Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

aren't more outraged. AREN"T more outraged, is what I meant.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/rcmp-b...paign-1.188599

The Mounties bombed an oil installation as part of a dirty tricks campaign in their investigation into sabotage in the Alberta's oil patch.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...ling-1.1387795

Ernst says there was so much methane in her tap water as a result of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that she could set fire to the water.
http://phys.org/news/2013-10-documen...-canadian.html

Levels of contaminants higher than in some of the world's most polluted cities have been found downwind of Canada's largest oil, gas and tar sands processing zone, in a rural area where men suffer elevated rates of cancers linked to such chemicals.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/albe...inds-1.1331696


A new study has found heightened levels of cancer-causing chemicals traced to Alberta's oilsands developments in lakes surrounding Fort McMurray (lower right in this Google satellite map image), including Lake Namur, marked by the A. (Google Maps)
The study found that the levels of PAHs in all six lakes had increased anywhere from 2½ times to 23 times background levels in the early 1960s, before the start of oilsands mining in the region


http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fish...erta-1.1362381

A renowned Alberta water scientist is urging the federal government to take action after he discovered deformities in fish in the Athabasca River downriver from oil sands developments bear a striking resemblance to ones found in fish after spills in U.S. waters.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Outrage just isn't Canadian.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Most Albertans don't live anywhere near the developments. ;)

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

The people who do are probably natives anyway.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

yeah i keep forgetting native life is cheap, as far as big energy/Alberta/harper are concerned.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Again with the "all Albertans are in love with the oil & gas industry"! Jeez.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

I thought the oilsands existed long before Harper came to power. Am I wrong?

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

The bitumen has existed since the dinosaurs 'went to sleep forever'. It's been leaching into the Athabasca river for centuries.

The oilsands developments are removing the bitumen from the ground, leaving only nice muskeg and topsoil - it's an environmental cleanup on a huge scale, and it's a wonder Grenpeace haven't given the oil companies a nice shiny medal.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

hit a nerve I guess.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

See, its all perspective. Brilliant stuff. :rofl:

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Guess again. :rofl:

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

sooo, you're all ok with RCMP bombing an installation then trying to pin it on a local farmer, in cahoots with an energy company? I'm seriously asking because that seems like an incredibly corrupt, nasty thing to do for a so-called police force.

"
Their lawyer produced evidence that the RCMP bombed a wellsite and that they did it with the full support of the energy company that owned it. The Crown admits the allegations are true. "


It's okay that fish are deformed?
That there are higher rates of cancer?

They had the woman with the gassy water on the CEEB yesterday. She's an actual scientist as well as a farmer, which is a bummer for the company that is fracking nearby. The kind of intimidation she's had to deal with from the firm involved as well as the Albertan government is pretty crazy. The water was so foul, that even her dogs refused to drink it.

I mean, if they can do that to rural communities, they can do that to you too, in your safe little suburbs.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

oh, not you jings. YOu are are the Teflon Oiler ;)

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Totally fine with it. They can do more of it if they like. Naff them all right up. :thumbup:

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

hahaha, never thought of it that way! good point!

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Police corruption is not a uniquely Albertan phenomenon, in fact I'd say it's the global norm. Therefore it doesn't particularly raise eyebrows anywhere.

Deformed fish & cancer... like I said, the bitumen has been leaching into the river for centuries. It's not new, though I'll concede that the initial developments from the 60s/70s didn't give any care for the environment - but that was also a standard global attitude. I assure you that you cannot take or return as much as one litre of water from a watercourse without the verification and approval of the governmental authorities.

Incidentally, I assume you own things like mobile phones, laptops, iPods... or are only some environmental disasters cool enough to protest about?

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

So, basically it's true. Albertans don't give a shit. Oh well, you get the government you deserve I spose.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

There are deformed fish all over the world. Correlation is not causation.

There are always higher rates of cancer. Finding 'cancer clusters' is trivial. Correlation is not causation.

If someone actually proved that these things were causing cancer and deformed fish, we might be concerned. Until that happens, correlation is still not causation, and knee-jerk 'do something' reactions have caused far more harm than waiting for someone to actually figure out whether there's a problem.

Fracking typically occurs well below the water table, so there's no known mechamism for it to cause this. There are plenty of places with methane in the water already, from purely natural sources.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Ancient.

Because it's bullshit, and most Albertans who know something about fracking know that it's bullshit. Fracking has been around since the 1920s and usually you're going down around a mile which is far below the water table. The new thing is that you can maneuver the wellbore, which makes it more effective. If anything that would take it even further away from the water table.


Key words: "rural area", hardly anyone lives there.

Lakes surrounding Fort Mac - once again, hardly anyone there, which doesn't excuse it but it's an industrial operation. All I can say is try driving from Edmonton to Fort Mac and you will see why no-one is excited by it.

Well I think people are concerned about that one, seen various things in the press about it.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

That happened many years ago, I remember seeing it on a documentary.


I find it hard to believe it is caused by fracking, Alberta has some of the toughest fracking regulation in the world if not the toughest and her argument fails on the basic fact that it makes no sense.

There's plenty of foul water in Alberta, it's a semi-arid environment.

The only way that would happen is through negligence, okay if the company is negligent, have at it but it's not some general thing to be worried about.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

I fixed it for you :)

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

We get the goverment we vote for.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

ahh ExKiwiLass at it again...so much rage!

is this you EKL?

http://mikerowse.com/wp-content/uplo..._bus_fail2.jpg

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Jings doesn't even live in Alberta so I think tis a bit of a stretch to quote him and make the leap to 'Albertans don't give a shit.'

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

OK, so the first happened in 1999, so it is fairly outrageous, but hardly current

Fracking and Rosebud all seems a bit of a tragedy to me and points to higher regulation of fracking and better record keeping. I am not sure whether anything has changed for that. But they frack in BC too!

Horrors happened in the early oilsand years , just as they did in the early nuclear years in UK (and in fact many industries everywhere, I suspect the pulp industry of BC too). They built a tailings pond in the river which is terrible BUT Nowadays regulations are way way tougher and there is so much (effective) work to prevent process affected water going off site, with a lot of monitoring and regulation. Its tragic they did what they did in the 60s, but that's not uniquely Albertan and would be applicable all over BC with tailings.

Air pollution and air pollution getting into water ways is still potentially an issue; but the reality is all development could stop and still those lake levels you mention would be high because of what went on 30-50 years ago and has simply stopped going on now.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

Well, I guess if denial pays the bills, then denial it is.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

Albertans I know complain about water being smelly after fracking but don't do anything about it, it's a it is what it is scenario. If it doesn't affect their daily lives oh well.:thumbdown:

We spoke to our neighbors before getting a water treatment system installed and apparently when they built the house the well water was lovely, then along came the oil companies and did some fracking, we believe they got paid out.

Apparently Alberta has a higher than average digestive (bowel, stomach, intestine etc) system cancer rate

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

that's not good - do you have any links to the study?

yeah, it's the 'it is what it is' thing I don't get. It's just so sad. It was heartbreaking listening to the story of Rosebud - really heartbreaking, those people have lost everything. Without decent water you really have nothing, doesn't matter how much land you have or how pretty it is. She sounds like she has had a really rough time from both teh government and the company - refusing to test her water, refusing to talk to her, stonewalling etc. etc.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

FWIW, I wish none of the environmental degradation studies were true. I wish we could oil & gas ourselves up the wazoo and it not matter one iota to the planet. It would be waaaay easier for all of us, let's face it.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

One web article said that Canada has no environmental water standards...is that true ?

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

https://www.ec.gc.ca/eau-water/defau...n&n=F77856A7-1

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ewh-semt/wate.../index-eng.php

I think it's true. According to these we have "guidelines" which are not the same as standards. Are they? Guidelines seem a bit softer than standards. Am I making sense, it's been a long day and my kid is doing the highland reel right by my ear

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

Trying to make sense of the Rosebud situation. Based on the above, there don't seem to be any restrictions or consequences imposed if the water breaches the guideline. Nevertheless, it's hard to believe that Environment Canada would be so relaxed about health issues. There must be some teeth in some legislation somewhere?

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

I think Fracking was allowed to go wild and there didn't seem to be much regulation.

I don't know about regulation of fracking now.

I do know that Alberta Environment regulate in the Oilsands and its part of the permissions with annual monitoring etc. There are very large controls on process affected water migrating off site via surface water or via groundwater but I do think air pollution has potential to pollute water courses, this has been proven through studies of snow.

I read a book called 'Stupid to the last drop'. Its a worthwhile read , it had a lot on the Rosebud situation, which as I said earlier is tragic.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

Quite. Any electronic gizmo that any of us owns probably contains material that was produced under rather unpleasant circumstances. Things like slavery, child-rape and wholesale massacre are trivial compared to the odd deformed fish or water that smells a bit.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

Thanks. Just listened to the author on YT video.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans are more outraged by this
 

the problem is that we rely on this planet to live. if we screw up the food chain that's not very smart. or the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...tion-1.1152629

Basically groundwater contamination around fracking is largely paranoia, the well is way, way deeper than the water table.

Yes, if you screw it up then you can have problems, just as you can with any industrial operation, but it is regulated and Alberta's regulations are apparently among the strictest.

Knock yourself out: http://albertacanada.com/business/in...gulations.aspx

http://aer.ca/rules-and-regulations/acts-and-rules

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

The CBC article you cite doesn't support your assertion on paranoia.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

Well yes it does because they say they're "worried" but then they quote the ERCB explaining why they shouldn't be.

Well it's been around for a very long time.

Re: Don't understand why Albertans aren't more outraged by this
 

In this particular case, the ERCB is suggesting that the fracking will not cause problems, but it's fairly clear from the rest of article, the poll, and history that fracking can and does cause contamination. In which case you can hardly assert that people are being "paranoid" in having concerns.