A tar sand twin raises its ugly head. The Keystone Pipeline to ship Canadian Tar Sands oil has been in the public eye with good reason. There have been massive demonstrations against it, arrests and weigh-ins from the Obama administration, but there’s another player on the field with far less scrutiny, at least so far. Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline company, has a piecemeal plan to connect and convert thousands of miles of existing pipes to get the crude to markets.
Tar sands oil is difficult to use. The raw product is bitumen - thick like asphalt. It has to be thinned with dangerous and known carcinogens like benzene and forced with heat and high pressure through pipes. Its corrosive nature increases the likelihood of breaks along the line. Spills are more difficult to clean up and Enbridge’s record, which includes the nation’s largest inland crude oil spill, adds another level of concern. The spill began July 25, 2010 near Marshall, MI and continued to flow despite warnings and alarms for 17 hours. Three shifts changed at the Calgary, Alberta control room, but workers ignored the dangers and did not shut off the flow. It spilled 840,000 gallons of crude before a Michigan utility worker reported it. The Kalamazoo River was badly affected. Enbridge did not disclose it was tar sands - information vital for clean-up - until a week later. In fact, the clean-up is still underway 3 years later with costs traveling upwards of a billion dollars.
The proposed Enbridge pipeline would threaten rivers, lakes and streams including Lake Superior and the upper great lakes, the largest bodies of fresh water in the world. The tar sands oil recovery projects have already changed Northern Alberta Canada’s pristine beauty into a stretch of polluted industrial land. The increased availability of oil is that last gasp death rattle attempting to hold energy futures in antiquated technologies rather than accepting the inevitable change from fossil fuels to renewable sources.
To add insult to injury on the environmental and economic fronts, the results will be profits and jobs to Canada, most crude oil shipped overseas and toxic waste for the USA.
See Also: InClimate 49, 53, 114 - Feb. 18, 22; April 25