mylesk

Myles Kitagawa
Associate Director, Toxics Watch Society of Alberta
Co-manager, Alberta Environmental Network
#1, 6328 A 104 Street
Edmonton, Alberta T6H 2K9

phone: 780 439 1912
fax: 780 433 3792
e-mail: comments posted anywhere in this weblog will be forwarded to me.

www.toxwatch.ca
www.aenweb.ca

Today’s weedgeek post is a bit of a cheat because I didn’t make this product, but if I ever adopt brewing as one of my hobbies, this is definitely something I’d attempt as two of its main ingredients are prized crops in the Vacant Lot of Eden.



While riding home from a downtown meeting late last summer, I noticed a burdock growing at the southern approach of the Highlevel Bridge, a plant with huge, rhubarb-like leaves and prickley, hooked seed-bulbs. Edible Garden Weeds of Canada says, “The most agreeable part of the burdock is the long, fleshy taproot of the first-year plants. It has been prized as a vegetable by the Japanese for centuries, being widely cultivated in Japan under the name of gobo.”
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I'm pleased to be able to return to this old blog of mine, now re-dubbed "Project 9" referring to the new focus of my work on neighborhood sustainability.

This post is a note space for references and contacts which may be of use in Project 9.

1. RCEN developed a vision document for its Green Economy & Social Enterprise Working Group, completed for AGA 2009.

This is the marshalling area for topics where the resolution of Toxics Watch positions has not yet been reached.

This post is my marshalling area for all the declarations of the Toxics Watch Society. If you locate one, please comment here with a complete subject line.

Survey leaves us second-last once again

BY LARRY PYNN, VANCOUVER SUN, MAY 14, 2009


Substantially more Canadians rate the economy ahead of the environment as their top priority, according to an international survey of green trends that ranks Canada second last among surveyed countries for the second straight year.

The survey by the National Geographic Society and polling firm GlobeScan found that 58 per cent of Canadians rate the economy as the most important national issue, compared with just three per cent who name the environment.

That compares with a 15-per-cent rating for the economy and 16 per cent for the environment in 2008.

Canadians are "less likely to agree that their personal lifestyle has a harmful effect on the environment or that they feel guilty about their environmental impacts," the survey, released Wednesday, found.

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The Ephemeral Tourist 2.0 is at http://suite-mck.livejournal.com/.

Posted: May 13, 2008, 6:53 PM by Jeff White
Peter Foster, oilsands, Imperial Oil, Kearn project

How can Ottawa condemn ­environmental radicalism when it backs carbon-dioxide climate theory?

By Peter Foster
Two weeks ago, 500 dead ducks on a tailings pond at Syncrude proved a PR fiasco for the oilsands industry. This Friday, a judge in Alberta will decide if a court challenge by environmentalists will succeed in slowing the development of a major new oilsands plant.

Alberta’s oilsands are now under full-scale assault by the environmental movement, which is nothing if not expert at using both public relations and the legal system to promote its anti-development cause. Nobody is suggesting that oilsands plants should not be closely monitored for their obviously significant local environmental impact, but the motivation of radicals is not a balanced approach that acknowledges the enormous economic significance of Athabasca while compensating those affected. It is to stop what is hysterically portrayed as an “environmental crime.” Unfortunately, government and corporate hypocrisy tends to support their case. The dead-duck incident, for example, produced an embarrassing bout of breast-beating. Following the subsequent deaths of tens — perhaps hundreds — of thousands of people in Burma and China, the disproportion of politicians and corporate executives declaring the ducks’ deaths a “tragedy” surely becomes glaringly obvious. We all love wildlife, but this was a minor accident — albeit a culpable one which may result in fines — not a bio-holocaust.

Now, flying in on the ghostly echo of duck wings, comes the legal challenge to the Kearl project, a joint venture of Imperial Oil and its parent Exxon Mobil. Located 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Kearl is described by Imperial as “arguably one of the best undeveloped resources in the Athabasca region.” It could eventually produce more than 300,000 barrels of bitumen a day, which should surely be a welcome prospect with crude oil at more than US$120 a barrel and gasoline prices at record highs.

It’s not exactly as if Imperial is involved in some kind of ­feckless, scorched-earth development. The company has spent more than $200-million on permits and environmental studies. However, ever-watchful environmentalists found a flaw, not in Imperial’s work but in a review of the project carried out by a joint federal provincial panel.

A group led by Ecojustice (formerly the Sierra Legal Defense Fund), which believes that the science of climate change is “irrefutable” (which in turn relieves the organization of the bothersome business of dealing with actual science), challenged the review and hit paydirt. Its scattergun assault produced a hit when it came to the review’s assessment of the project’s impact on climate change.

A judge found not that the plant’s greenhouse gases were likely to be a global problem, but that the panel had not made its case clearly enough. The panel subsequently produced an addendum. However, the finding of the original alleged flaw led the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans to withdraw a permit from Kearl to drain the muskeg to build the plant.

Ironically, the judge had found that watershed issues had been adequately addressed by the joint panel, contrary to the claims of the environmental groups. Similarly, the court did not find “gaping holes” in the environmental assessment, as the eco-warriors asserted. Nor was the case a “precedent-setting court victory.” Nor did the panel’s work contain “fatal errors,” as Ecojustice and co implied.

That Kearl might have any impact on the global climate is ridiculous. The project, when in full production, might be responsible for 0.5% of Canada’s man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. Canada, in turn, is responsible for around 2% of the total of global emissions. However, the issue became emotive when somehow the factoid crept into the discussion that Kearl’s potential 3.7 million tons a year of greenshouse gas emissions was the equivalent of 800,000 cars. This conjured images of smog and congestion, not to mention moral condemnation of driving, all nicely muddying the picture.

The question environmentalists want you to ask is: “How could something that produces the equivalent of the emissions of 800,000 cars not have an impact? The answer is because such emissions of carbon dioxide (which is still a “pollutant” only by concocted legal definition, not scientific fact) are micro-trivial in the great, global scheme of things. Still, the environmentalists’ moves are not inconsistent with their apparent desire to stop industrial civilization one plant at a time.

Imperial responded that the panel’s error should not be grounds for withdrawing the Fisheries permit, especially since this could mean delays of up to a year. We shall find out how strong their appeal was on Friday.
On the one hand, one can understand the frustration of Imperial, but then the law is the law, and government lawyers seem intent on sticking to the letter. If the permit is confirmed to be a “nullity,” then Imperial faces the prospect of re-review and another reference to the federal Cabinet for approval.

Whatever happens, the environmental groups will continue their program of misinformation and legal challenge. This process, as the joint review panel’s “clarification” suggested, is made easier because of the understandable reluctance of both Ottawa and Alberta to frame specific, restrictive and costly rules for the oilsands’ carbon emissions. It is difficult for governments to condemn environmental radicalism when they are supporting the claim that man-made climate change really is a major problem.

Financial Post

Posted: May 14, 2008, 8:28 PM by Jeff White
Filed under: Terence Corcoran,Energy
Polar bear and Kearl decisions are just part of global policies that curb energy supply

By Terence Corcoran
Fresh assaults on the future of energy supplies land daily. The U.S. government yesterday declared polar bears to be a “threatened species,” a move that does nothing for polar bears but poses a major risk to future energy development in Alaska and the North. In Canada, a federal court threw a roadblock yesterday in front of Imperial Oil’s $8-billion Kearl oilsands project in a case that has come to focus on carbon emissions.

Neither the polar bear nor the Kearl decision alone has an immediate impact on the supply or price of oil. But both have wide ramifications, giving environmental activists fresh foundations from which to delay, freeze, stall and ultimately permanently halt oil and gas exploration and development projects. They come on top of dozens, even hundreds, of regulatory barricades and government-imposed obstacles to energy production that have been and are routinely erected by governments all over the world. No wonder oil is at US$130 barrel. And why not start thinking of US$200 or US$300?
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Alberta Research Council and U.S. energy department sign agreement

Gordon Jaremko, edmontonjournal.com

Published: 11:47 am, march 28 2008
EDMONTON - Use of atomic power for oilsands development will be investigated by a research partnership, announced today, between the Alberta and United States governments.

The Alberta Research Council and the U.S. energy department's main nuclear laboratory in Idaho signed an agreement calling for work on potential bitumen belt applications of electricity, heat and chemical byproducts from reactors proposed north of Edmonton.

"This is a marriage made in heaven," said Idaho laboratory associate director Bill Rogers. Although no budget for the collaboration was announced, he said potentially all his operation's 3,800 scientists can be drafted into the Alberta project.

"The U.S. is dependent on Alberta for energy security," Rogers said, pointing to the province's "essential" role as the biggest source of increasing American oil and natural gas imports.

In the U.S. view, Alberta stands out for reliability and stability as a supplier, he emphasized. Elsewhere "we face nationalization of resources in countries that are hostile to the U.S.," Rogers said.

ARC vice-president Ian Potter said the partnership plans to work out a research agenda by late summer or early fall.

Potential topics range from making nuclear reactors provide heat for steam used in thermal oilsands production to production of hydrogen and oxygen used in high volumes by bitumen upgraders, Potter said.

"Meeting our province's electricity demands both now and in the future begins with reliable and clear information on all of the available energy options," said Mel Knight, Alberta's minister of energy.

"We welcome collaborations such as the one announced between the Alberta Research Council and Idaho National Laboratories to provide the solid analysis and research on the options available to address Alberta's unique needs."

gjaremko@thejournal.canwest.com© Edmonton Journal 2008

Norman R. Augustine 03.24.08, 6:00 AM ET

Congress recently scrambled to place a $152 billion Band-Aid on the nation's economy, but the underlying problems are likely to require such fixes with increasing frequency in the future.

These problems were brought to the fore three years ago when the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine--organizations that count 195 Nobel Laureates among their membership--conducted a study on America's ability to compete for jobs in an emerging global economy where five chemists in China or 20 assembly workers in Vietnam can be hired for the cost of one of these workers in America, and where physicians in India now read the CAT scans of patients in American hospitals.

The resulting report, titled Rising Above the Gathering Storm, concluded that without both a dramatic increase in investment in basic research and reform of the nation's K-12 educational system, America's children are likely to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

The report's warning did not go unheeded.


A new research university is scheduled to launch soon with a day-one endowment of $10 billion, equal to what it took MIT 142 years to accumulate. Next year, over 200,000 students will study abroad, mostly in the fields of science and engineering, often under government-provided scholarships. Government investment in nondefense R&D is set to increase by 25% over the next few years.

A multi-year initiative is under way to make the country a global nanotechnology hub. The world's most powerful particle accelerator will begin operation this year. And a high-level commission will conduct a followup to the Gathering Storm study with the objective of creating more jobs at home.

The problem is that these actions were taken by Saudi Arabia, China, the U.K., India, Switzerland and Australia, respectively. As chair of the committee that wrote Gathering Storm, I have been asked to speak about its findings from Japan to Canada and from Australia to Europe. But what about America?

Since the report was issued, the world-renowned Fermilab in Illinois responded to reductions in government research funding with layoffs and mandatory two-day-a-month unpaid "holidays" for its research staff. The U.S. portion of the international program to develop plentiful energy through nuclear fusion is being reduced to "survival mode."

The U.S. trade deficit in high-technology goods further increased. Nearly all major U.S. high-tech firms now have research laboratories outside the country and are poised to expand them. American companies spent three times more on litigation than on research.

Eighty percent of American CFOs surveyed said they would curtail R&D in order to meet short-term profit projections. The latest international standardized test for high school seniors in 30 nations revealed that students in only four nations performed significantly worse than U.S. students in science, and only five rated worse in math. Two-thirds of the Ph.D.s in engineering awarded by U.S. universities went to non-U.S. citizens. And U.S. K-12 teachers were reported to have worked 43 hours to earn $1,000, while Kobe Bryant earned that amount in five minutes and 30 seconds, and Howard Stern in only 24 seconds.

Industrial firms in the U.S. and elsewhere have found an answer to these problems.

Howard High, spokesman for Intel prior to his retirement, explains, "We go where the smart people are. Now our business operations are two-thirds in the U.S. and one-third overseas. But that ratio will flip over in the next 10 years." General Motors spokesman Greg Martin put it: "We're a global car company that happens to be based in the U.S." Addressing root causes, Bill Gates observed, "When I compare our high schools with what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I'm terrified for our workforce of tomorrow."

The irony is that America's leaders seem convinced of the importance of fixing K-12 math and science education and increasing government investment in basic research. In fact, the president made specific proposals to those ends in his 2006 State of the Union address, and the resulting authorization passed in the House 397-20 and the Senate by unanimous consent. However, due to an avalanche of 12,000 earmarks (Stanislaw Lee observed that "each snowflake in an avalanche pleads 'not guilty' "), and exacerbated by what can perhaps best be characterized as a system failure, the omnibus budget act that actually provides the funds to implement the government's programs failed to address America's competitiveness in any meaningful way.

Churchill said that you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else. Our nation's leaders need to succeed in their bipartisan efforts to help Americans compete in a job market increasingly dominated by 3 billion would-be capitalists who entered the workplace after many of the world's political systems were restructured at the end of the last century. Otherwise, our nation's greatest export is likely to be our jobs and our standard of living.

Norman Augustine is retired chairman of Lockheed Martin, former under secretary of the Army and past chair of the National Academy of Engineering.

It has to be that everyone who has moved to Alberta in the last 5 years to work in the oil sands (and plans to move out again when the boom ends) voted for the Conservatives.

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Nine hundred thirty thousand, one hundred eighty minutes.

That’s how you measure the total running time “Rent” will have played on Broadway when, as the producers said on Tuesday, it closes after its evening performance on June 1, making it the seventh-longest-running Broadway show in history.

But the length of its run is not nearly as significant as the kind of show it was. An East Village rock version of Puccini’s opera “La Bohème,” “Rent” brought a youthful energy — and young theatergoers — to Broadway, to a degree not seen since “Hair.” It also brought with it a real-life story so affecting that it would have overwhelmed the musical itself had the substance of the musical not been so intertwined with the story of its creation.

On the night of the final dress rehearsal at the New York Theater Workshop, the nonprofit theater in the East Village where the musical began, Jonathan Larson, the 35-year-old composer and librettist, died of an aortic aneurysm. He had been working for seven years on the musical, which includes portraits of his friends and the artists and addicts in his neighborhood, young people on the edge of poverty and in the shadow of AIDS, battling the coming wave of gentrification in the name of “La Vie Bohème.”

The show opened in February 1996, two and half weeks after Mr. Larson’s death. Critics were ecstatic, Broadway landlords were battling to play host to an uptown transfer, and everyone in town, including celebrities like Steven Spielberg and Anna Wintour, was scrambling to get tickets to a 150-seat Off Broadway theater in the East Village. Already a theater phenomenon, “Rent,” directed by Michael Greif, exploded onto Broadway two months later, on April 16, 1996, turning members of its mostly obscure cast into stars. It went on to win four Tony Awards, including best musical, and the Pulitzer Prize.

The original cast, which included the now familiar names Taye Diggs, Idina Menzel, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Jesse L. Martin, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, suddenly appeared everywhere, including the cover of Newsweek, marking the first time since “A Chorus Line” that a Broadway musical was on the cover of a national newsmagazine.

“One day you can’t afford to get Chinese-food takeout, and suddenly you’re getting free meals at Balthazar,” said Ms. Rubin-Vega, who added that the public obsession with the show, and the story behind it, seemed disquietingly macabre at the time.

The show’s Broadway home is the Nederlander Theater, which had long been dark before “Rent” moved in, but which was transformed into a bohemian playground of leopard-print carpets and graffitied walls. All along West 41st Street, so-called Rentheads, legions of young fanatics watching the show for the millionth time, can be seen lining up on 41st Street, sometimes overnight, for $20 day-of-show tickets.

“Rent,” which cost $240,000 to put up downtown, has gone on to gross more than $280 million on Broadway and another $330 million on the road. Productions have been mounted on six continents. A movie version of the show, which starred almost all of the original cast, opened in 2005, although it was a box-office failure.

Dependent as “Rent” is on a young audience and fueled by the occasional celebrity casting announcement, its grosses could be erratic. But recently the show’s take at the box office was consistently less than its costs. A closing date was on the horizon, and after some not entirely amicable back-and-forth, the Broadway producers, Jeffrey Seller, Kevin McCollum and Allan S. Gordon, agreed to a guarantee to keep the show running through June 1.

“Something happened with us in the fall in which we were consistently selling less tickets than we were last year and three or four years ago,” Mr. Seller said, citing new competition on Broadway like “Legally Blonde” and “Spring Awakening.” On the other hand, he said, when the show began, “I couldn’t have foreseen that we’d get to five years.”

Over the past 12 years, the Larson family has viewed the show as a source of pride as well as, in the words of Mr. Larson’s father, Al, “a constant reminder of something we don’t really want to be reminded about.”

In an interview from his home in Los Angeles, Mr. Larson said the ending of the show’s Broadway run would mean more shows in high schools and small theaters, a development he embraces. But, he said, “for essentially 12 years I’ve been saying I’d trade the whole business in if Jonny could still be alive. I still feel that way.”

The night sky was clear and black. Old snow all over the city was windrowed and stained varying shades of browned, lumpy mashed potatoes by the fleet of plows and sand-trucks.

Hannah and I were stopped at a traffic light, north-bound on Calgary Trail after an evening of shopping for groceries and household items.

“It isn’t good for me not to be blogging,” I said, suddenly.

From time to time, I make declarative statements like that. Sometimes in my sleep. That’s when Hannah finds them most amusing. When I’m asleep, she responds with questions to see if I’ll say anything funny. She’ll stir in bed, and if I’m dreaming at the time I’ll say something.

“Aren’t we going to vote?” I asked her two nights ago, as I slept.

“Vote for what?” she asked me. (Hannah was awake.)

“Ice cream.”

“Where do we vote for ice cream?”

“Baskin Robbins.”

“What flavour do you want to vote for?”

“Eclair.”

Hannah always reports these conversations to me the next morning. But if I’m awake when I make them, she usually ignores me.

“It’s not good for me not to be blogging,” I said as we drove home last night. The realization came suddenly. I haven’t been blogging since October of last year - and my reason has been that work has been overwhelming me, so I have a hard time justifying the time spent writing about... ephemera.

I’ve also noticed a disconnection from my LiveJournal which arose when I joined a valueable, but high-traffic, LJ community which floods my Friends Page with entries with impersonal (but as I said, valuable) content, and making my LJ Friends content difficult to find.

I believe that not blogging affects my brain. Writing for me, at the back end of 2007, was dominated by reactive and transactional e-mail. Responding to inquiries and executing directions. I find now, that when I am required to write in a lengthier form, the effort of doing so is laborious, as if I’m struggling to overcome a powerful intertia.

I’ve fallen out of the habits of expression; of encoding my ideas into words.

So, my fix ~ to get back to blogging, and to drain my swamped Friends List ~ is to start a new LiveJournal.

As I sign-off The Ephemeral Tourist, I hope to reconnect with some of my old LJ Friends, and to make some new ones.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday season, and best wishes for the new year.

~ mylesk

This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. PC Magazine's 2007 editors' choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.

Dear Mr. Thatcher,


I have been a loyal user of your 'Always' maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the Leak Guard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts.

But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from 'the curse'? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call 'an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.' Isn't the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers monthly visits from 'Aunt Flo'. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying, jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy!

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that Americas just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants... Which brings me to the reason for my letter.

Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: 'Have a Happy Period.'

Are you fu**ing kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James?

FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything 'happy' about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory.

For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like 'Put down the Hammer' or 'Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong', or are you just picking on us?

Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effectiveimmediately, there will be an $8drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull sh*t. And that's a promise I will keep.
Always.


Best,

Wendi *******
Austin, Texas

Hanneke Brooymans
edmontonjournal.com

Friday, December 07, 2007

EDMONTON - A federal government report released today shows Alberta has developed trouble spots, including the Greater Edmonton area, with a serious air pollutant.

The 2007 Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators report says Alberta had many air quality monitoring stations that registered high ozone concentrations in 2005, the latest year for which data was available for this report.

Ground-level ozone can cause human health problems, ranging from coughing to premature death. It also reduces crop growth.

In 2000, Alberta signed on to a Canada-wide standard that aims to keep ozone at a concentration of 65 parts per billion (ppb) or less.

Some parts of Alberta are experiencing days when the ozone concentration hits 58 ppb. Among the worst hit areas are the big cities: Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer.

The provincial government is already well aware of the problem.

A year ago, Alberta Environment sent out 520 letters to industrial plants, municipalities and environmental groups warning them a concerted effort is needed to reduce ozone concentrations and that they have two years to come up with a plan.

The airshed management zones set up in those areas were saddled with the responsibility of cobbling together a way to reduce the emissions - called precursors - that are the building blocks for the formation of ozone. These chemicals, called oxides of nitrogen and volatile organic compounds, come from a wide variety of sources including vehicles and the oil and gas sector. Ground-level ozone is also naturally occurring and it can travel long distances.

It's this diversity of sources that makes ozone control difficult.

"The plan will have to include different approaches depending on which emission source we're dealing with," said Myles Kitagawa, interim president of the newly formed Alberta Capital Airshed Alliance.

The group had its first general meeting this fall and just submitted a request for funding to Alberta Environment last Monday. But Kitagawa said they're optimistic they can still meet the government's deadline.

Calgary's airshed group is in approximately the same situation.

The Red Deer area group, called the Parkland Airshed Management Zone, has been around since 1997 and so is further along in the process.

The group's executive director, Kevin Warren, is confident they will meet the deadline. They still need to develop a strategy for what all the different players in the area can do to reduce ozone formation.

Oil and gas is a large source in their area, but so is all the traffic on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, he said. "It's not going to be just picking on one industry or sector."

Warren said the group is also keen to learn what a consultant has found out about how ozone was reduced in other jurisdictions.

Alberta Environment spokesman Andrew Horton said that information would be shared at a workshop for the airshed management groups in February.

hbrooymans@thejournal.canwest.com

© Edmonton Journal 2007

Grabbing for oil

U.S. thirst powers push for Canada fuel

By Tom Knudson - tknudson@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, December 9, 2007

FORT CHIPEWYAN, Alberta – Like a great silver snake, the Athabasca River glides though a spongy-wet wilderness of spindly forests, lakes and marshes 650 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border.

Breathe deeply, though, and you catch a whiff of fresh, hot tar. In the river, fish are speckled with shiny, wart-like blisters. And in the tiny Indian village of Fort Chipewyan, people are coming down with leukemia, bile duct cancer and other diseases.

Those who aren't physically sick are worried sick. Much of their unease is directed upstream at a moonscape of strip mines, tailings ponds and clouds of dust and gases, including climate-warming carbon dioxide.

What's being clawed from the earth there may surprise you. It's America's next tank of gas.

As reserves of crude oil tighten and gas prices soar, the quest for a backup energy source grows more heated. Already, a biofuels industry based on corn is booming. There are dreams of adding switch grass and wood chips to the mix, perhaps one day running cars on cleaner hydrogen.

In northeast Alberta, though, the race for a stand-in fuel is taking a U-turn, one in which fleets of dinosaur-sized trucks and shovels larger than two-car garages are tearing apart a rich mosaic of woods and wetlands to extract some of the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet – more than two-thirds of which is exported to the United States to be refined into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

All new fuels pose environmental challenges, but Alberta's proxy petroleum is filled with them, from the destruction of migratory waterfowl habitat to rising greenhouse gas emissions and growing concerns about pollution and cancer.

Last month, a new report catalogued industrial contaminants – from arsenic to mercury to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – downstream of the digging zone and concluded that more independent scientific inquiry is urgent.

Jim Law, the spokesman for Alberta's minister of the environment, disputed the report's conclusions, saying, "The development of the oil sands does not proceed at the expense of the environment." But Kevin Timoney, an Alberta ecologist and the report's author, disagreed.

"These compounds are already at levels sufficient to cause harm, (and) levels are increasing in concentration," Timoney said. "There is no logical explanation … other than industry activity."

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