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 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.

Dr. Lorne Taylor (2012, p. 3), the chair of the Alberta Water Research Institute, states, “Organizations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are convincing Canadians and the world that Alberta’s oil sands are a scourge on the environment”. Environmental groups and the media are unfortunately shedding a poor light on the development of the oil sands in northern Alberta. Bob Weinhold (2011, pg. 119), a veteran environmental journalist, states “the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) panel found no evidence that people are currently being harmed by oil sands activity”. Both the environmentalist side and the oil sands producer’s side must be evaluated with an objective mind as each contains truths as well as embellishments. Taylor (2009, pg. 2) argues that a major misconception is “the province, people and industry of Alberta

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

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.

Countries having the bituminous sand but the wide range of this sand are finding in Canada. The research show that this company is important for economy and showing robust future in the future because in 2004, the processing of engineered unrefined petroleum (SCO) and natural rough bitumen spoke to 41 percent of aggregate Canadian oil generation. At an accepted WTI cost of $32 for every barrel, the oil sands generation is relied upon to expand three fold by 2017, helping considerably more than 50% of Alberta's oil supply. The normal elevated amount of oil action ought to prompt gigantic budgetary development in the district and in addition in the area. The number of inhabitants in the locale (i.e., Wood Buffalo-Cold Lake Economic Region7) has expanded by 8 percent between 2000 and 2004. This contrasts and a development of 7 percent for the region, and 5 percent for the country over the same period. The development and improvement in the oil sands industry at the provincial level affects the common, national

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

A problem that has been brought up to congress is climate change. With so much heat needed to separate the oil from the sand, there is about 17 percent more carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. Canada

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.

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

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