cancel came from threats to expose the meeting publicly.

"I personally believe we all need to find a way to create the space and conditions necessary for deeper and meaningful conversations to find some solutions," wrote Raynolds, explaining the cancellation. "I do hope that in the coming months, we can work to create those conditions."

The invitation to the secret meeting came as several of the invited groups had signed on to an open letter to Enbridge, asking it to cancel the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which would pipe tar sands crude to BC's central coast, to be put on oil tankers. The letter was published as a full page ad in the Globe and Mail.

In 2008, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Boreal Initiative (financed by the Pew Charitable Trusts; see "Can Pew's Charity be Trusted?," November 2007) released a report proposing "conservation offsets" as a way to mitigate the destruction of biodiversity by tar sands operations.

According to Pembina, conservation offsets "allow resource companies to compensate for the unavoidable impact to biodiversity from their development projects by conserving lands of equal or greater biological value, with the objective of having no net loss in biodiversity."

Pembina acknowledged a contribution of $44,000 from tar sands operator Nexen for the "costs of the document."

Petr Cizek, a land use planner and long-time critic of ENGOs' campaigns because of their lack of transparency and accountability, said it is to be expected that prominent environmental groups will meet in secret with oil companies.

"Is this surprising? No. Is this blatant? Yes," Cizek said.

"The issue isn't negotiation or compromise. I've done lots of both in my time. The issue is whether the negotiations are transparent and the organizations are democratic. Virtually none of these organizations are democratic," he said.

Environmentalists invited to the secret meeting have come under fire by grassroots environmental activists for their secretive, back-room approach to negotiations with corporations in previous campaigns. Tzeporah Berman and Merran Smith both acted as negotiators when ForestEthics and other BC ENGOs accepted a deal that protected 20 per cent of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Some grassroots organizations and First Nations were furious at the deal, which settled for half the minimum protected area outlined in protocol agreements signed by environmental groups and First Nations prior to the negotiations. (The area protected by the Great Bear deal was later increased to 30 per cent after First Nations' land use plans forced reconsideration of some of the concessions.)

Cizek said he is not bothered by the outcome of negotiations, but by the lack of accountability and public oversight.

"My issue isn't the fact that they protected only 30 per cent, or that they protected the wrong 30 per cent. In some cases, maybe that is all that you can achieve. These negotiations can be really ugly. I've been there," he said.

"My issue is that they lied to and betrayed and broke a deal they had with the smaller organizations."

In a 2009 interview published in the report Offsetting Resistance, Valhalla Wilderness Society (one of the smaller organizations Cizek mentioned) Director Anne Sherrod made the connection between the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and the tar sands.

"These are greenwashing deals. I am speaking out about this because there is evidence that the collaborative agreement industry may be moving to the tar sands," said Sherrod.

"I want everyone to know that issues where people are dying of cancer from serious pollution is no place for this kind of thing. Open public process is your best friend in situations like this. Insist on it."

Dru Oja Jay is a member of the Dominion editorial collective. He is co-author, with Macdonald Stainsby, of the report Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River.

Suncor Toad

Greenwashing at the Games

dawn — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:19:22 +0000

Heavy polluters look lighter as Olympic sponsors

VANCOUVER—As the debate about global warming heated up on the road to climate talks in Copenhagen, companies with investments in Alberta’s tar sands were scrambling to clean up their image as dirty oil producers.

Sponsoring the 2010 Olympics—frequently proclaiming themselves the "Green Games"—has become a convenient branding tool for companies profiting from the increasingly controversial tar sands, according to a University of Toronto professor who has written several books on the Olympics.

“Big corporations can milk that green image, and they have an excellent venue to do so with the Games because there is so much world attention,” said Professor Emeritus Helen Lenskyj.

Petro-Canada, which recently merged with Suncor to create a tar sands giant, is one of only six national partners sponsoring the Games. After expressing interest in an interview, Petro-Canada spokesperson Dany Laferriere refused to answer questions from The Dominion about his company’s Olympic sponsorship.

Becoming a national partner cost Petro-Canada $62.5 million, but there is a payoff, according to Lenskyj. “I think companies have a fair amount of success in greenwashing, with light green corporate environmentalism,” she told The Dominion in a phone interview.

Companies such as Petro-Canada need all the greenwashing they can get. The Alberta tar sands has the highest carbon footprint of any commercial oil project on the planet, according a recent report written by award-winning business reporter Andrew Nikiforuk. If the world’s largest energy project continues on its current growth path, the tar sands alone will produce more greenhouse gas emissions than Ireland, Austria or Portugal by 2020.

“Petro-Canada has been involved with the Olympics for a long time, before it merged with Suncor,” said Harjap Grewal, a member of the Olympics Resistance Network. Petro-Canada sponsored the 1988 torch relay for the Calgary Winter Games.

The Lubicon Cree, an Indigenous nation still fighting for a Treaty recognition, protested the 1988 torch relay with a campaign called “Shame the Flame,” accusing Petro-Canada of stealing their land rights and resources, according to Lenskyj.

Today, Native rights activist Mike Mercredi accuses companies such as Suncor of committing a “slow industrial genocide” by poisoning the water supply of Fort Chipewyan, a native community downstream from the tar sands.

“Around 11 million liters of toxic chemicals, including carcinogens and other deadly poisons, are leaking into groundwater and the Athabasca and poisoning entire communities,” said a Greenpeace representative in a press release.

In 1988, Lubicon protesters and their allies were banned from Olympic venues and public spaces at the University of Calgary after protesting Petro-Canada. A similar scenario may occur in Vancouver, where the University of British Columbia is taking a prominent role in the Games, to the chagrin of some student activists.

The Royal Bank of Canada, another national Olympic partner, is the prime financier of the tar sands. Canada’s largest bank directly funds fossil fuel extraction with $15.9 billion per year, creating 198 million tonnes of climate changing carbon dioxide emissions, according to a 2008 report from Rainforest Action Network.

Promoters of the "Green Games" are not talking about the tar sands, however. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) touts that some rain water from Richmond’s ice-skating rink, a prime venue, will be pumped into the building’s toilets and that waste wood from constructing the Whistler Creekside development will be chipped and reused on site.

“Organizers trot out a list of simple things [that seem green] for people who don’t know the difference between dark green and light green environmentalism,” said Lenskyj.

“The Vancouver Winter Games will be featuring more than just Gold, Silver and Bronze in 2010. Green will also be very much part of the mix,” explains General Motors, another national Olympic partner, on its website. The auto giant promises that 30 per cent of its Olympic fleet will be hybrids.

But activists have the power to turn Olympic greenwashing on its head, according to Grewal.

“Most of the world is aware that the development model practiced by these companies is causing the climate crisis,” he said. “The fact that they are pretending to be green gives activists a chance to highlight their actual policies.”

Chris Arsenault is the author of Blowback: A Canadian History of Agent Orange. He is currently writing a history of sabotage in the oil patch.

Greenwashing at the Games - tar sands

Tar sands "as they are" provoke negative press coverage

dawn — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:51:08 +0000

Here's an interesting admission from the first edition of the Canada West Foundation's Oil Sands Media Monitoring Report:

Positive stories on the oil sands and the environment are rarely
defensive of the oil sands’ impact. Refusal to bow to pressure from environmental groups is a common topic, but more so is advances in technology that could reduce the impact of the oil sands: research into microorganisms that could aid in the reclamation of tailings pond water or carbon sequestration techniques. Negative stories attack the oil sands as they are, while positive stories tend towards describing what they could be.

(Emphasis mine). Considering CWF is a darling of Stephen Harper, there's something rather sweet about that admission.

Five-Fold Increase in Oil Sands Production

Moira Peters — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 05:05:38 +0000

Tar sands could produce 6 million barrels of oil per day by 2035: report

VANCOUVER–"The oil sands have moved from the fringe to the centre of energy supply," notes the report "Growth in the Canadian Oil Sands: Finding a New Balance," released by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) on May 18.

Environmentalists and some aboriginal groups want the oil sands to stay on the fringes because extracting heavy oil produces more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude.

On May 22, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) issued a report entitled "The Canadian Oil Sands: Energy Security vs Climate Change," which argues that the negative environmental impacts and benefits to US energy security from Canada’s tar sands are both overstated.

"Smart regulation can place a fair and reasonable price on the oil sands’ greenhouse gas emissions, providing the right incentive to reduce them," said Michael Levi, an author of the CFR report.

In a phone interview, Levi said lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands are 17 per cent worse than conventional US oil imports. Environmentalists dispute this claim, stating oil production from the tar sands is at least 300 per cent worse than conventional oil.

"The development of Canadian oil sands encapsulates the complexities that the world faces on energy, environment and security," said IHS CERA Chairman Daniel Yergin.

Yergin won a Pulitzer Prize for his book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, which details the history of the oil industry. CERA did not respond to interview requests.

Oil today accounts for 35 per cent of the global energy supply—the largest share of any form of energy. In 2008, worldwide oil demand was 85.2 million barrels per day (mbd). CERA estimates global oil demand in 2035 could range from 97 to 113 mbd.

If the global economy stays in recession or a slow-growth scenario, production from Canada’s tar sands will reach about 2.3 mbd by 2035—an increase of about one mbd from present levels—according to CERA's report, which posits three possible scenarios for the future of tar sands development. In a high-growth scenario, the figure will reach six million mbd.

In 2008, Canada supplied the US with 19 per cent of its oil imports. That figure could rise to 37 per cent by 2035, according to CERA.

Canada's dependence on oil exports to the US worries Gordon Laxer, Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta. "We need 21st-century public interest ownership [of oil reserves]," he said in an interview.

Relying on exports to the US rather than the domestic market puts Canada in a weak position if there is a supply crisis, warned Laxer. Unlike the US, Canada does not maintain a strategic petroleum reserve.

In contrast to Canada’s private ownership structure, the vast majority of world oil reserves are controlled by government-owned companies which can, in theory, use oil wealth to finance national development, according to Laxer.

While arguing for a price on carbon emissions, the CFR report is not concerned with other environmental problems, including water contamination.

"Local impacts are not the concern of US policy-makers," said Levi.

Environmentalists say that exponential increases in water extraction from the Athabasca River could destabilize the North American water cycle.

Most water used in tar sands extraction is not returned to the natural water system. Instead, wastewater containing toxins is dumped into what the industry calls tailings ponds. As outlined in CERA’s report, Staten Island, New York, could fit inside the tailings pond operated by Syncrude, the largest tar sands consortium.

"It takes a huge amount of energy just to melt the tar sands and then you have to use a huge quantity of water: that's a cost which has to be internalized [by industry]," said environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki.

Environmentalists like Suzuki, along with some economists, believe industry should pay for the water it uses and the air it pollutes. With these costs, the economic viability of tar sands development would be questionable. "Right now the oil industry is getting away scot-free," said Suzuki in an interview.

The CFR report supports adding a cost or externality to carbon emissions. The report estimates that a carbon price of $20 per tonne of CO₂ equivalent—the average price in the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme—would add only $2.21 per barrel to production costs of the oil sands.

"The US will have a large market for emissions; Canada will benefit from that stability," said CFR’s Levi, extolling the benefits of a carbon pricing system that is being debated by legislators on both sides of the Canada-US border. Environmentalists say these cost estimates for carbon are too low to stop runaway climate change, a scenario many scientists agree would destroy life on Earth as we know it.

CERA maintains a list of the world’s top 15 countries that have the potential to increase oil production over the next decade. Canada ranks fourth and Brazil is the only other country in the Western Hemisphere to make CERA’s list.

Critics of CERA’s methodology say this accounting neglects Venezuela’s massive and virtually untapped heavy oil reserves in the Orinoco belt.

A version of this article appeared on Inter Press Service. The author is currently studying rural opposition to oil development and sabotage in Canada. He can be reached at arsenault_chris@hotmail.com.

Tar Sands Production

Irving Refinery Blues

macdonald — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:45:49 +0000

Irving Refinery Blues

Please forgive me-- this may end up seeming like a rant in places, for I simply must get some things off my chest. I hope my prediction that it will make sense by the end is true.

I am a strong proponent of the idea that hitchhiking is simply one of the greatest forms of grassroots journalism. When you enter a new place, the odds are quite high that you are traveling with a local. If this is the case, then you will become immediately armed with “insider” information to which there is little match. The sorts of things I am often lucky to learn, in any case, would certainly not be told in any tourist information booth.

I woke up today in Riviere Du Loup, in Eastern Québec. I made a cold instant coffee and ate some granola bars before wandering across the highway to seek rides further East. I managed three rides fairly easily, each of them pleasant and warm, no hassles and even interesting tangents of separate activity here and there. But what I need to rant about was the ranting of my last ride of the day, a man named Doug who picked me up when I was but one ride from here-- Saint John, New Brunswick.

"And Then Let's Go For That Justice" Part II

hillarybain — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:22:02 +0000

Indigenous women demand respect in Ottawa

In honour of missing and murdered indigenous women, the Walk4Justice began in Vancouver on June 21, Aboriginal Day, and ended with a rally of about 250 on Parliament Hill on September 15.

The following article (part two in a series) explores the profound systemic flaws discussed during speeches at the rally; flaws that continue to encourage a deep-rooted Canadian prejudice against indigenous women, which is being supported by the 2010 Olympic Games and Canada's oil economy, specifically the Alberta Tar Sands.

Part one of this article can be read here.

MONTREAL – When it comes to women losing their homes, Alberta and BC are among the worst in Canada.

Alberta’s "successful" tar sands economy has created a severe lack of affordable housing, transitional housing and shelter spaces, particularly for women.

Women are often dissuaded from pursuing the resources and abilities essential to benefiting from the booming industry. Unequal wages, gender discrimination and sexual harassment are all significant deterrents. Those profiting most from the oil and gas workforce are predominantly male; current male-female ratios are 79 to 21 per cent for geoscientists and 96 to four per cent for trades.

Contributing to this imbalance is the fact that the exorbitant cost of rent makes it next to impossible for many women in Alberta to afford a home, unless their wages can compete with those in the oil industry.

In the oil town of Fort McMurray, where the housing crisis is rampant, none of the shelters accept minors. A report released by the region's Homelessness Initiatives Steering Committee found that some teenagers are resorting to sex-work in exchange for shelter for a night.

For those women who do manage to find a shelter, Alberta has no transitional housing program. As a result, there is often nowhere for them to go from a shelter, except back to the street.

“A longer-term transition house is what is needed, one that can be used for as long as people need. A house that has passion for the survival of a whole generation to get past this terrible point of life, in which they did not mean to live,” says Nicole Tait, a youth attending the Walk4Justice rally.

Under the Harper Conservatives, cuts to legal aid and income assistance, the closure of women's centres, political assaults on women's advocacy and support services, a lack of childcare support, cuts to welfare and changes to eligibility for welfare, the rising cost of living, and low-income work all contribute heavily to the significant disadvantage that many First Nations women face. The BC Human Rights Commission and Ministry of Women's Equality, both considered tools to fight discrimination, have also been eliminated.

The number of homeless in Vancouver doubled in 2005 and is predicted to triple due to the 2010 Olympic Games. These figures do not account for a much larger population that pays for sub-standard housing. According to the 2005 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count, there are 300,000 (official) homeless in Greater Vancouver, 30 per cent of whom are First Nations people, despite the fact that they make up just two per cent of the city's total population.

An endless host of Canadian development projects, from massive tar sands extraction sites to ventures intended to facilitate the 2010 Games, have rendered homeless many First Nations people who originally subsisted on their traditional territories or on government-assigned reserves. Many are compelled to move to large urban centres in search of work or to escape their consequently depressed communities.

The same pattern of forced displacement of First Nations communities and individuals is happening all over Canada.

For example, in Alberta, Indigenous people living on reserves close to tar sands plants, residing downstream from tailings ponds, or dwelling on land slated to accommodate government pipelines have a hard battle to fight: against health problems of all kinds – including soaring rates of cancer which are picking off their friends and family members at an alarming pace – and against a government that is constantly attempting to push them farther off of their land for the purpose of extraction and exploration. Many of these people, such as those in the northern Alberta communities of Fort Chipewyan and Fort MacKay, are fighting to stop the pollution and destruction of their homes, some are deriving what benefit they can from jobs in the tar sands industry, and others are leaving their reserves with little or no money to attempt a better life in Edmonton, Calgary, or Fort McMurray.

Similarly, the Olympic Games are acting as an unwelcome catalyst for many First Nations people living in BC, a number of whom have been embroiled in bitter land rights battles with the Canadian government for most of their lives. Rivers, mountains, lakes, creeks, and old-growth forests, along with trap lines, hunting grounds, salmon stocks, animal habitats, sacred sites, and important food and medicine harvesting areas are being substituted by tourist resorts and highway expansions, like the Sea-to-Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler. With vast areas of unceded land, on which indigenous communities depend for their general survival, being destroyed, many First Nations people have been, and continue to be, drawn into cities to seek out new modes of subsistence, often only to discover that they lack the resources necessary to make a living in foreign urban surroundings.

The Secwepemc people of Skelkwek'welt and the St'at'imc people of Sutikalh have long resisted the establishment of Sun Peaks and Cayoosh ski resorts (intended to attract and accommodate tourists, Olympic athletes and trainers) on their land. Powerful and well-thought-out demonstrations of their opposition have been disregarded, ignored and covered-up by the BC government in attempts to profit from a territory for which treaties were never signed.

Native Youth Movement (NYM) member Kanahus Pelkey of the Secwepemc and Ktunaxa First Nations recalls the tactics employed by Sun Peaks to facilitate the construction of their ski resort:

The province bulldozed our home on International Human Rights Day. They hired Sun Peaks employees to tear down our sweat lodges. So you get an idea what happens when Native people stand up and fight for their freedom. We announced it to the media, and all the corporate media, they showed up at Sun Peaks, but the roads were deactivated. They [Sun Peaks] made big, huge ice blockades so no vehicles could get through. And Sun Peaks resort has many, many snowmobile businesses, but all the businesses were given orders by Sun Peaks not to rent any snowmobiles to any media, or anybody that day.

The Secwepemc people, rendered homeless and faced with the threat of arrest if they continued living on their land, retreated, some to Vancouver. Many had endured previous arrests for similar involvements and did not want to risk imprisonment with no chance of bail.

First Nations women living in the city are more susceptible than men to losing their homes due to abuse or conflict with a spouse or caretaker upon whom they are financially dependent. Because women are more likely to have children to look after, and are less likely to feel safe on the street or in shelters where men are also present, many return to abusive relationships when there is no alternative available.

Across Canada, there are more women among the Aboriginal homeless population than are found in the non-Aboriginal population. According to Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), 35 per cent of the Aboriginal homeless population in Greater Vancouver is female, compared to only 27 per cent among the non-Aboriginal homeless population.

First Nations women are also vastly overrepresented in Canada’s community of sex-workers, and continue to be brutally criminalized by the police and simultaneously marginalized and taken advantage of by society in general.

In 2003, Pelkey, forcibly separated from her baby boy, spent two-and-a-half months in prison for her involvement with the Sun Peaks protests. During her incarceration, she met many First Nations women who had been imprisoned for sex-work and drug abuse. Most of the women's stories involved sexual molestation during childhood. Many women had experienced these abuses in residential schools, while others were the children of residential school survivors.

Aboriginal rights lawyer and President of the NWAC Beverly Jacobs stresses that often police lack an understanding of the cycles of abuse that occur within Native communities, and, as a result, do not possess the empathy necessary to view women on the streets as part of the public. As such, they do not feel responsible for the protection of these women. Jacobs has worked with Amnesty International as a lead researcher and consultant on their report “Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada.”

The controversial BC Coalition of Experiential Communities (BCCEC), the first sex-worker co-operative in Canada, is the brainchild of sex-worker Susan Davis, who has been trying to pressure the government to create legal brothels for the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2010. Despite the decriminalization of sex workers being one of the BCCEC's primary motives, the issue is contentious both among Canada's political elite and among sex-workers themselves. The move had the support of Vancouver’s then-Mayor, Sam Sullivan, and VANOC (the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games), but has so far been refused by Canadian Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.

Tait finds it difficult to understand sex-workers who support the move, and does not envision the legalization of brothels solving the problem of police brutality and societal marginalization.

“They are [Vancouver is] basing their research on one woman’s point of view for creating [legal] brothels in the DTES [Downtown Eastside]. This woman [Davis] is a prostitute by choice who doesn't have to make a living from the streets. She says that she enjoys what she does. I never met one woman who said that they enjoy being a prostitute, they say that’s just the way things happened. Others are trying to make a living for their family, which includes young mothers who are trying to put food on the table for their babies.”

Tsimshian youth, co-ordinator of North Coast Enviro Watch and member of Native 2010 Resistance Dustin Johnson notes that the Olympic tradition of catering to the elite as a means of social control can be referred to as a policy of "sex, screens and sports," a phrase coined to describe the 1988 Seoul Games. A massive influx of prostitution, coupled with the pseudo-legalization of the sex industry for the benefit of elite athletes and businessmen, has always been an Olympic norm.

Johnson maintains that not all sex-workers even made a career choice to begin with.

"You actually see, at some of the elementary schools in Vancouver, sexual predators, just waiting around to try to kidnap young Native kids. Some of these kids end up in the sex-slave industry, they get shipped all over the world. This is the kind of industry that VANOC and the people that are organizing the Olympics in Vancouver are trying to continue.”

Jacobs, too, stresses that the issue of violence against Aboriginal peoples in general and Aboriginal women in specific is not a three-decade concern, but instead extends to the past 300 years. The crisis is one of historic proportions. A report she wrote for the Native Women's Association of Canada looked to the history of colonization, and how it has affected Aboriginal women.

“Because a lot of First Nations cultures were matriarchal, women have suffered the brunt of colonization,” says Jacobs.

Her studies reveal that white policymakers noted the remarkable strength of First Nations women, and found ways of demeaning it. Despite the fact that many clans, and by extension, the status of individuals, were once determined matrilineally, the Canadian government’s invention of the status card changed this: status became determined by the male alone, creating a severe disconnect between Native people and their cultures. The previously significant responsibility of men to act as protectors was also adversely affected by this forced shift, creating internal oppression in First Nations communities that is still very present today.

“The responsibilities and the roles that come with being a Native woman are very highly respected, or at least they were. [First Nations people are] still having to deal with the issues internally within our communities because we’ve learned those patriarchal values and we’ve learned them really well,” observes Jacobs.

About half-way through the colourful roster of speeches on Parliament Hill, one of Prime Minister Harper’s aids came to formally accept the women’s documented demands. Dressed all in grey, he gripped the bright pink folder firmly, saying, “I will deliver this to Mr. Harper” as the crowd murmured their skeptical thanks.

But Akwesasne Elder and Bear Clan mother Harriet Boots quickly brought people back to the core of the matter.

“Every person today has a lot of tears. Let’s make it our strength. Let’s go ahead and cry. Take it all out of our system. And then let’s go for that justice.”

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie is a freelance journalist, creative writer, and barista living in Montreal.

An original version of this article was published by Oil Sands Truth (Fall 2008 print issue).

Missing women's memorial, Vancouver, 2007

Missing Women

World's Crudest Extraction

dawn — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:55:54 +0000

At the tar sands they’re digging up dirty fuel

EDMONTON, ALBERTA–When the Albertan government recently put forward $25 million to counter the negative press around tar sands mining, Premier Ed Stelmach strained credulity by stating: "In terms of David and Goliath, I've been in this position before, and now I'm here."

According to Stelmach, David was the largest industrial project on Earth, with nearly $200 billion in investment, being picked on by what he imagined were the God-like powers of environmental campaigners.

The goal of the $25 million was to make the tar sands seem like just another source of petroleum, including re-branding the massive undertaking as the “oil sands.” Of course, now that the price of oil has risen so high, it seems any “oil” is good “oil.” But what if it isn't really even oil?

Those who read the Dominion's tar sands special issue from 2007 are likely already aware that the bulk of today's tar sands production includes digging out northern Alberta's boreal forest at an astronomical rate in order to create what are by far the world's largest strip mines.

Sometimes digging to levels of over 100 metres or 300 feet deep, it can take anywhere between two and four tonnes of earth to produce just one barrel of oil. At a rate currently approximating 1.3 million barrels of “mock” (synthetic) crude, the rate of mining in the Athabasca region is far beyond that of any other process in the world.

But energy corporations, along with the Albertan, Canadian and American governments, are doing whatever they can to hide this basic information, instead simply calling the tar sands “heavy oil,” perhaps a little dirtier, perhaps more expensive but generally just another hydrocarbon.

Some of the realities of the tar sands mining process, however, are coming to light across North America, through not only the work of those opposed to the destructive process, but also because of “errors” being committed by the producers themselves.

On April 29, 2008, Albertans awoke to discover that “hundreds of ducks [were] dead or dying after landing on a Syncrude tailings pond,” the second largest of Syncrude’s tailings “ponds,” which, alongside Suncor’s, is one of the two original and still largest mining operations in the region. The event helped focus the media and the public’s attention on the ticking time bombs of waste water produced in the mining of the tar sands.

All mining operations in the world today, whether gold, nickel, cadmium or uranium produce waste, which is mixed with water in tailings ponds, and which will not settle or separate for centuries.

However the scale of the waste, composed of very toxic materials unleashed through the mining of tar sands, is practically beyond comprehension. So, too, are the massive piles of sulphur extracted as a by-product of the “slurry” upgrading process, which separates the bitumen (pre-fuel) from the sands.

The final product – after digging, upgrading and ultimately refining – is a mock crude that can become gasoline (though it produces a much smaller proportion per barrel than “regular sweet crude”), diesel and more. But the mining process is needed because the regular carbon breakdown and evolution of the tar sands are being artificially sped up by several millions of years. This is why the tar sands are so expensive to make into mock oil and take so much input in terms of energy, money, water, labour and ecological destruction to extract.

The largest trucks in the world are carrying hundreds of tonnes of mined land to the slurries in order to get this done. The contractors who carry this out are generally among those corporations who would help other forms of mining across North America and around the world, such as Caterpillar.

It is perhaps fitting that Canada, which is home to the investors and head offices of the mining corporations with the worst track records of violating human rights in the Global South, would also have the largest and most destructive mining operation on the face of the earth.

But there is no “poetic justice” here, rather just a local version of the victimization of primarily indigenous communities who live near theses massive mining projects that occurs around the world.

Celina Harpe, an elder from the Cree community in the northern Albertan village of Fort MacKay, has seen the impacts of the tar sands development first hand.

“They ruined our water, the air, pretty much everything else. The animals, the berries, all our livelihood – that’s what we used to live on,” she explains. “The fish; there’s no more. We can’t eat fish from the river, we can’t drink the water, we get sick from all that pollution. People are dying of cancer, whereas it never used to be like that. And I’m sure, I’m very positive that this has got something to do with the air and the water. The pollution is doing something to our people.”

Similar to operations across Latin America and Africa, the people who call the region being mined home are not given the opportunity for “free, prior, and informed consent” that the recent United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples declares necessary.

Canada was one of the four countries, along with New Zealand, Australia and the United States, to opt out of signing this declaration. Hosting the offices of mining corporations both operating in the Global South and carrying out multiple projects at “home” is surely one of the major reasons why Ottawa voted against the ratification of that historic document.

“First Nations in the region impacted by the tar sands development in Alberta have been stuck in a regulatory process that has degraded their sovereignty by forcing them to engaged in a multi-stakeholder process that in no way recognizes their unique nation-to-nation relationship with Canada,” says Clayton Thomas-Muller, tar sands campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network.

The Albertan government is working overtime to obfuscate the actual environmental and human costs of producing mock oil from mining the tar sands. While they are spending enough money on the campaign to make most grassroots activists drool, it will be a test of their communication prowess to see if they can create the perception that “the oil sands will become an increasing source of interest as a secure, abundant energy supply. The oil sands are definitely on the world's radar screen,” as Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach would have us believe.

Invoking the war on terror and the global energy crunch, Stelmach has accused tar sands detractors of not only sending out misinformation, but “even worse, they could serve to jeopardize this country's [the United States’] energy security at a time when Asian markets are clamouring for oil." The result, he says, would be North America being pushed to rely upon countries such as Saudi Arabia or Iran for conventional oil supplies.

“In the province of Alberta, industry dominates all provincial regulatory and enforcement bodies and the stacks are against First Nations,” says Muller.

Those activists who wish to see the tar sands understood as a massive escalation in both the mining of the earth and the extinguishing of First Nations in the region already have a major asset on their side: the truth, along with the continued errors of tar sands producers in their giant strip mining operations.

Canadian mining corporations are being exposed as among the worst practitioners of corporate social responsibility the world over, from Guatemala to Australia to Chile. They must also be called out for using the same approach in the tar sands – not just for the multiple ways they impact climate change, deforestation and more, but also as the initiators of the largest strip mine ever conceived by human beings.

For decades, the indigenous populations living in North America have contended with the twins of mining and energy. In a few cases, such as uranium mining, energy and mining coincide in a single project. They do so again with a vengeance in the largest industrial project in human history – the tar sands, a gigaproject of strip mining the earth to send mock oil to the United States and leave a vast wasteland of poisoned land, human beings and giant lakes of waste in their wake.

With companies such as Barrick Gold going around the planet in search of its namesake precious metal, it is noteworthy that Canada's tar sands operations – using clean natural gas to produce this massive amount of dirty mock oil – can be seen as turning gold into lead at home.

Macdonald Stainsby is an avid hitchhiker and works for Oil Sands Truth.

tarsands_1

tarsands_2

Emissions Thicken the Air in Alberta

dawn — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:38:39 +0000

The tar sands' biggest customer has second thoughts

FT. MCMURRAY -- As Canada's tar sands extraction expands full steam ahead, a perfect storm of internal and external opposition could derail some of the voracious growth at the world's largest energy project.

Together, skyrocketing construction costs, falling crude prices, increasingly vocal opposition from some native groups, and a little known section of the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act all threaten growth projections in northern Alberta.

"If I was an investor, I wouldn't want to take the risk of putting money into the tar sands right now," said Liz Barratt-Brown, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defence Council, an NGO leading U.S. lobbying efforts against Canada's heavy oil industry.

Canada is the largest foreign exporter of oil to the United States, with Alberta's tar sands sending roughly 500,000 barrels to the U.S. every day. Losing access to the U.S. market would significantly affect expansion plans.

And Canadian oil industry lobbyists are concerned about section 526 of the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which bars U.S. federal agencies such as the military and the postal service from buying synthetic or unconventional fuels if they create more greenhouse gases emissions than conventional fuels.

"It was just one of those funny stories in Washington where this section [526] was overlooked," said Greg Stringham from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. "I don't think Canadians or oil companies knew about this section."

Between January and September of this year, Canadian oil lobbyists pushed hard to have section 526 amended or repealed, said Barratt-Brown. Unlike other provinces, Alberta maintains its own special interests office in Canada's embassy in Washington.

In February 2008, Canada's ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, wrote to the U.S. defence secretary arguing that Canadian tar sands oil should not be included in the interpretation of this section.

Then on Mar. 17, Democratic Senator Henry Waxman, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and author of the legislation, wrote a letter to Chairman Jeff Bingaman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee clarifying the legal meaning of section 526.

Waxman said section 526 of the Act prohibits U.S. government agencies, including the military, from purchasing "fuels derived from tar sands".

Lobbying continued throughout the spring. Two Republicans from Texas, Reps. Jeb Hensarling and Mike Conaway, sent a letter in late March to other members of the House of Representatives stating: "Section 526 would be problematic enough if it were clear and straightforward, however, the language contains several ambiguities, causing a flurry of attempts at legislative interpretation by the Air Force, the Canadian government, [and] the Centre for Unconventional Fuels [an industry lobby group]."

To counter anti-tar sands campaigners, the Alberta government launched a 21-million-dollar advertising campaign in April aimed at improving the province's brand.

Environmentalists claimed victory in late September, when the Defence Authorisation Bill passed without weakening or amending section 526. Oil industry lobbyists say environmentalists haven't won any victory and U.S. institutions will continue purchasing tar sands oil.

"This will be the first time government agencies have to look at greenhouse gas emissions for purchasing policies and that's positive," said Barratt-Brown.

Oil from Canada's tar sands creates roughly three times the GHG emissions as conventional crude, according to environmentalists.

While environmentalists are claiming victory, plans in the U.S. are going ahead to retrofit old refineries to process tar sands synthetic crude, a sign that some industry players are not concerned about new legislation. U.S. drivers in Colorado, Ohio, and Indiana are already burning gasoline derived from tar sands oil.

"I was in Whiting, Indiana recently, where they are retrofitting one of the oldest refineries in the U.S. to process tar sands crude," said Thomas Clayton-Muller, with the Indigenous Environmental Network.

In January 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that California would require a 10-percent reduction in carbon content from all fuels sold in the state by 2020, which would effectively ban imports from the tar sands.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution in June calling for an end to unconventional oil imports. "Our cities are asking for environmentally sustainable energy and not fuels from dirty sources such as tar sands," said Eugene, Oregon Mayor Kitty Piercy, who submitted the resolution.

Despite the actions of individual cities and the California's state government, the military is the largest consumer of transportation fuel in the U.S., so its interpretation of Section 526 and future purchasing habits are crucial.

From the office tower of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in downtown Calgary, Greg Stringham is within a 15-minute walk from 150 oil companies and "rumours spread fast."

Stringham doesn't seem overly concerned about anti-tar sands legislation in Washington. He wouldn't comment directly on what a Barack Obama-Joe Biden Democratic administration and increased concerns about global warming could mean for the industry except to say: "I'm not confident of anything."

*A version of this story previously appeared on IPS. A portion of Chris Arsenault's visit to Alberta was minded and financed by Shell Canada. This article is the third in a three part series on the tar sands.

A truck at the tar sands