At least 230 ducks died yesterday after landing on toxic tailings ponds at several tar sands mines in Alberta. This event is as ironic as it is depressing, as just last week major tar sands producer Syncrude was fined $3.2 million for the death of over 1,600 ducks that landed on its tailings lakes in April 2008.
The recently settled court case with Syncrude led to the installation of better deterrents, including air cannons and scarecrows, at tailings ponds designed to scare birds away. That doesn’t seem to matter, as company officials claim their deterrents were fully operational yesterday as hundreds of migrating waterfowl perished in the poison lakes.
Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner called the newest incident "discouraging in the extreme". Though Minister Renner’s comments refer to the public relations disaster this event will surely create for tar sands producers and their complicit government regulators, what is truly discouraging is continued lax regulation of these massive health threats despite repeated events illustrating just how dangerous they are. New tailings ponds continue to be proposed and permitted, companies continue to self-regulate, and the public and environmental health of Alberta continues to suffer.
Tailings lakes currently cover 170 square kilometers of Alberta’s landscape, posing an ongoing threat not just to wildlife but human health as well. Acutely fatal to animals that wander into these vast toxic ponds, the long-term effects of millions of gallons of toxic seepages on Alberta’s groundwater also pose a serious health threat to those living nearby. Studies by leading Canadian scientists have revealed elevated concentrations of toxic heavy metals near and downstream from tar sands operations, and nearby indigenous communities report abnormally high rates of rare cancers.
These toxic lakes and the tar sands that create them are a public health threat, and continue to wreak havoc on the wildlife of Alberta despite the industry’s efforts to make them ‘safe’. There is no such thing as a safe tailings pond, and there never will be. The only way to truly safeguard the health of Alberta’s people and environment is to eliminate tailings ponds entirely, or, better yet- kick our oil addiction and power our economy on clean renewable sources instead of increasing production of the dirtiest fuel on Earth.
The health threats of tar sands are not limited to Alberta’s failed struggle to manage the environmental and health crisis created by poison tailings ponds.
A new pipeline, called the Keystone XL, is being planned to pump tar sands crude through six states, crossing America’s largest aquifer that supplies water to one fifth of cattle, corn and wheat grown in the United States. Opposition from citizens and national leaders has been strong, but some officials seem willing to allow Alberta’s toxic tar sands to threaten our water and health. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently indicated she is “inclined to approve” the Keystone XL pipeline, which would expose US citizens to more toxic spills and lock us into dependence on the world’s dirtiest oil for decades.
Contact Secretary Clinton today and tell her the Keystone XL is not worth the health risks, and tar sands have no place in America’s clean energy future.
-- Gabriel DeRita
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