Boreal forest by Leslie Degner
Mining operations at the Syncrude mine-4 (David Dodge, The Pembina Institute)
CLEAN IT UP or shut it down
While it is a stretch to believe the tar sands can ever be truly sustainable, there is much that can be done to clean them up. A moratorium on new approvals must be put in place until these six things are done by the federal government:
1. Pass a real cap on carbon emissions
The federal government's flawed "intensity" caps — based on the concentration rather than the overall amount of emissions — will
ensure that tar sands emissions will at least triple. Hard caps need to be put immediately on tar sands emissions, and compliance
with those caps must set a price on carbon that has industry pay at levels that provide a strong incentive to invest in capture
and storage technology.
2. Ban toxic tailing ponds
Tar sands waste can be put in a dry form rather than into wet tailings ponds that leach pollution into the groundwater and are
a source of air pollution. Dry tailings would also reduce water withdrawals from the Athabasca River. Care must be taken to
cap dry tailings to avoid wind erosion, though.
3. Require wildlife offsets
By their very nature, tar sands operations cannot be made friendly to wildlife, so governments must compensate for this loss by
creating new protected areas to protect the species in the area.
4. Clean up refineries and upgraders
Facilities should not be so concentrated in an airshed as to pose a danger to human health. Refinery workers and nearby
residents must be protected by mandating facilities that capture pollutants at the highest possible level that technology
allows.
5. Ensure Aboriginal control and benefit
Aboriginal Rights and Title exist in areas affected by the tar sands, both near and far. These legal obligations must be
respected through meaningful control by First Nations over tar sands operations from the disposition to the reclamation and
monitoring phases.
6. Regulation and independent monitoring
Science-based limits must be placed by the Canadian government on all environmental aspects of tar sands operations — air,
land and water — and aggressive enforcement actions taken against violations of these limits. Monitoring to ensure compliance
must be arms-length from industry, run by independent scientists, with results available to the public.
Until these actions are taken, tar sands oil should remain safely underground until such time as humans are willing to develop them responsibly.
