Imperial and Suncor are among the largest developers of Canadian tar sands oil. This convoluted corporate maze of oil behemoths is in bed with Enbridge, the company behind the Kalamazoo River oil spill, the most costly onshore spill in U.S. history. Now, it apparently wants to pump tar sands oil from Alberta through Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine to the port of Portland for overseas markets. Tar sands oil is a heavy, corrosive, diluted bitumen and is known as one of the dirtiest, most-polluting, hardest-to-clean-up fuels on the planet. The tar sands business is booming in Canada and the corporate hawks are positioning to pounce on the profits they see in this dirty product by using New England communities as conduits to export markets.

It’s no wonder ExxonMobil doesn’t want to come clean. The company’s not clean. It was ExxonMobil that caused the infamous 1989 Valdez spill, a disaster that spewed 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s pristine waters. In July 2011, the company’s Silvertip Pipeline dumped 42,000 gallons of oil into Montana’s Yellowstone River.

840,000 of tar sands crude spilled into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River last year

A map showing how oil companies are planning to move tar sands through New England for export.

While the approval only covers light crude, it is believed Enbridge could easily obtain future permission to move tar sands east.

“Canada is desperate for avenues to move tar sands to market, and once a pathway for oil to move from Western Canada into New England is opened up, it is only a matter of time it used to carry tar sands,” says National Wildlife Federation senior attorney Jim Murphy, who is based in Vermont.

Conservation groups are warning New Englanders that Enbridge is attempting to get approval incrementally to avoid attention. It’s part of their sneaky new playbook. Their goal is to pipe corrosive, high-carbon tar sands oil through environmentally important areas of New England. Enbridge has an awful record of spilling more than 800 times since 1999.

Learn more about this proposal and the risks to waterways and wildlife here.

National Wildlife Federation along with Vermont Natural Resource Council, CLF, Sierra Club and VPRIG held a press conference in Montpelier, VT, concerning a proposed project allowing a 61 year old pipeline to carry tar sands from Montreal through Vermont and New Hampshire to Portland, Maine.

Enbridge Energy’s environmental record is far from perfect—Enbridge is the same pipeline company that leaked approximately 1,000,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River near Marshall, Michigan in 2010.

“This really ancient pipeline has already spilled, including a spill 35 years ago that fouled Lake Memphemagog,” said Curtis Fisher of National Wildlife Federation. “The pipeline cuts across the Missisquoi, Black, Moose, and Connecticut Rivers, which all are critical wildlife habitats and attract a large number of tourists. Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is known for being the state’s most pristine area. Vermonters do not want to risk our beloved natural resources to help dirty oil companies make billions and dramatically increase climate change.”

A broad coalition of organizations are defying plans from the Canadian oil pipeline company Enbridge Energy to build their “Trailbreaker” pipeline. These groups are stressing that the pipeline plan is unsafe and that a tar sands oil spill would harm Vermont’s waterways, wildlife and tourism economy.

“Vermont is pursuing a clean energy future in large part because Vermonters know that we depend on cold weather industries like skiing, and sugaring,” said Sandra Levine of Conservation Law Foundation. “Tar sands are a carbon bomb that will catapult us past several dangerous climate tipping points. It has no part in Vermont’s clean energy future.”

Tar Sands Too Risky

The proposed pipeline reversal scheme commonly referred to as “Trailbreaker” would reverse the flow of oil through an existing pipeline and would bring tar sands oil through Ontario, Quebec, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. A new NRDC report explains that unlike the conventional crude oil that currently flows through the pipeline, tar sands is far more corrosive, is more likely to spill, and much harder to clean up when it does spill.

“This pipeline plan puts Vermont’s rivers, lakes and streams in jeopardy and provides no benefits. The company behind it is responsible for the largest tar sands oil spill in U.S. history, which they still haven’t cleaned up,” said Johanna Miller of Vermont Natural Resources Council. “Oil giants don’t call the shots in here in Vermont and they can’t be allowed to put our state’s natural treasures in jeopardy.”

The tar sands industry has been in a desperate search for a port of export since the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway projects have become mired in controversy. The growing expansion of tar sands pipelines eastward raises concerns about the climate implications of a tar sands expansion to Central Canada and the U.S. Northeast. The U.S. Congressional Research Service recently released a report confirming tar sands as the most carbon-heavy oil on the planet (PDF), representing a significant increase in greenhouse gases from typical petroleums.

“Tar sands oil is like hot liquid sandpaper that corrodes pipelines, creating a greater risk of devastating oil spills along the route,” said Danielle Droitsch, NRDC Senior Attorney. “We cannot afford to blindly accept the climate and environmental dangers that come packed with ever-increasing amounts of tar sands being shoved south of the border. Trailbreaker isn’t alone—it is part of a stealth invasion of the U.S. from Canada’s dirty oil—it puts Central Canada and the Northeast squarely on the front lines.”

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

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.

courtesy justmytruth.com

Who cares about clean air?

As it turns out, lots and lots of people. If you didn’t (yet) write to the Environmental Protection Agency asking for strong air pollution limits, you probably are related to someone who did, or you live near someone who did, or you fish or hunt or hike or ski or bike with someone who did.

More than a half a million Americans have already aid they want the Environmental Protection Agency to safeguard our air and water from mercury and other air toxics.

Now its time to deliver those comments and tell the Environmental Protection Agency to do the right thing.

That’s why NWF supporters like you are gathering at the Environmental Protection Agency office in Boston on Tuesday, July 19th. If you live near Boston, I hope you can join us to and stand up for the clean air and clean water on which wildlife depend by delivering the comments in support of clean air that were submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency by over half a million people like you.

What: Stand up for Clean Air, Healthy Kids, and Healthy Environment at the Environmental Protection Agency

When: Tuesday, July 19th at Noon

Where: EPA Region 1 Office, 5 Post Office Square, Boston, MA [map: http://bit.ly/kWsxnQ ]

Who: NWF supporters like you, along with partner groups

RSVP: Let us know you will be attending by emailing me at oldhamc@nwf.org

Oh, and by the way, if you have not yet written to ask for strong pollution controls, you still can join those more than 500,000 people – just go to www.nwf.org/mercury to submit yours before the August 4th deadline!