Pres.Obama has put a temporary hold on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline; however, Canadian officials are now seeking another route to run dirty tar sands crude oil to the United States and Asia, threatening the Canadian coastal rainforest that is home to the remaining Spirit Bears. TAKE ACTION! READ the information,VIEW the video, and SIGN the online petition asking Canadian officials to abandon the proposed pipeline!
Date: 1/14/2012 8:34:02 PM ( 12 y ) ... viewed 2619 times
President Obama announced in November that he would not approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. “The Keystone XL pipeline, proposed by TransCanada, would carry almost a million barrels a day of volatile raw bitumen from tar sands trip mines and drill sites in Alberta, Canada. It would cross eight U.S. states and the vast Ogallala Aquifer, terminating at refineries in Texas. It would double the supple of tar sands crude—the world’s dirtiest oil—to the United States and unleash massive quantities of global-warming pollution.”
"In the wake of President Obama's decision to place a hold on the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta (Canada) to Texas, Canadian officials are now turning their sights west--to British Columbia's Spirit Bear Coast--as their next-best hope for exporting tar sands oil.
The Northern Gateway pipeline, proposed by energy giant Enbridge, would transport the same Alberta tar sands crude to the coastal rain forest habitat of some 400 remaining Spirit Bears, where it would be offloaded at the port of Kitimat to supertankers heading for Asia and the United States. A pipeline rupture or tanker spill is highly likely and could suffocate the resident orcas and humpback whales, poison marine birds and contaminate the world-class salmon runs on which Spirit Bears depend for survival.
‘Enbridge’s track record should be setting of alarms,’ says Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of NRDC’s International Program. The company was responsible for 80 liquid pipeline spills in 2010 alone, including a spill of nearly a million gallons of tar sands oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. A new NRDC report, “Pipeline and Tanker Trouble,” documents the failures of Enbridge’s leak-detection technology and the lack of preparedness on the part of Canadian authorities to deal with a major spill in rugged British Columbia. The report also underscores the grave risks of dramatically increasing tanker traffic along the Sprit Bear Coast, the fourth-most dangerous body of water in the world. This winter, NRDC Experts will be presenting these damning facts to a Canadian Joint Review Panel that is tasked with determining the Northern Gateway pipeline’s fate. NRDC has joined forces with the members of some 130 First Nations who are fighting the pipeline and has already generated nearly 100,000 messages of opposition to Enbridge and the premier of British Columbia.”
Alert Webmaster
