A measly 3,000 barrels. Conventional crude oil at that. Yet such a minuscule oil spill has central Albertans in a fury. It turns out they don't like their water contaminated. That seems to offend them.
Hmm. Are these the same Albertans who don't mind imperilling British Columbia's pristine coastal waters with truly massive spills of really toxic bitumen contamination, you know the stuff that sinks to the bottom and cannot be cleaned up?
Maybe, just maybe, the Red Deer River spill will finally get the people of Alberta to stand up and demand that their provincial and federal governments not do something incaculably worse with the Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan toxic sludge pipelines and their associated supertanker operations.
Maybe, maybe not.
But this is, after all, Alberta and if there's one place you can be sure the oil companies won't mess people up it's Alberta, right? Ask rancher Dennis Overguard.
Another battle that shouldn't be forgotten is the rampant drilling of sour gas. I lived in NW Alberta west of Hythe for a time and had met Wiebo Ludwig and his wife, Mamie, on several occasions and talked with them, as well as other families in the district. I didn't cotton to Wiebo's religiousity or other aspects of his personality and opinions but I think he and his family, as well as the others, had very real, genuine, and legitimate concerns about the effcts sour gas drilling was having on their land and they themselves. At the place I was staying at originally, we were so close to a sour gas processing plant we had to have a sour gas monitor placed in the backyard, which actually triggered off one day and we had to evacuate for a few hours. Maybe if the suits from Big Oil and the Cons were made to live next door to these places, with their huge, garish 24/7 gas flares, maybe they'd think twice about what they're doing and what affect it has on people and the land.
ReplyDeleteYou're right Neil
ReplyDeleteIf Joe Oliver and the other Reform cowards had to drink our water their words would carry more weight. But the CPoC and the oil execs are modern day carpet baggers. Roll up pay off the local politicians rip out everything of value for as little as possible and piss off leaving the locals to wonder what hit them.
Maybe next election these ranchers will remember Harper and Co are not their friends, Ranchers aren't rich enough.
Pipelines a problem? No way!
ReplyDelete"As my brief history of oil pipeline spills in Alberta from 1970 to 2005 demonstrated, the problem of pipeline ruptures is endemic to the industry. Now with over 399,000 kilometres of pipelines under the authority of the province’s [Alberta] Energy Resources Conservation Board, industry specialists and regulators not only know that this system has never been free from oil spills, but that a spill-free system is an impossible goal. The recent history of pipeline ruptures in Alberta since 2006 further underlines these realities."
From 'The History of Oil Pipeline Spills in Alberta, 2006-2012' by Sean Kheraj, PhD found here:
http://www.seankheraj.com/?p=1257#comment-53049
Also by Sean: 'Alberta’s Oil Spill History' found here:
http://www.seankheraj.com/?p=1050
A must read for British Columbians who are planning on speaking against Enbridge's Northern (Chinese) Pipeline.
Pipelines a problem? WAY!
I notice the linked article says near the end that the pipeline involved in both this and another major spill a year ago is owned by a Texas company and then complains, "Texas doesn’t take the hit for this, though. Alberta does. Alberta always does."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Texas aren't the folks dumb enough to let foreigners run their oil industry.
What about the oil spills that are not ever reported. Talking to a nurse the other day whose husband works in the oil patch in Alberta. She said oil spills are happening all the time and most are not reported.
ReplyDelete