Canada's 'Gulf' Catastrophe:
Newest Tar Sand Disaster
by C. L. Cook
Canada's state broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, (CBC) reports tonight on another Alberta environmental tarry tailing pond disaster.
It accompanies last week's images of yet another flight of wildlife caught in toxic aspic, but this time it's the human fauna at risk.
Resource extraction company, CNRL's Horizon tar sands project is the culprit in this case; their inadequately "fortified" dump site boasts meter high earthen retaining berms on all three of its four sides.
While math may not be CNRL's strong point, the fact the unfenced site is accessible to all manner of terrestrial wildlife should be obvious. Animal tracks around the site might too may suggest to those responsible for the project's impacts that the poison byproducts of their operations are entering the food chain.
That that chain leads directly to the native folk, whose depend coincidentally enough rather more on the health of the animals in its near wild proximity than do trophy hunters and wildlife photographers, is something Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board, or ERCB seem unwilling to acknowledge.
Busied conserving Alberta's energy resources as they are, the ERCB, (pronounced at the back of throat, much like the sound of a duck dying in a pool of oil and benzyne: Ahrrrk Bah) they maintain it's nothing to worry about.
Though wild animals drinking the poisoned water are often hunted by the locals, who in turn eat the animals, sick animals sickening people, CNRL's "manager of environment Calvin Duane reassures;
"Yes we are aware that there are beavers, but not in the pond ... There is some surface water to the west of the tailings pond which is fresh water and not affected by the process water... "We were aware of that quite some time ago and we're actually working with local trappers to work with us from Fort McKay to get the beavers out of there, so yes we're being very proactive with that, working with the local community to get the beavers out."
When "environment manager" Calvin was asked why the tailings pond was unfenced, he anwered sensibly that a fence is no guarantee;
"It can never have a zero effect... What we do is we try to get as low as we possibly can and that's what we're aiming to achieve."
No fence seems as low as you can go, effort wise Calvin.
As Duane was questioning the efficacy of fencing, the Alberta government went into high gear, siccing its ERCB on the CBC, claiming they had got things all wrong; no matter what their investigations uncovered and recorded.
For its part, Environment Canada has promised it's "deeply concerned" and will send somebody out there to look around at what the whole country saw tonight on The National, the CBC's flagship news program.
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