The advocacy group SumOfUsis running a campaign to pull the misleading ad off the airwaves,alleging that Enbridge is “deliberately and dramatically misrepresenting the risk of oil supertankers travelling through the 4th most dangerous waterway in the world.”

Enbridge was already having a bit of a rough week, as CEO Patrick Daniel went on the radio to complain that pipeline opponents are “revolutionaries” bent on exploiting the “weak link in the system” (pipelines) to move the country toward renewable fuels.

Though not as well-known in the United States, Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project is the Canadian equivalent of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and has been attacked by First Nations indigenous groups, conservationists and millions of citizens angry at the oil industry’s heavy-handed approach and pattern of environmental destruction. The project would send tar sands oil to Asia and help expand the reach and influence of Alberta’s tar sands industry, but the province of British Columbia has resisted it so far, with Premier Christy Clark publicly slamming Enbridge for its failures.

An NWF report released earlier this summer details the company’s record of disaster — more than 800 spills over the last 13 years, including a million gallon tar sands spill in Michigan in 2010 and a 50,000 gallon spill in Wisconsin just last month. “Enbridge’s long history of pipeline spills can’t be explained by mistakes or bad luck,” says NWF senior vice president Jeremy Symons. “You can’t make the same mistake eight hundred times, but that’s how many oil spills we have seen from Enbridge pipelines. Contaminated water may be an acceptable cost of doing business to Enbridge, but we can’t afford to turn a blind eye to their irresponsible safety record.”

Tell your member of Congress to stand up for people and wildlife against dangerous tar sands projects!

Read NWF’s report Importing Disaster: The Anatomy of Enbridge’s Once and Future Oil Spills

A Great Blue Heron coated in tar sands oil in Enbridge's Kalamazoo River spill (photo: Michigan Department of Environmental Quality)

Alberta’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development said the recent spills are not necessarily cause for alarm, noting they happened in different parts of the province.

The pipeline agency chimed in, saying it’s “confident its regulations are protective of public safety.” Nothing to see here, folks, just another friendly neighborhood Hazmat team trying to clean up toxic material in your rivers and farms!

Enbridge is doing its best to keep these accidents out of the spotlight:

[Enbridge] said as soon as it detected the leak, it notified civic authorities and other regulatory agencies. But Steve Upham, reeve [sheriff] of the County of St. Paul, where the pumping station is located, said as of Tuesday night he hadn’t received any notification. Upham said he was aware of the spill only through media reports.

“I don’t think anybody in the county, at this point, has been notified,” he said. Asked if he should have been contacted by Enbridge, Upham said: “I would have thought so. Or Alberta Environment, because they would be notified, I think. We’ve heard nothing from anybody.”

Industry Profits Despite System-Wide Failures

Sean Kheraj, an assistant professor at York University in Toronto, calculates that the oil and gas industry spilled over 7.3 million gallons in Alberta alone between 2006-2010. Since then, several major incidents have upped that number significantly, including a 1.1 million-gallon spill near Little Buffalo and two ruptures earlier this summer that totaled at least a quarter million gallons. In fact, a spokesman for Alberta’s energy regulator admits that the province’s pipelines averaged two failures per day in 2010.

But Enbridge has done well financially despite its inability to keep oil out of our environment; the company reported a 31% rise in revenue earlier this year. And it seeks an even bigger expansion in the near future, with plans to stretch its tar sands pipeline system to both coasts and covert intentions to send the corrosive sludge through New England. A tar sands spill in Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine could spell catastrophe for the northeast’s drinking water and wildlife habitat, and the threat has led groups like NWF to organize citizens against these proposals.

Meanwhile, other tar sands backers like TransCanada and the Koch brothers are leaning on their friends in Congress to speed up the pace of pipeline construction in the United States. More pipelines means more spills and more destruction of the Canadian boreal forest, but with hundreds of billions—even trillions—of dollars at stake, it’s no wonder that Big Oil is pushing these projects even in the face of system-wide trouble.

We need your help to protect wildlife at risk from oil spills and habitat loss in Alberta and across the continent! Speak up now to stop the spread of dangerous tar sands oil.

Oil coats a fish killed by a recent pipeline rupture in northwest Alberta (photo: Mike Hudema)

The province issued an emergency alert for Mountain View and Red Deer counties, warning people not to touch, drink, swim or boat on the waterways affected by the spill.

“I was going to go fishing but [Alberta Environment officials] said, ‘no, you’re not allowed, “‘ Andrew Van Oosten, who huddled with his friends underneath a tarp at his campsite near the Gleniffer Reservoir, told CBC News. “You are not allowed to go near the water because it [oil] is washing up on shore.”

Is It An “Accident” When It Keeps Happening?

Nobody thinks the oil industry is going out of its way to sabotage their own pipelines, or is sitting around in back rooms scheming up ways to spill crude oil all over wildlife and fragile ecosystems. But there’s a point when accidents start getting so routine that they stop being “accidents” and become something else entirely. And in the two years since the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe put oil spills onto the front page and turned the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic dump, Big Oil has been responsible for hundreds more “accidents” and millions of gallons of spills.

Think about that for a second. MILLIONS of gallons of crude oil that has no reason to be outside of a pipeline, but there it is, turning up in our drinking water, on our shorelines, polluting crops and fish and wildlife. The residents of Alberta have something in common with folks in Michigan along the Kalamazoo River. They share it with shrimpers on the Gulf coast, and with Denver residents, and North Dakotans, and with people around the globe who have to live with the consequences of Big Oil’s screwups. It’s not a fraternity I’m eager to join.

We deserve better. We deserve a system where a major oil spill is actually a surprise, and not just another day at the office. But our reality is this: half of the US government is tripping over itself to help the oil industry build pipeline after dangerous pipeline—in the Midwest, in New England, in the Gulf region…everywhere there’s a buck to be made or a political point to score.

But you can make a difference! Add your voice to the hundreds of thousands of Americans speaking up for wildlife and clean energy. Say NO to Keystone XL and other polluting projects, and maybe the community you protect will be your own.

Speak up for wolves and other animals threatened by Big Oil’s dirty plans. Take action now!

CALGARY – A huge pipeline spill has released 22,000 barrels of oil and water into muskeg in the far northwest of Alberta.

The spill ranks among the largest in North America in recent years, a period that has seen a series of high-profile accidents that have undermined the energy industry’s safety record. The Enbridge Inc. pipeline rupture that leaked oil near Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, for example, spilled an estimated 19,500 barrels.

Disaster response crews are working round the clock to contain the damage, but the oil has already covered more than 25 acres of muskeg — or peat bogs — near Rainbow Lake. 22,000 barrels contains almost a million gallons, threatening a wild ecosystem that is already under pressure from the industry..

Similar to the shoddy oversight that magnified the damage caused by Enbridge’s Kalamazoo spill, this one went unnoticed by the company (Pace Oil & Gas Ltd.) for hours. It was only thanks to random luck that a different company spotted the rupture during a plane flight over the area, and alerted Pace Ltd..

The Canadian government has been poisoning gray wolves to make room for oil and gas development (photo: flickr/Sakarri)

Big Oil and Wildlife Don’t Mix

Industrial development in Alberta has already caused the destruction of much of the boreal forest, leading to a rapid decline in woodland caribou populations and a mind-bogglingly irresponsible campaign to poison and shoot hundreds of gray wolves. Meanwhile, the government has done everything in its power to encourage this reckless approach — becoming the world’s biggest cheerleader for tar sands oil and giving Canada’s green reputation two black eyes.

As Alberta’s oil industry tries to muscle its way through the United States with dangerous projects like Keystone XL and the Trailbreaker pipeline in New England, it’s worth asking “do they actually know what they’re doing?” From all the evidence (including at least 12 spills from the original “Keystone 1″ pipeline) it’s becoming clear that accidents happen with alarming frequency. But hey, when you stand to make more than a trillion dollars from shipping your product overseas, what does it matter if you leak a few thousand barrels here or there?

Wildlife and much more is on the line in this fight, and you can help.  Tell Congress to stand up for wildlife, and say NO to Keystone XL and tar sands.

The cause of death? The animals had unknowingly ingested poisoned bait that was lost in a snow pile. This poison is being used to intentionally kill wolves in Canada.

Gray Wolf Pack.

Sadly, our addiction to oil here in the United States makes us complicit in this tragedy. Oil and gas development in Alberta has transformed portions of a once lush landscape into an industrial wasteland. The resulting habitat loss is pushing several woodland caribou herds to the brink of extinction.To mitigate the caribou loss, wildlife officials have been slaughtering the wolves that prey on caribou, instead of protecting caribou habitat. They’ve poisoned hundreds of innocent wolves with deadly strychnine-laced bait and have fatally shot others from helicopters!

War on Wildlife

Dogs, wolves, raptors, cougars, and the eagles that feed on the poisoned carcasses are the victims of this war on wildlife. What’s worse, to accommodate the further development of Alberta’s tar sands, Canadian officials plan to expand their poisoning and aerial shooting program.

Today, big oil companies are determined to build more pipelines in the United States so they can expand their dirty and lethal oil mining operations. Keystone XL, the largest proposed pipeline, would be disastrous if approved. It would carry dirty and dangerous tar sands oil across our nation’s heartland, would further destroy caribou habitat in Alberta, and would put wildlife along the pipeline route in serious jeopardy.

Your support today will help National Wildlife Federation continue to fight tar sands development, advocate for safer pipeline practices, mobilize our passionate supporters, and stop dangerous threats like Keystone XL once and for all.

Donate today to stand strong against Keystone XL, and other threats facing America’s treasured wildlife.

Basically untouched until recent decades, the boreal forest’s great natural riches may also turn out to be its undoing: massive amounts of oil have been found in deposits known as “tar sands,” and the energy industry has kicked off a full-scale war on Mother Nature in their rush to boost their profits. Aided by a government that seems determined to wreck the country’s eco-friendly reputation, Big Oil is transforming huge parts of Alberta, Canada into something out of a nightmare, destroying vital wildlife habitat and putting whole populations at risk.

Read on to learn more about nine remarkable species that are directly threatened by tar sands development, then send a message to the President to help protect them.

Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou)

Woodland caribou are being pushed out by oil development in their habitat (photo: British Columbia Forest Service)

The Canadian federal and provincial governments seem happy to turn a blind eye to the problem, and a stakeholder group that should be leading the charge to protect this iconic species — the Endangered Species Conservation Committee — is stocked with representatives from the energy industry, agriculture and timber companies, who watered down the caribou recovery plan to a toothless piece of paper. And even then, Environment Minister Peter Kent ignored a court order and refused to issue emergency protections for at-risk herds. Scientists fear that industrial development could cause Canada’s woodland caribou to vanish by the end of the century.

Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)

Our understanding of gray wolves has come a long way since the days of Little Red Riding Hood. They are impressively smart, social animals that spend as much time playing as hunting, and live together in close-knit packs of 4 to 7 animals.

Gray wolves are a keystone species in the northern ecosystem (photo: flickr/YankeeNovember3)

But in the eyes of the Canadian government this makes them a threat, and an easy scapegoat for the recent rapid declines of the caribou herds. So the government has embarked upon a plan to “cull” wolf populations using poison-laced bait and aerial hunts from helicopters. The poison, strychnine, is known for an excruciating death that progresses painfully from muscle spasms to convulsions to suffocation, over a period of hours. As if that weren’t awful enough, other animals like eagles and even domesticated dogs have been unintended casualties of the baiting campaign.

Black Bears (Ursus americanus)

Black bears like this cub like to eat the garbage from dumps around tar sands mines, much to their misfortune. (photo: Noah Katz)

It shouldn’t come as a surprise by now that tar sands development has directly encroached on bear habitat, leading to more interactions between humans and this species. Unfortunately, the government’s approach has been similar to their wolf plan: shoot ‘em and keep digging for oil.

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development says 145 black bears were killed by Fish and Wildlife conservation officers last year after being habituated to garbage in the oilsands region. The number of bears shot in the Fort McMurray district was nearly three times the count the previous year and the highest in recent history, said spokesman Darcy Whiteside. Nearly half — 68 bears — were shot in oilsands camps and facilities after being attracted to the camp by food, garbage or other attractants, Whiteside said Tuesday.

Canada Lynx (Lynx canadensis)

Canada Lynx near Whitehorse, Yukon (photo: Keith Williams)

Unlike bears, lynx shy away from contact with humans. Development in the eastern part of Canada has already forced out the big cats, and pressure from tar sands exploitation in Alberta is causing concerns there as well. And there’s a critical connection between gray wolves and lynx: wolves kill coyotes, which directly compete with lynx for snowshoe hare and other prey. So fewer wolves means more coyotes, which means fewer lynx. For a population that’s already threatened, that’s bad news. On the other hand, protecting wolves means lynx may rebound as well.

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis)

Sandhill cranes face a double-whammy in Alberta and Nebraska (photo: flickr.com/nigel)

The big birds migrate thousands of miles each year from their breeding grounds in western Canada to as far south as Mexico, fattening up for a month in Nebraska’s Platte River valley. But this exposes them to a double-whammy from tar sands, with Alberta’s energy development destroying prime nesting habitat, and the danger of a spill in the Nebraska Sandhills region (from which they take their name) that could take away a crucial feeding ground. As it happens, their migratory pathway overlaps the route of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline almost mile-for-mile, meaning that a spill at any point will put this iconic species in harm’s way.

Walleye (Sander vitreus)

An angler in Ontario holds her latest catch (photo: flickr.com/Rowdy Rider)

But walleye and several other native species of fish might soon become a scarce commodity if Big Oil gets its way. Residents of Fort Chipeweyan, Alberta (most of whose residents are First Nations members) have reported a pretty scary development in the last few years: lots and lots of deformed fish downstream of the tar sands developments. In 2010, commercial fishing ground to a halt due to concerns about heavy metals like mercury and cadmium…as if anyone would want to eat a filet with a golf-ball sized tumor. The Canadian government, not surprisingly, contests these claims, but independent data shows that contamination has reached 30 times the federally-accepted levels.

In addition to all that, tar sands extraction requires a lot of water — up to three barrels of water for every barrel of oil — and this has disrupted the normal cycles of of the Athabasca river and surrounding watersheds.

Moose (Alces alces)

It's hard to play hide-and-seek when you weigh more than a ton (photo: flicker/Benjamin 1970)

This species has been a major part of native culture and their diet for millennia, but with numbers near Fort McKay, Alberta declining 60% in recent years, First Nations elders now have to travel up to 200 kilometers to find moose during their traditional hunt. Moose meat has also tested high in arsenic and carcinogens created by tar sands mining, endangering the health of the region’s indigenous communities.

Like woodland caribou, moose are prey for gray wolves, and toxins in moose meat spells trouble for their predators.

Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis)

Scaup, also known as "bluebills," call the Athabasca River delta home (photo: Carol Foil)

Scaup (pronounced “skawp”) are a favorite of hunters but, like so many other creatures, tar sands operations are taking a toll. In addition to direct habitat loss, Big Oil has created a particularly gruesome way for these birds to die. One of the dirtiest parts of oil mining is so-called “tailings ponds,” gigantic open pits where the industry dumps its liquid waste. There are lots of these contaminated tailings ponds in the delta region, filled with toxic chemicals and oil, but which appear to flying birds like just another good spot to land. And when they do, it’s not hard to imagine what happens: slow, painful death. The industry’s solutions have ranged from the simple (and ineffective), like scarecrows, to the absurd — supersonic “cannons” that boom loud enough to disturb animals for miles around, and scare off any birds from landing in the sludge.

You and Me (Homo sapiens)

Climate change threatens our oceans, shorelines, and every other ecosystem on earth (photo: Barry Keleher)

And perhaps the biggest threat of all is the danger posed by global warming, which has already reached a tipping point and could be pushed over the edge by burning Canada’s tar sands oil. Rising sea levels, extreme droughts, flooding — it might sound like the Apocalypse but in fact it’s already happening.

Speak up now! Tell President Obama to stand up for wildlife in the tar sands region, and stand strong against Big Oil’s plans to destroy the boreal forest.

National Wildlife Federation is helping to lead the charge against tar sands and Big Oil’s dirty projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, which would help trigger even more development in the boreal forest. We need your help to make sure that this pristine ecosystem and its magnificent animals don’t vanish forever.

To donate directly to our tar sands campaign, please go to NWF’s “Choose Your Cause” website, or visit NWF.org/tarsands to learn more and find out how you can make a difference.

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development says 145 black bears were killed by Fish and Wildlife conservation officers last year after being habituated to garbage in the oilsands region. The number of bears shot in the Fort McMurray district was nearly three times the count the previous year and the highest in recent history, said spokesman Darcy Whiteside. Nearly half — 68 bears — were shot in oilsands camps and facilities after being attracted to the camp by food, garbage or other attractants, Whiteside said Tuesday.

Black Bear cub (photo: Noah Katz)

Fort McMurray, like other company towns that have sprung up over the last few decades, sits in the middle of Canada’s boreal forest, one of the last great intact ecosystems in the world. But unchecked industrial development is leaving scars upon the earth that are visible from space (seriously – take a look at satellite pictures on Google Maps and prepare to be blown away) and destroying habitat that supports caribou, millions of migratory birds, and other species like lynx, gray wolves and bears.

Is Wildlife an Afterthought?

According to NWF scientist Dr. Doug Inkley, the provincial government’s actions are deplorable:

Their approach seems to be, if it becomes a problem, kill it — rather than prevent the problem in the first place. Humans are destroying bear habitat and not disposing of garbage properly. So, we kill the bears.

Whiteside, the spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resources Development, stressed that bears aren’t endangered and the shootings have had “no impact on the black bear population as a whole.” But Dr. Inkley sees it another way. “This is death by a thousand cuts,” he says, his voice edged with anger. “It may seem like there are plenty of black bears now, but look what’s happening: the tar sands area that could be developed is the size of Florida, and this is going to be repeated over and over and over if we keep encroaching on their habitat.”

Making the Right Choice for Bears

David Mizejewski, a naturalist with National Wildlife Federation, says it comes down to common sense.

We make the choice about whether these bears are a problem or not.  We’ve chosen to destroy their habitat and turn it into a garbage dump.  We can make smarter choices and avoid conflicts with bears.

It may sound simplistic, but that’s what has happened in Alberta. Black bears aren’t naturally inclined to linger in places where people are, but if they learn that food is accessible they lose their fear quickly. Without proper waste management, bears and other animals become urban scavengers, attracted to the easy pickings from uncovered dumpsters. NWF’s Mizejewski points out that solutions like bear-proof trash cans can help lessen the problem, but the only long-term answer is to put the lid on tar sands development and prevent outright destruction of their habitat.

These animals don’t have to die. They’re being slaughtered in part due to America’s addiction to dirty oil.

Black bears and other wildlife are becoming casualties of the oil industry's take-no-prisoners approach (Photo: Glenn Alexon)

We need your help to protect wildlife! Get involved and help us stop this from happening. Take action to protect black bears and other wildlife caught in the line of fire.

You can also help fight tar sands by making a donation. Visit NWF’s “Choose Your Cause” page to see how your support can safeguard black bears and other wildlife in jeopardy.

Email President Obama and tell him to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline >>

Keystone XL Pipeline Myths vs. Facts

So what do you need to know about the biggest threat to our energy future? Let’s bust the biggest myths about KXL one at a time, then find out how you can help stop the pipeline.

TransCanada executive. You can't see it from this angle, but his pants are, in fact, on fire. (Photo: flickr/Onion)

MYTH #1: “Keystone XL project will create 20,000 jobs–7,500 of which will be in Nebraska”

Unrefined tar sands (Photo: Flickr/Lou Gold)

FACT: The US State Department (the agency responsible for vetting the project) has conducted a sham review. Their activities have been tainted by a conflict of interest in favor of the project and they have failed to assess pipeline safety issues with any rigor, inadequately consulted numerous Tribal nations, and neglected to protect Americans from eminent domain threats made by TransCanada. This includes preferential treatment for TransCanada’s chief lobbyist (a former aide to State Department Secretary Clinton), as well as outsourcing much of the review process to a company who counts TransCanada as a major client.

MYTH #5: Keystone XL will reduce our energy prices.

FACT: The original Keystone pipeline has been plagued by problems since its opening in 2009 – at least 12 reported spills, including one of 21,000 gallons this spring. Keystone XL would be the first tar sands pipeline routed through the environmentally sensitive Sandhills and directly through the heart of the Ogallala aquifer.

MYTH #9: “Legislation already exists to protect Nebraskans; LB 629 was signed into law last session that holds TransCanada financially responsible for any damage due to the pipeline.”

Email President Obama and tell him to stop the proposed Keystone XL pipeline >>

Will you be in the DC area on Nov. 6? Join us at a rally at the White House to deliver the message to President Obama in person >>

These claims are only the latest in a long-running battle between TransCanada and Reality. For the full scoop on Keystone XL, and what it really means for Nebraska and the United States, visit www.nwf.org/KeystoneXL.

Aerial shot of Alberta tar sands taken during NWF flyover (Photo Credit: Jeremy Symons/NWF)

It’s an old story: oil companies increase gas prices and their profits soar. But rarely do we get an inside view of how they manipulate markets to drive up prices, and even rarer still an opportunity to stop it from happening.

This time, Big Oil has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar as they scheme to hike America’s oil bill by $4 billion every year.

This time, we have the industry documents that prove it.

As featured in the Washington Post today, there is growing opposition to the Keystone pipeline that would carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the coastal refineries of Texas.

National Wildlife Federation has recently exposed industry documents that prove that the massive oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas coast is little more than a shell game designed to reduce Canadian oil supplies in America’s Midwest and increase prices by as much as 15 cents a gallon.

Brant Olson of Rainforest Action Network first uncovered the documents (check out Brant’s work shining a light on the banks financing tar sands development here).

TransCanada, the company building the pipeline, laid out the scheme in an analysis (PDF) they presented to the Canadian government designed to highlight the benefits of the pipeline to Canadian oil producers. Ever since TransCanada shifted their attention to the U.S. permitting process, TransCanada and their Washington lobbyists have buried the analysis and been singing a different tune to the Obama administration and Congress.

Here’s how the pipeline scheme would really work:

Step 1: Divert Canadian Oil from the Midwest to Texas — TransCanada is trying to overcome what they call an “oversupply” of Canadian oil to America’s Midwest, which is currently the destination of most Canadian tar sands oil. This leads to cheaper oil prices (the oil companies call it a price “discount”), and Canada’s oil producers don’t like it. They are working with Valero and other oil companies to build the Keystone XL pipeline as a bypass around the Midwest, diverting as much as 500,000 barrels of Canadian oil daily to the port refineries in Texas. Nobody can say where it will go from there. America is increasingly becoming the “middle man” in the global oil trade – we import vast amounts of crude oil, refine it, and increasingly export refined oil products like gasoline and diesel to foreign destinations including Mexico, South America, Europe, and China. 72% of these exports originate in Texas and Gulf Coast refineries, where exports have doubled in the past 5 years.

Step 2: Increase Oil Prices to the Midwest — As Canadian oil imports are shifted from the Midwest to Texas, oil supplies to Midwest refiners will decline. According to TransCanada’s analysis: “Midwest demand for Canadian heavy crude would exceed the available supply and the market price …would be approximately $6.55 per barrel above the 2008 price.” $6.55 per barrel is roughly equal to 15 cents per gallon.

The total drain on America’s economy and pocket books could total $3.9 billion annually. Here’s what TransCanada wrote to Canada’s National Energy Board:

“The resultant increase in the price of heavy crude is estimated to provide an increase in annual revenue to the Canadian producing industry in 2013 of US $2 billion to US $3.9 billion.”

The states on the shortest end of the Keystone dipstick are: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. These are the states in the “PADD II” oil district highlighted in TransCanada’s analysis. These states already pay some of the highest prices in the nation for gasoline. On any given day, people in Chicago are likely to pay 30 cents per gallon more at the pump than people in Houston.

A false pretense

So here’s the bottom line if the Keystone XL pipeline is built: Canadian oil producers get a huge profit windfall, and America gets higher gas prices as well as the pollution from refineries and any pipeline spills.

Conveniently overlooking their own analysis, TransCanada is marketing the pipeline under the pretense that it would significantly reduce America’s dependence on oil from other nations. But there is already more than enough pipeline capacity between Canada and the Midwest to handle whatever oil Canada might produce, even allowing for significant increases in oil production. The U.S. Department of Energy commented on the pipeline that:

“available pipeline capacity for the delivery of crude oil from Alberta to the U.S. exceeds available production now and will continue to do so for some years.”

Simply changing the route of oil we are already getting doesn’t reduce our oil independence, and moving oil from the Midwest to a leading export center isn’t going to keep more oil in America.

What we will get, however, is a dangerous 1,700 pipeline from an industry with a bleak safety track record. In the Great Plains, opposition to the pipeline route has been increasing. TransCanada hasn’t made many friends by intimidating landowners with letters threatening to take their land. Nebraska Republican Senator Mike Johanns and others have raised doubts about the pipeline route, questioning what happens to the vital Ogallala Aquifer and other water resources in the event of a spill such as the one that dumped 800,000 gallons last year into the Kalamazoo River system.

Photo credit: Pembina Institute

The Alberta oil industry is also receiving increased global scrutiny over the reckless environmental destruction resulting from the sands production process. Squeezing oil out of sands requires vast amounts of energy, land and clean water: it takes four tons of sand strip-mined from what once was a vibrant forest wilderness, and at least 3 barrels of clean water to make one barrel of oil. The process leaves behind toxic lakes that will kill any birds that land on them, suffering a fate as bad as any suffered by the wildlife in the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizons disaster. The scale of the devastation in Alberta defies the imagination, and you can get a birds-eye view from a recent visit I made with NWF Board Director Gloria Reuben and others by clicking here.

In addition to the impacts on the forests and waters of Canada, tar sands oil are one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet, with dramatically higher carbon dioxide emissions from tar sands production compared to conventional oil. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the pipeline project and warned that increased greenhouse gases from the tar sands oil production, compared to conventional oil sources, would be equivalent to building 7 coal-fired power plants. Last year, more than 50 members of Congress raised concerns that increasing our dependence on tar sands oil takes America in the “wrong direction” and away from a clean energy economy.

Alberta has been fighting back, going as far as running an ad in U.S. papers with the headline urging Americans to embrace the pipeline like “a cup of sugar” from your neighbor.

Of course, after picking our pockets for billions of dollars, why not share a little sugar?

The President’s decision

The final decision on this pipeline rests with President Obama. A Presidential Permit is needed for TransCanada to begin construction. About 100,000 people have already asked President Obama to deny the pipeline permit. The decision has so far been left to the State Department, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton created a stir when she indicated in October she may support the pipeline, saying:

“We’re either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada.”

As the stakes get higher and higher for our economy and environment, National Wildlife Federation and others are asking the White House to step in and oversee this decision. Sen. Johanns tells the Washington Post:

“When I think of the State Department I think of many things they do well. But I would tell you, siting pipelines is not anything I would think of when I think of State Department expertise.”

The president should take this opportunity to protect Americans from Big Oil’s price gauging and step up for clean energy.

Speak up now

Urge President Obama and the U.S. State Department to keep dangerous tar sands oil pipelines out of of America’s Heartland.

Learn more

Read National Wildlife Federation’s report on the Keystone XL pipeline: “Staying Hooked on a Dirty Fuel: Why Canadian Tar Sands are a Bad Bet for the United States.”

Oiled tar sands duck from blogspot.com

Quick to pinpoint the cause of this tragic event, we hear that meteorological conditions may be to blame. Freezing rain and stormy conditions forced the birds to look for refuge. And sadly, but not surprising, the company’s techniques for shooing away the birds—propane cannons and little stick figures dressed in yellow rain slickers—didn’t seem to do the trick.

No Place to Land

Yes, storm conditions cause wildlife to seek shelter and refuge. But north of Fort McMurray, there is no safe refuge, where the mine operations of the world’s oil giants span an area the size of metro Chicago that lies precisely in the migratory path of dozens of North America’s beloved shore and song birds—warblers, ducks, cranes. Millions could die.

When migrating birds are tired from their long journey, what they find in Fort McMurray are toxic sludge ponds the size of lakes. From the sky they look like just the right place to land. Little do they know what greets them when they land.

Will Syncrude Release Images?

Given that the incident occurred on the massive operations leased by Syncrude, the likelihood of getting images of oiled birds is remote. And while we know images are often what propel demands for change, in this case, we only need to pull from the photo archives of previous bird deaths in the tar sands mines to be reminded of what it looks like. The same company was recently prosecuted and fined C$3 million for negligence that lead to the deaths of 1,600 birds.

Secretary Clinton said last week that we either need to rely on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada to fuel our cars and trucks–dirty oil that contaminates our fisheries, dirty oil that ruins local economies, dirty oil that poisons, drowns, or suffocates thousands of birds.

Oil killed the birds in tar sands country. Not freezing rain.

Speak Up for the Birds!

Speak up for the wildlife that has died and the wildlife that could die because of this destructive and unnecessary process. Email President Obama and the U.S. State Department and urge them to stop plans for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.