| Tar Sands in the Kingdom | |
| by K.C. Whitely | |
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Indigenous tradition asserts that it is a human responsibility to protect land, air, and water for future generations. In late June, with support from many Vermonters, I traveled to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada to participate in the fifth Healing Walk organized by the Keepers of the Athabasca. They include First Nations people, the Metis, the Inuit, environmental groups, and citizens working together to protect water, land and air, and all living things in the Athabasca River Watershed. A major river, the Athabasca winds its way north from the Canadian Rockies in Jasper National Park through Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan. There it empties into Lake Athabasca spanning the Alberta/Saskatchewan provinces. If you look for this area on your Rand McNally road atlas, you won’t find it. It’s too remote a travel destination. The Alberta tar sands are the size of Florida, a huge underground mass of dense, gravel-embedded bitumen, the second largest oil deposit in the world. (Only Saudi Arabia’s is larger.) Its mining is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. It’s of concern to Vermonters because our Northeast Kingdom pipelines might be used to pump the oil to Atlantic seaports for shipment to international markets. A 63-year old Portland Montreal Pipeline (PMPL) whose parent company is Exxon/Mobil, currently pumps crude oil northwest from Portland, Maine to Montreal. It runs through ten Vermont towns, seven Vermont watersheds and 15 Vermont bodies of water. To bring tar sands oil from Alberta to waiting tankers in Portland requires a reversal of the old pipeline. Thick, tar sands oil needs thinning to be transported. Bitumen is blended with petroleum products that contain benzene, toluene and xylene. Like liquid sandpaper, tar sands oil is highly corrosive. Spills are more prevalent than with crude and are virtually impossible to clean up. The oil is so heavy it sinks into the ground and groundwater. It can’t be skimmed. The Kalamazoo River spill in Michigan in 2010 cost over $1 billion, the most expensive in U.S. history, with no hope of removing the chemicals that are now embedded in river sediment. Over 40 miles of that river are closed to the public. My concern for safeguarding the Northeast Kingdom from such a disaster led me to volunteer for 350Vermont’s campaign. Healing Walk participants met at picturesque Lake Gregoire near Fort McMurray, attended workshops and listened to stories told by the First Nation people whose land and lives have been changed forever. They talked about the rampant health issues in their communities, of bathing their children in bottled water because the tap water leaves red spots and sores on the children’s skin. The next day we boarded school buses for the ride up to the Suncor tar sands fields. The first thing I noticed was smog obscuring what had been blue sky in Fort McMurray, and next an acrid smell. As we got closer, I heard what sounded like blasts going off every few minutes and asked if tar sands mining required explosives. I was told that sound canons had been installed on the tailings ponds to keep birds from landing. After hundreds of ducks were poisoned and died from the oil and chemical mining refuse left in Suncor’s ponds, the province of Alberta required Suncor to install “bird deterrent systems.” Tailings ponds hold billions of gallons of recycled water, hydrocarbons, naphthenic acids and other byproducts left after processing, sending steam into the air that carries pollutants up to 100 kilometers beyond the central refineries. Most of these ponds are unlined. They seep into the ground water, nearby streams and the Athabasca River, contaminating the water supply and making this one of the tar sands industry's most pressing long-term concerns If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the experience of being at the tar sands, smelling the chemicals in the air, feeling my eyes burn from the vast tailings ponds, getting a headache after walking the 16 kilometers that the Healing Walk covers, and smelling the tap water that reeks of gaseous fumes, is worth a thousand pictures. Many walkers, especially young children and elders, wore respirator masks to filter out airborne toxins. A spiritual gathering, led by First Nation leaders and elders, we offered healing prayers for the water in each of the four directions, and to the land, asking for strength to build unity among people impacted by tar sands development. Northern Alberta is the ancestral home of Cree and Athabascan Chipewyan. For centuries the Beaver Creek Cree drank the water and ate the fish from the Athabasca River, sustenance practices they took for granted, as most of us in Vermont do. Today they can do none of that. Chemicals like benzene and zylene, toxins that have quickly found their way into the food chain and water supply, present parents with unimaginable choices: seeing their children go hungry, or feeding them fish or meat known to contain carcinogens. |
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One of several young First Nation women who have become leaders and spokespeople, Athabasca Chipewyan Eriel Deranger said: “First Nations communities were once scared to share their stories about tar sands impacts, but the Healing Walk has been a safe place to share knowledge so that today First Nations are stronger than ever to fight tar sands development across North America.” Visceral experience deepened my understanding of what is at stake—not only for the people of northern Alberta but for all of us. This destruction of wildlife, communities and habitat could happen here and is happening around the world. Jesse Cardinal, Coordinator of this event for the Keepers explained the reason for making this fifth walk the final one: The Healing Walk leaders asked us this question: when your children and grandchildren ask you what you did when you knew this was happening, what will you tell them? It hit home, deepening my commitment to do whatever I can to make sure this destruction and poisoning of our mother earth is slowed down and then stopped; to make sure this disaster does not come home to us in Vermont, to the Northeast Kingdom.
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Video from YouTube : On the Edge of the Tar Sands |
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For more information, visit tarsandsfreevermont.org To see videos and photos of the Healing Walk, go to healingwalk.org; Tar Sands Healing Walk 2014
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K.C. Whiteley is a frequent contributor to Vermont Woman. She invites you to contact her at kcwhiteley@yahoo.com to arrange a time to meet with friends and neighbors to learn more about what you can do to ensure a tar sands spill never happens here.
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