Day 3 - Wednesday August 20

Today (Wednesday, August 20) is our final day in Fort McMurray. In the morning Matt Price of Environmental Defence, Chief Alan Adam, Dan Woynillowicz of Pembina Institute and George Poitras each presented to our group. Dan and Matt explained the environmental and economic risks associated with rapid oil sands development and explain the ways in which government oversight and regulation of the oil sands has been inadequate.

Chief Adam and George Poitras explained the growing health and cultural crisis that is occurring in Fort Chip, including rising rates of rare cancers, the inedibility of fish and game and the cultural impact of the boom economy of Fort McMurray located just upriver. They explained to us that their communities have had enough of the provincial and federal governments ignoring their concerns.

They have decided to act, and tell us that at the recent Keepers of the Water Conference (held just before our workshop) eighteen First Nations within the MacKenzie River watershed (of which the Athabasca is a part) approved a declaration that resolves the signatories to initiate legal action to protect their rights, build unity between their communities and to engage with other leaders to further strengthen this unity, and work in solidarity with organizations that support these goals. They have decided that government actions cannot be corrected without legal and political response and they have resolved to take it.

The last leg of our workshop involves flights over the oil sands area in helicopters. From the air the true scale and scope of the oil sands operations comes into view. Vast black bitumen mines dwarf the bungalow-sized trucks and the brown water of the tailings ponds swirl with greasy oil. At the edge of the operating areas the boreal forest is being clearcut, the soil ditched and drained and then bulldozed into huge heaps to await the diggers and trucks.

So far about 478 square kilometers of forest have been cut and cleared. Eventually three thousand square kilometers will be open-pit mined, an area of about six times the current area of impact. They will also be a much greater area (up to the size of Florida) that will be fragmented by pipelines and well heads and roads to get at the oil sands that are buried deeper and cannot be reached with the open pit technique.

By the time the helicopters land our group has gone a bit quiet. The enormity of what we have heard and seen has begun to sink in. This is the biggest, most risky industrial project on Earth and Canada needs to be able to answer how we are doing it right.

Day 2

Our day two started with a tour of the Oil Sands Discovery Centre. Situated in downtown Ft. McMurray it outlines the process of mining, extracting and processing bitumen from the oil sands. From there we visited a very small area of disturbed oils sands area that has been re-naturalized (less than half of one per cent of the area mined has been restored to date) and then on to Fort McKay First Nation for a tour of the community and lunch.
The rest of the afternoon was spent visiting Suncor’s oil sands operations. Most surprising to me is the scale of the operations, open pits and tailings ponds cover the entire visible landscape and earthen retaining walls sweep across the horizon. Everywhere trucks and cranes and workers scuttle across the landscape and here and there we see the huge backs of the “Heavy Hauler” dump trucks delivering the oil sands for processing.
The pace and rate of development are overwhelming. A visit to the maintenance garage is very similar to visiting a hanger for 747s..except larger. The whole site is like a Mechano on steroids. The staff are polite and helpful but by the end of the tour I still feel like we have not really begun to delve into the policy issues related to the economic, social and environmental costs of this massive project.
At dinner we are joined by Chief Alan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and George Poitras of the Mikisew Cree. Both Chief Adam and George are from Fort Chipewyan, which is downstream on the Athabasca River from Oil Sands.
They join from the audience during the panel conversation after dinner where representatives of the Oil Sands Industry and the provincial government assert that there is no need to slow down the rate of development in the oil sands. They are confident that the market is the only regulator that is needed.
The First Nation representatives and others from the audience ask how the market, with its in-exhaustible and growing demand for oil, is going to ensure that the oil sands tailings ponds won’t continue to leak into the rivers, that carbon emissions don’t continue to rise and how some of the profits will be retained to invest for the future of Albertans and Canadians.
They wonder why the province has not set limits for taking water from the Athabasca River, why they will not investigate cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan and why Alberta’s carbon emission plan will allow emissions to drastically increase. The answers are vague but the main message is clear. We will talk about mitigation of impacts but we will not talk about any absolute limits to how big, how polluting or how disruptive the oil sands can become.
Tomorrow we will hear from the First Nation representatives and fly over the oil sands by helicopter.

Day one - motivations for coming on the tour

Tonight all the workshop participants gathered for some introductory discussions of the reasons why each environmental funder had come to Fort McMurray and their expectations for outcomes from the workshop. Many mentioned that as Canadians they believed that they had an obligation to get to know the area personally given the role that the oil sands have in influencing climate policy in Canada. Others explained their desire to understand how a project of economic significance could be made to be more environmentally sustainable. Others expressed interest in determining how they as funders could support a coordinated strategy that would help to limit the impacts of the oil sands. All agreed that any strategy that will effective must focus on securing action by both the provincial and federal governments. Tomorrow we will all join Suncor staff for a ground tour of their operations and will provide an update with photos and text. More later, Tim

Heading to the Oil Sands

I am attending an Alberta Oil Sands workshop in Fort McMurray from August 18th to 20th. The workshop is bringing together Canadian and U.S. grantmakers to interact directly with representatives and leading experts from ENGOs, Aboriginal communities and the oil industry. The workshop, aerial tour and ground tour is intended to provide participants with first-hand knowledge of the economic benefits, environmental impacts, and local development issues in the oil sands region. Participants will acquire first-hand an understanding of how Canada’s approach to energy policy and climate change is tied to oil sands development, as well as a range of other local and global environmental issues including land use, water use, toxics, and forest conservation. I will be providing daily observations and photos and I will be happy to answer any of your questions about the workshop or my experiences.