by
Mike De Souza and David Akin
OTTAWA -- Environmental activists are telling Americans that the Alberta oilsands are an environmental disaster that is poisoning U.S refineries.
"The environmental costs of tar-sand development are staggering," says a report released yesterday by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based group, in the latest salvo in a pitched public-relations battle over the oilsands.
The report, Tar Sands: Feeding U.S. Refinery Expansions with Dirty Fuel, warned that much of the oil being processed in the United States would soon get dirtier since most refineries were being expanded to handle oil from Western Canada.
"As the rising price of oil has made extraction from Canadian tar sands profitable, oil refineries to process the extra heavy sour crude have come to dominate the refinery landscape," says the analysis.
It notes that more than two-thirds of the expansion of U.S. refining capacity is being tailored to handle the dirtier crude.
The study is the latest in a series of reports targeting U.S. decision-makers to convince them to turn away from what is called "dirty oil" from Canada.
It says oil sands production results in the release of pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, sulphuric acid mist and nitrogen oxide, as well as toxic metals such as lead and nickel compounds.
"I think Americans are just beginning to learn what the tar sands are," said Matt Price, a climate and energy policy expert from Environmental Defence in Canada who contributed to the report. "You are not really achieving energy security [since] by exploiting tar sands oil. You are actually putting in danger your life-support system, which is the climate," he said.
But policy-makers and oil companies are fighting back, doing their best to convince an international audience that Canada is a "green energy superpower" and is responsibly managing oilsands development.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper carried that message to an international audience last week in London.
"Canada intends to be not just an energy superpower, but also a clean energy superpower," Harper told a business crowd at a meeting of the Canada-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce.
Harper singled out the oilsands in that speech, saying his government has taken a "get tough" approach on oilsands developers.
"Our targets [for emissions] in the oilsands go beyond the standards for other industries," Harper said.
But green groups and political opponents of the Conservative governments in Ottawa and Edmonton say international investors and policy-makers are not being given the whole story.
They say overall greenhouse-gas pollution from the oilsands is estimated to triple over the next decade.
The analysis also identifies 17 new expansions of existing facilities in Alberta and warns the changes could wipe out many trees in the boreal forest that would have to be cleared to make way for tar-sands extraction.Vancouver Province
