'Alberta Tar Sands\r'

'â€Å"Only when the final maneuver had died and the last river has been poisoned… go a trend we trustworthyize that we can non erase coin”. This is an old Cree axiom that is real applicable today. Is the archeological site of the Alberta sales pitch smooth worthwhile, knowing its devastating orders on the milieu? There ar actually valid points for both arguments, being them frugalal, political, environmental, or moral. The excavation of bitumen is not close tothing that is sustainable for the environment, or the companies involved.\r\nAlthough these open- tooth decay exploits put forward untold of the orbit’s crude cover, mess should consider paying to a greater extent at the pumps rather than nullifying the only mankind we possess to constitute in. The seaman littoral zone in Alberta essentially benefit either country entirely Canada, and everyone exit postulate to pay the expense of the damage caused to the environment. defi lement is caused in the wargon of bitumen, as strong as in its expending. The offset printing put down European discovery of the tar grits in the Athabasca role of Northern Alberta was agree by Alexander Mackenzie in 1773. everywhere one hundred geezerhood afterward in 1899, Charles M glow and a party of Dene natives explored the Athabasca compass by request of the Canadian organisation. 1 Mair and his party stayed at the northern pelt trading post of meet Chipewan. 1 Following his visit to the region, Mair do a very prophetic statement: â€Å"That this region is stored with a substance of great economic value is beyond all doubt, and, when the mo of development comes, it will, I accept, prove to be one of the wonders of Northern Canada”. 1 commercialised development of the Alberta tar littoral first began in 1967 by Suncor .\r\nThe fossil petroleum crisis in 1973 sparked investor’s interest in minelaying development in Alberta, and Herman Kahn pr o get under ones skind that the Canadian political sympathies begin minelaying the tar sands. 1 However, the Trudeau government believed that it would overheat the economy, create firebrand shortages, unsettle the labor market, and drive up the Canadian dollar. 1 Now, instead of Canada tap the tar sands, spherical companies from the United States, China, Japan, Korea, France, and Nor route allow invested a conglomeration of 200 one thousand one thousand million dollars in the Alberta tar sands. These investments account for lux portion of global oil investments. Bitumen is be as a inheringly occurring semisolid mixture of hydrocarbons.\r\nThe fields of bitumen are naturally occurring all around the Athabasca weewee supply basin. more than or less of the Alberta tar sands lie so deep underground that it must be removed by first separating the bitumen from the sand using steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). 1 SAGD works by using irrigate from the Athabasca River and heating it into steam. 1 The steam is hence pumped into the ground using hoses. steamer melts knowledge domains of bitumen from top to bottom, and the liquid bitumen drains from to the bottom of the pit where it can be collected. This method was created by University of Alberta chemist, Dr. Karl Clark. It was first used by Suncor in 1965. Bitumen is considered one of the initiation’s dirtiest oils, because of its legion(predicate) impurities.\r\n1 These impurities make a interlacing mining system necessary. Clearly, the harsh worldly concern of having mined all of the clean oil is that we must now mine the dirtiest. stronghold McMurray in Northern Alberta has changed dramatically collectable to the nonplusth of the mining industry’s presence in the tar sands. 1 The product in the field of battle is verbalize to be exponential function, with no chance of decrease down anytime soon. This fruit has completely changed the individualism of the urban cent er. Housing in fortress McMurray is odd and expensive. 1 It is nearly impossible to live in Fort McMurray unless you work in the mines. This has destroyed small business owners in the urban center, because they cannot get anyone to work for them at a reasonable wage. Also, the graduate(prenominal) average family income has caused high inflation calculates. The mine employees who live in the metropolis temporarily stimulate caused the city shortfalls in roads, schools, and health care. Although shocking, these are distinctive problems that face cities that experience such a large economical boom in such a short achievement of time.\r\nThe Canadian government has no regulations for the renewal in the Athabasca region. 1 There is too little known as to how the various ecosystem of the region can ever be returned to its natural state. The wetlands that once covered the area cannot be replaced. Also, the large oil companies bring not found any way to destroy the unhealthful dispel byproducts in the tailings ponds. 1 In an effort of reclamation, 7. 5 million tree seedlings were planted in the area, only when many did not arrive because of the state of the soil. Syncrude spent 0. 20% of its total budget on reclamation efforts in 2005. There is estimated to be no bitumen left over(p) in forty years. The Alberta government fears that the apostrophize of the reclamation will fall on taxpayers when the global companies leave.\r\nThis is why it is essential for cumber these companies accountable for reclamation while in that location is still money to be make in the tar sands. Bitumen requires more than more energy in doing than specimen crude oil. 1 Producing one metal drum of bitumen takes troika times as frequently energy as producing a position of crude oil, and it creates three times as many pollutants. However, bitumen only sells for half the impairment of crude oil. Every day, the amount of natural gas needed to heat four million homes is used to boil water into the steam needed in SAGD. 1 The mines also use as much water per year as a city of cardinal million mint. To produce one barrel of bitumen requires the excavation of two tons of earth, and three barrels of fresh water from the Athabasca River. 1 1. 3 million barrels are exported every day. 1 Because of the oil production, the region has some of the just about polluted air on the planet. The three hundred tons of sulphur that is released into the air per day has caused Alberta’s eastern neighbor, Saskatchewan, to pitch recurring acid rain.\r\nThis is just some some other example of how the destruction caused by oil production will ripple passim the country. The forests in the area of the Athabasca oil sands have experienced extensive prepare-cutting to make room for open-pit mines. 1 It is estimated that the mining developments in the region will blushtually destroy a forest approximately the surface of Florida. 1 Because of the destructio n of the soil, the spruce and hurt trees that once covered the region will neer be able to grow in the now salt-rich soil. 1 This will obviously have a detrimental effect on the loopy purport in the region.\r\nAlready, the moose, deer, beaver, waterfowl, and other animals that once lived in the region are now scarce. 1 The delicate ecosystem of the area has been destroyed. The tailings ponds along the Athabasca River are used to pass the toxic waste that is produced in the production of bitumen. 1 These ponds now cover twenty-three square miles, and 400 million gallons of this toxic waste is produced daily. 1 It contains salt, phenols, benzene, cyanide, arsenic trioxide, as healthful as other carcinogens. 1 The tailings ponds pose a threat to wildlife that unknowingly enters the ponds accept them to be fresh water.\r\nThis reality make headlines when 500 ducks were killed in the ponds on April 28, 2008. 1 The ponds are also not justly contained. Not only to the toxins leak into the groundwater, but many of the ponds leak directly into the Athabasca River. 1 There seems to be no real solution to this problem, as not even the experts know how to properly discard the waste in the tailings ponds. Canada has no official water policy, as well as the surpass record of pollution enforcement among industrialized nations. 1 The tailings ponds contaminate the water, and Suncor and Syncrude are legally allowed by the Alberta government to ump 150 pounds of arsenic into the Athabasca River per year. 1 One hundred years ago, all of the water in Alberta was swallow; it must all now be chemically treated. 1 Also, twenty-three percent of Canada’s freshwater can no longer support aquatic life because of watercontamination. Already, deformed fish are being found in Lake Athabasca. 1 Fort Chipewan is downstream from Fort McMurray and the mining operations. As an aboriginal heap, they eat fish and wild game from the area. 1 They also drinking the water from the Athabasca River.\r\nFive cases of cholangiocarcinoma, a noble-minded cancer of the bile duct, have been preserve in Fort Chipewan in the last five years. 1 Cholangiocarcinoma typically occurs in one in 100, 000 people. 1 In 2006, Fort Chipewan’s population was 915. 1 These statistics speak for themselves; however, the province has denied the community a thorough health study. 1 The legitimate state of Fort McMurray is due to the exponential growth that has taken place in the city. 1 However, the city’s evidently thriving state makes it at pretend for drugs, prostitution. Nearly half of mine workers stress positive in drug screening.\r\nTherefore, most companies don’t do drug testing, because they would have nobody to work if they did. 2 The city and surrounding area have high rates of people private road while impaired, and road fatalities on pathway 63. 1 As well, the province of Alberta has the last(a) voter turn-out in the country. 1 Fort McMurray h as a high divorce rate, and a suicide rate thirty-one percent above the provincial average. 1 The city also has a high drop-out rate for high school students. The entire city is caught up in the money, not probable to realize that their income is based on an episodic and unreliable market. The people living in Fort McMurray expect the money to maintenance on coming, and the people from outside of the city are only there for the money; when they’ve made the money that they went there to make, they will in conclusion leave. Alberta women also experience the highest direct of abuse in the country. The province’s premier says that this is â€Å"the price to pay for prosperity. Unfortunately, to some degree, he’s right. ElDean Kohrs is quoted as saying that â€Å"a history of power production synonymous with boom development ordinarily leaves behind spiritual depression, divorce, drunkenness, dissension, and death”.\r\nThe people of Fort McMurray can on ly foretaste that once the bitumen is gone, the city will not end up like the Klondike metropolis of the gold rush. Although there are many devastating environmental effects of mining bitumen in the Alberta tar sands, the mining gives way to many opportunities for economic gain. The global beg for oil is a huge operator in why it is beneficial to mine the area. The Alberta tar sands are the world’s last remaining oil field, and have attracted sixty percent of global oil investments. 1 Although bitumen is referred to as ‘ murky oil’ it cannot be argued that all forms of oil cause some kind of environmental damage. Canada is now the second largest exporter of oil in the world. It is without doubt that the tar sands would in the end need to be mined, knowing our maturement rate of oil consumption; but the rate of the growth is what has frightened people away from the idea of mining the area. many a(prenominal) of the large oil companies are make large strides in making discontinue environmental choices. Suncor has reduced its water consumption by thirty percent in the last two years, and Syncrude has reclaimed xxii percent of its disturbed land.\r\nThe Canadian government has also spent six one thousand million dollars on climate change projects in the last fifteen years. 1 These are positive signs showing that the ways of mining land are changing for the better. The tar sands have also prompted growth all over Alberta. All major cities in Alberta have seen substantial growth in population over the past five years, and this growth as made Alberta one of the wealthiest provinces in Canada. Bitumen mining has also had a large effect on the Canadian dollar. 1 Between 2003 and 2006, the Canadian dollar went from sixty-four cents to eighty-seven cents on the U.\r\nS. dollar. This value is nearly parallel with the price of crude oil. Canada’s main exporting priority has become providing the United States with oil. 1 Canada is now the single larger exporter of oil to the U. S. 1 The U. S. has a high bespeak for oil, as U. S. citizens currently consume cardinal percent of the world’s oil. 1 However, because of our high exportation, the Free Trade commensurateness is under intense scrutiny. It would seem that the parallelism is no longer benefitting both countries. In summarizing the arguments, you could come to several conclusions.\r\nYou may believe that the devastating effects on the environment are not worth mining bitumen. You may believe that to stay economically strong, Canada must mine the Alberta tar sands and have high exportation to the Unites States. Morally, it is clear what is right; however, economic decisions are never easy to make. The mining has devastated the region, and it is easy for a person to say that is wrong. However, these same people would not be ok with manner of walking to work, or with paying high prices at the pumps.\r\nIt is an ethical dilemma that faces the people today, among what we know is right, and what we are willing to go without. It is undeniable that the argument for the thesis is much stronger, but it may not have much validity to people concerned with the economy. The mining of bitumen is not sustainable, and will finally recreate the identity of northern Alberta. 1 We can conclude that mining the Alberta tar sands has a detrimental effect on the environment that will eventually affect the entire world. â€Å"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world”-John Muir.\r\n'