Winter activities like ice fishing are becoming a thing of the past, due to climate change driven by tar sands and other fossil fuels. (Photo: Tom Gill)

But my arrival in Portland, Maine gave me hope. Organizers from across the region had called on citizens to stand up and demand that a likely proposal by oil giants Enbridge and Exxon to use an existing 62 year-old pipeline to bring carbon intensive, dirty tar sands through a pipeline that runs through Canada, and into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine for export be stopped. Tar sands are a thick, tarry substance mined in Alberta, the most extreme of “extreme oil.”  Mining them requires the vast destruction of pristine boreal forest habitat — the mines and their toxic waste ponds can be seen from space. However, this destruction is not the worst news about tar sands.  It is the climate impacts of tar sands that is so alarming. Tar sands are far more carbon intensive than conventional oil, and the tar sands region contains two times the amount of carbon that has already been emitted by human fossil fuel use, which is why leading climatologists  have warned that tar sands development would hurtle us past any hope for climate stability.

US Congresswoman Chellie Pingree addresses the crowd in Portland

Three days later, concerned citizens and groups in Vermont demanded that the same pipeline proposal be subjected to Vermont law that would give Vermonters the ability to reject this pipeline project.

Tar sands are part of a bigger picture, one that demands action to stem the tide of dirty fuels that are destroying our climate. No one under the age of 28 has lived to see a month where temperatures have been below the 20^th century average.  If we fail to act, crisp winter mornings may soon be a thing of the past in northern New England.  We can do better than that.  And the people of New England are demanding that now is the time to say no to dirty energy and yes to a clean energy future.

Help protect Northeast wildlife and communities from tar sands oil by urging the U.S. State Department to stop the Exxon/Enbridge pipeline!

In 2008, when they thought no one was watching, oil companies Enbridge and the Portland Montreal Pipeline Company hatched a plan to reverse the flow of two existing pipelines to send dirty tar sands crude through Ontario, Quebec, and into Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine for refining along the East Coast and Gulf Coast and export abroad. The plan would have exposed American treasures to the risks of a tar sands oil spill. These include Sebago Lake, which supplies Portland, Maine with its drinking water; the Connecticut River, New England’s largest; the Misissiquoi River, historically valuable to tribes and tributary of Lake Champlain; and other critical resources. It also would have provided another fuse to set off the tar sands carbon bomb by giving this land-locked resource access to markets abroad and in the U.S.

To learn more about the threat of tar sands to New England, see this fact sheet.

In 2009 the plan was shelved due to the poor economy. Now it’s back. And Big Oil won’t tell you about it.

That’s because Canada’s dirty secret has gotten out. Tar sands are an environmental disaster. As James Hansen put it, tar sands are a climate bomb that would add 120 parts per million of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, enough to catapult us past a host of dangerous climate tipping points. Tar sands development is also turning North America’s bird nursery into a toxic waste zone, leading to the decline of caribou in Alberta, and responsible for a tragic and misguided plan to kill thousands of wolves to “protect” caribou instead of forcing Big Oil to stop destroying caribou habitat.

And then there is the risk of spills. When Line 6B ruptured in Michigan in July of 2010, 1.2 million gallons of oil–enough oil to cover over three acres of land with a foot of oil–spilled into the Kalamazoo River. The cost of clean-up has been 18 times per liter as that of already expensive conventional oil spills, while sticky tar sands still coats portions of the river’s bottom and the spill has left many residents sick.

Now that they are being watched, Big Oil wants to hide the ball. But their plans to bring tar sands to New England are becoming increasingly clear.

First, in summer of 2011, Enbridge announced plans to partially reverse the flow of Line 9, the first of the two pipelines in the original “Trailbreaker” proposal. Last week, before Canadian hearings on the partial reversal have even occurred, Enbridge announced a plan to fully reverse the flow of the Line 9 pipeline all the way to Montreal. And Enbridge finally conceded that diluted bitumen (the especially corrosive form of tar sands) was slated to be transported through Line 9. Assuming Canadian officials increasingly beholden to Big Oil will rubberstamp these plans, Enbridge is now one step away–reserving the flow of the Portland-Montreal pipeline–from bringing tar sands to New England.

New England can’t afford to have Big Oil’s attempt to sneak tar sands through the region succeed. In July, New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Provincial Premiers are meeting in Burlington, Vermont. Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin is hosting. Governor Shumlin has been a true leader on energy issues and climate. He also understands that the Connecticut River cannot become the next Kalamazoo.

In a recent meeting preparing for the July event, Governor Shumlin said,

“I don’t think that we’ve dug deep enough in terms of really having a plan that’s going to enrich us all and make New England and the Northeast provinces the place where we get energy right. We have that opportunity; the planning for that opportunity is in your hands.”

The meeting will focus on a climate change plan endorsed by the Governors and Premiers to reduce greenhouse gases by 10 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

Getting energy right, protecting New England from an environmental calamity like the Kalamazoo spill, and reducing carbon pollution means keeping New England tar sands free and denying tar sands’ companies the market access they crave. At the July meeting, the Governors and Premiers need to discuss the threat of tar sands to New England and set a goal of keeping New England tar sands free.

Governor Shumlin is right, New England has an opportunity to get energy policy right, and that opportunity is in our hands. Big Oil wants to snake tar sands into the Northeast. They are hoping we won’t notice. We can’t afford to let that happen.

Click here to help protect Northeastern wildlife from dirty tar sands oil.