[R-G] Alberta: Tar sand wastelan

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=6715
Alberta: Tar sand wasteland
Author decries rush to exploit Canada’s natural resources
By Marzieh Ghiasi
Science and Technology Writer

Canada’s tarsands are set to turn the Albertan landscape into the  
next Saudi Arabia.

Mike Hudema, courtesy of Greenpeace Canada
In northern Alberta, an estimated 174-billion barrels of black gold  
lie trapped in grains of sand, and capitalizing on this dormant cash  
cow has become a national obsession.

In the recently published Stupid to the Last Drop, award-winning  
investigative journalist William Marsden critically examines the oil  
boom in the Alberta tar sands, a sprawling industry that has promised  
to make Canada the new Saudi Arabia. In his non-linear but fluid  
style, Marsden argues that, while Albertans may see some marginal  
gain from this relentless resource exploitation, Canadians stand to  
lose a lot.

The tar sands are thought to have been made by geological forces  
which pushed oil up into the limestone and sand landscape. Composed  
of bitumen – a viscous form of crude oil, silica sand, clay, and  
water – the tar sands present a unique challenge in resource  
extraction and are famously expensive to exploit. Just how much are  
people willing to sacrifice to extract this oil? Marsden contends:  
everything.

Stupid to the Last Drop begins in 1957 with an American  
paleontologist, Manley Natland, and his proposition for Alberta’s  
future: a nine kilo-ton nuclear bomb set 1,300 feet below ground in  
the Athabasca tar sands to create a giant underground cavern, with  
enough heat and pressure to force oil into it. In spite of the  
obvious environmental hazards, including radiation leakage and land  
collapse, Marsden details the quick acceptance of this proposition.  
In just two years, the inconspicuously-dubbed “Project Oil Sands”  
gained support from a major oil company, approval from the U.S.  
Senate, a nod from the Canadian federal government, and a nuclear- 
bomb-to-go.

Natland’s modest proposal never came to fruition due to an eleventh  
hour backlash against nuclear testing. However, a method to boil  
bitumen out of sand with hot water was perfected long before by  
Canadian scientists Ells and Clark. This simple yet elegant solution  
has spawned a billion-dollar industry and brought some of the largest  
machines in the world into Alberta, which at only 4 per cent of full  
capacity are digging up an area the size of Florida.

Marsden perceives this destruction of the boreal forest and water  
systems – the lungs and bloodline of Western Canada – as another  
misguided and dangerous development. Throughout the book, he  
chastises the Albertan government for distributing oil contracts with  
little precaution or foresight of their impact. He describes in  
detail the effects of oil-extraction processes, which in their  
limited scope are already destroying the wetlands and tributaries  
that feed major rivers.

Marsden’s account of water and air pollution becomes only more  
perturbing as he examines water systems that have been polluted with  
carcinogenic arsenic and other toxic metals, threatening the health  
of the ecosystem. He notes that while the government of Alberta  
actively opposes the Kyoto protocols, an enormous amount of Carbon  
dioxide is released into the atmosphere by refinery cokers. Even more  
alarming, the book also describes communities that have suffered from  
toxic gases released from refineries, including a case in 2006 that  
led to the hospitalization of 26 children.

Stupid to the Last Drop spares no criticism for oil corporations and  
the politicians who support them. At times, the book falls into a one- 
sided and arguably stereotypical portrayal of the projects’  
supporters as greedy, uncultivated, and downright malicious. This may  
serve only to isolate readers that the book should be targeting, and  
preach to the choir for the rest.

Marsden also asserts that Canadian sovereignty over its resources is  
in peril, considering the trade agreements that keep Alberta as a  
supplier of cheap oil to the U.S., and the millions of dollars spent  
lobbying the government to “keep the good times rolling.” Energy  
trends, however, show the pursuit of oil is unlikely to slow anytime  
soon, owing largely to increasing demand. In this context, the book  
falls short by failing to suggest viable and immediate solutions to  
bring industry, government, and society together for a constructive  
solution to the tar sands problem.

Nonetheless, through interviews, meticulous observations, and a sharp  
sense of humour, Marsden manages to balance scientific, economic and  
social trends to convey a sense of urgency. Stupid to the Last Drop  
is a bleak but compelling polemic against oil madness, lagging  
concern for resource conservation, and the lack of political vision  
that threaten every Canadian’s future.


William Marsden will be speaking at Paragraphe book store on November  
25. Stupid to the Last Drop is published by Knopf Canada and  
available for $29.95.