Tar Sands Action: Rising Tide Portland in Solidarity

“Portland Rising Tide dropped an anti-tar sands banner today from the Burnside Bridge. The group is acting in solidarity with communities, organizations and individuals resisting tar sands development across North America.

Rising Tide’s action comes on the heels of the 2-week Tar Sands Action campaign in Washington DC. 1,253 American’s were arrested in an act of civil disobedience at the White House to send a message to President Obama, asking him to stand up to Big Oil and deny the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline permits.”

“The Keystone XL pipeline is required for Big Oil to profit off of the social and environmental disaster that is the Alberta tar sands. Current tar sands mining has brought increased cancer rates, polluted water, and mass die-offs of birds and fish in the largely First Nation communities of northern Alberta.

Tar Sands Action organizers have put a call out for activists to hold the date October 7th for further action. This is the final Congressional hearing on the Keystone XL pipeline. Regionally, people are encouraged to visit their local Obama 2012 headquarters and inform staffers that you will withhold your support in the upcoming presidential elections until the pipeline is stopped.”

– from http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/2011/09/tar-sands-action-rising-tide-portland-in-solidarity/

For more info on the Keystone XL action in Washington D.C. and other solidarity actions visit Rising Tide North America’s website.

(Ed. Note: This footage was originally posted on YouTube by a critic. I believe an open dialog is essential to advancing an honest dialog between the various stakeholders involved. Misinformation and disinformation need to be addressed on both sides so that an understanding of the facts can be attained.)

Information is the Key

“The future path of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada will depend on a number of factors including: government actions, technological change, the growth in the economy, and developments in energy markets. Without incorporating the impacts of future government measures that have not yet been specified, the projections presented in this report are based on expectations of the evolution of key economic and energy drivers (such as the world oil price, gross domestic product, and population growth) derived from a variety of authoritative sources. However, as with any projection of this type, the likely outcome associated with each specific driver is subject to a high degree of uncertainty. As such, the emissions scenarios presented here should be seen as representative of a number of possible greenhouse gas emissions outcomes to 2020, depending on economic and other developments, as well as future government measures.”

(Ed. Note: Specific mention is made of the impacts due to the expansion of tar sands development on p24-27. GHG emissions are projected to rise in Canada in part because of increases in the exploitation of bitumen as a source of unconventional oil.)

– from Environment Canada report “Canada’s Emission Trends” released July 2011

The Stakes

“Canada’s boreal region contains one-quarter of the world’s remaining original forests. It is home to a rich array of wildlife including migratory songbirds, waterfowl, bears, wolves and the world’s largest caribou herds. Canada’s boreal is a major part of the global boreal region that encircles the Earth’s northern hemisphere, storing more freshwater in its wetlands and lakes and more carbon in its trees, soil, and peat than anywhere else on the planet. The Canadian boreal forest is also the location of one of the world’s largest deposits of oil – Alberta’s oil sands.

With conventional oil reserves in North America in steady decline, Alberta’s oil sands have begun to attract significant attention, both locally and internationally. Currently, the majority of oil sands production comes from open-pit mining facilities, and it is these shovel and truck operations that most people have come to associate with oil sands development. The mining zone currently extends across approximately 3,300 km2 of northern Alberta and, when fully developed, will likely qualify as the world’s largest open-pit mining complex.

What is not well known is that only a fraction of the total available oil sands deposits are close enough to the surface to be mined. The bulk of the established reserves (81%) must be extracted using in situ techniques.”

(Ed. Note: Canada’s boreal region extends beyond the proposed oil sands extraction sites and comprises almost 60% of the country’s land area.)

“… [I]n situ development of Alberta’s oil sands will result in unprecedented impacts to Alberta’s forests and pose grave risks to regional wildlife populations. Existing in situ leases already total 3.6 million ha (hectares), which is more than ten times the size of the mineable oil sands region. To put this in perspective, we are talking of an intensive industrial use zone larger than Vancouver Island. If existing leases are subjected to the same industrial footprint as the Long Lake project then 296,000 ha of forest will be cleared for SAGD infrastructure and over 30,000 km of access roads will be built. Furthermore, new leases continue to be awarded at a rapid pace, and new technologies for extracting less accessible reserves are continually being developed. If the entire area underlain by oil sands is eventually developed, in situ infrastructure could impact almost 14 million hectares of forest – a land area the size of Florida.”

– from “Death by a Thousand Cuts: Impacts of In Situ Oil Sands Development on Alberta’s Boreal Forest”

More reports are forthcoming.

A few resources for “getting the goods” (aka non-violent direct action) within the safety of your own affinity group:

http://www.actupny.org/documents/CDdocuments/ACTUP_CivilDisobedience.pdf

(ACT UP)

http://www.crimethinc.com/tools/downloads/pdfs/direct_action_guide.pdf

(Crimethinc. Workers Collective)

http://www.ruckus.org/downloads/RS_ActionVisuals.pdf

(Ruckus Society)

Missoula County Judge Ray J. Dayton granted a preliminary injunction halting the shipment of over-dimension loads along the Kearl Module Tranport Project (KMTP) route over Lolo Pass.

Read the decision by following the link below:

http://blog.nwf.org/wildlifepromise/files/2011/07/MOTIONFORP.pdf

Although this represents a clear victory for those who have sought to stop the shipments along the HWY 12 Northwest Passage Scenic Byway, the language of the document makes no specific mention of the proposed US 95 to I 90 route. The recent shipment of equipment through Moscow, ID along US 95 indicates that the transport of these modules could in the future continue along this revised route. But, there is another obstacle compounding these modules transportation problems – a construction project currently underway on I 90. For now, the shipments may have been stopped. Stay tuned for further updates on Idaho’s and Montana’s permitting of over-sized loads destined for Alberta using this alternate route.

Recent Development

According to the Lewiston Morning Tribune (quoting MDT legal council Dave Ohler):

“If Imperial Oil is successful in getting paperwork reissued in Idaho and issued in Montana, road construction on Interstate 90 and Interstate 15 won’t be an obstacle…”

– from http://apps.itd.idaho.gov/

For those of you wanting to get plugged-in to tracking the US 95 and I 90 megaload shipments, here are a few resources to follow:

http://www.kearltransport.com/

(Kearl Project Transportation Website)

http://apps.itd.idaho.gov/Apps/MediaManagerMVC/PressRelease.aspx/Search

(ITD Press Releases)

http://www.driveoureconomy.org/

(Drive Our Economy)

Release from the Moscow Sustainable Environment Commission:

At the request of Mayor Chaney, and in accordance with our mission as a city commission (“to solicit advice and information about sound environmental management practices for promoting the public health and safety of the citizens of Moscow”), the City of Moscow’s Sustainable Environment Commission is holding an additional opportunity for public input on the potential impact of the megaloads passage through Moscow on our environment–people, infrastructure, businesses, and community life.

The meeting will be conducted as a Public Forum for the SEC to hear from a broader public prior to the SEC making any recommendations to the City Council on this issue. In an effort to hear from as many people as possible, we plan to limit individual statements to 3 minutes. We realize this is a short period of time, but we are choosing to err on the side of hearing from as many citizens as possible during our 2-hour time period. The hearing will take place on June 15, in the City Council Chambers, from 7-9 p.m.

Wednesday, June 15 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm

City of Moscow Council Chambers

206 E Third St