The Athabasca Tar Sands Has Caused Great Environmental Damage

Canada ranks among the leading energy producers in the world, through oil production. These oil deposits rank oil sands of Canada as the largest oil deposits in the world after the Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The only challenge with the oil sand deposits is that oil deposits are seen as unconventional. In effect, tar sands are recognized as one of the dirtiest energy sources in the world (Bailey & Droitsch, 2015). This fact is founded on the production factor; in producing one barrel of tar sands oil, the hazardous emissions are three to five times that of producing the equivalent of conventional oil. The Alberta oil sands are viewed as the single largest economic project in human history. The Canadian government and oil

The social community improvements of alberta as a result of the oil sands. The albertan government committed around 2.5 billion dollars in fixing up the communities of alberta as a result of the oil sands making so much money(Alberta government,march 15 2013). Some examples of this are the 1 billion in road projects, 241 million in building new neighbourhoods, and 103 million in wastewater treatment and to improve the old ones(Alberta government,march 15 2013). Air is rated good 99% of the time, drinking water consistently meets the the guidelines for canadian drinking water(Alberta government,march 15 2013). Which means the quality of life is good in the oilsands region. In conclusion the oil sands affect the communities of that region positively, by bringing in enough money to make improvements to the infrastructure.

It has been proven and stated by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) that “Tar sands oil is the dirtiest oil on

The next major environmental issue of the pipeline is the indigenous populations. “Northern Alberta’s, where the tar sands oil comes from, people are coming under attack because of their operation of the tar sands in their livelihoods and cultural traditions.”5 Other people affected by this project are the people who live in communities downstream from the tailing ponds, “they have seen spikes in rates of rare cancers, renal failure, lupus, and hyperthyroidism.” “In the lakeside village of Fort Chipewyan, for example, one hundred of the town’s one thousand-two hundred residents have died from cancer.”5 So not only will this pipeline affect the people living around it but it will also affect the people working on it and living around the tailing ponds, wherever those may be located. With it traversing six U.S. states that means a lot of people could get sick and even die from a project that has so many issues with it before it’s even began to be used for its intended purpose.

There are many different factors contributing to global warming. The Alberta oil sands are only one of them, but they're one of the largest sources of harmful air pollutants in Canada. The oil sands are polluting our air and water, clear cutting the Northern boreal forest and affecting the First Nation tribes living around the sites. Canada should no longer be funding the Alberta oil sands because of the negative impact it has on the environment and people near them.

The environmental risks that come with such a massive pipeline to transport “tar sands” pose a threat on many levels. As a matter of fact the tar sands they are trying to transport are required to

The Athabasca River originates from the Columbia Ice-field and flows in a north-easterly direction about 1500 km to the Athabasca Delta and Lake Athabasca. Throughout its course, the river flows through (or adjacent to) many communities, including Jasper, Hinton, Athabasca, Fort McMurray, and Fort MacKay (with a combined population of more than 155,000 people). Due to its rich natural resources, Athabasca river basin is host of many mining and forestry industries and agricultural activities along the river (MRBB 2004). Particularly, there is an ongoing oil sands development in the region adjacent to the lower reach of the Athabasca River, north of Fort McMurray. All of these activities, in conjunction with the natural watershed geology, effluents from wastewater treatment plants (point sources) and runoff from both natural and altered landscapes (non-point source), have the potential to affect water quality in the lower Athabasca River (Hebben 2009).

The statement ‘Canada oil sands are much more of a blessing rather than a curse’ is not true because the disadvantages of oil sands outweigh the advantages. For this reason, this paper aims at indicating points against the statement. To understand the defects of oil sand exploration in Canada, one has to delve into the explanation of what oil sands are as well as how the entire process of mining and refining and thereafter, determine the disadvantages based on socioeconomic factors, environmental factors, as well as the infrastructure and energy required for its production.

The Alberta tar sands, is currently the largest construction project taking place in the world, and as such is a very important development. The Alberta tar sands are a necessary evil, because the world is running out of conventional oil, and they are the last remnants of oil. All of the easy oil has been discovered, and exploited, and the tar sands is the crude oil that we are left with. As we all know oil is what makes the world go round, and without it we would be unable to produce enough food, or perform many other important processes. Therefore, the Alberta tar sands are very essential for keeping the world supplied with oil. However, there are many negative effects from the development, and refining of the oil from the tar sands, which has caused much environmental damage.

An article from Chris Nelson (2015, December 10) frames the agreement as a waste of time, beginning with the words: “So imagine what 36,276 men and women accomplished in Paris these last weeks to deal with another global threat - climate change, if you answered ‘not much,’ then grab the first-prize ribbon.” These openly biased attacks on pro-environment initiatives are examples of how oil is framed in a way that legitimizes itself and rejects climate leadership to the degree where helping the environment is framed as a tactic to appear virtuous for other jurisdictions. Coverage from August of the same year reinforces the partiality of a paper that believes the government’s climate change adaptation strategies have little to do with humanitarian motives. To illustrate, Priaro (2015, August 22) writes, “there is little need for government to intervene to reduce the rate of increase in GHG emissions from Alberta with a misguided, unnecessary and debilitating climate-change plan that will only lead us to an economic dead end.” Journalist David Marsden (2015, January 6) follows, “we don’t need to create more means of harming our economic competitiveness” when speaking about climate change adaptation in Alberta. He continues to claim that the Premier “and her ragtag band of brothers and sisters in cabinet [are] intent on social engineering us to economic death” (ibid). The Calgary Herald was not entirely pessimistic; there is

They connected snow near the oil sands, whatever ends up in the snow can only get there from above from smoke snacks and dust from the mines (Natural Resources Canada 2013). If there are oil toxins in the snow they must be from industrial activity and within 50km that is exactly what they found (Natural Resources Canada 2013). The industry of the oil sands are releasing 13 toxic heavy metals into the river, which include arsenic, led, mercury, and chromium

Situated in Canada, Alberta's three oil sand areas are known as the Athabasca oil sands, the Cold Lake oil sands, and the Peace River oil sands. The sands are worth approximately $1 trillion and they are the largest export in the industry. Currently, the oil provides jobs for about 514,000 people across Canada, and in 2028 this is expected to grow to over 800,000 jobs1. In Canada, almost every community has been touched by the oil sands development through the impact it has on economic growth and job creation, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI)2.

The following document is a transcript from a sit down interview conducted between chief executive officer Jim Ellis who is responsible for the operations of the new Alberta Energy Regulator and Crystal Lameman who is known to advocate on behalf of Alberta First Nations. The interview is concerning the controversial Athabasca tar sands (also known as oil sands) which are known to contain large amounts crude oil in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta (Terry, 2009). The Athabasca oil sands have made Canada the number one foreign supplier of oil to the U.S which creates close economic partnership between the two countries (Terry, 2009). However, the process of supplying the oil to the U.S involves the creation

The focus of most of the previous studies has been based on limited measured data and mostly during the open-water season. Therefore, the Canada-Alberta Joint Oil-Sands Monitoring Program (2012) identified a need for a more systematic and comprehensive quantification and modeling of the sources, transport, flux, and fate of materials and chemical constituents entering the Lower Athabasca watersheds. To achieve this objective, there was a requirement to develop a reliable integrated hydrodynamic, sediment transport and water quality models of the

The oil sands are a topic that always seems to be contested, after all its effects on the environment and economy are significant. The CBC and The Globe and Mail have both released articles regarding the oil sands. One article supports the expansion of the oil sands through the use of numbers to dispute common reasons against its development; the other opposes its development through the concerns of those with expert power. The exceptional use of statistics allows The Globe and Mail to validate every point they make, creating an article with a quality that you can trust. On the other hand, the CBC article voices the concerns of professionals. This makes the article worth reading as their concerns are often based on knowledge rather than solely