Photo: Lou Gold

How Tar Sands Impacts Our Changing Climate

Tar sands production in Canada’s Boreal Forest is fueling the climate crisis (not to mention destroying wildlife habitat in the largest terrestrial ecosystems in the world). According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has the potential to increase carbon pollution by 27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 6.2 million cars on the road for 50 years.  Woah! That’s a lot of emissions. This project would lock us into decades of dirty fuel dependence at the exact moment in history when we need to take serious action against a rapidly changing climate and embrace our clean energy future. We need to get it together. Our future depends on it.

What This Means For Wildlife

Scientists warn that without significant new steps to reduce carbon pollution, our planet will warm by 7 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with devastating consequences for wildlife. The climate crisis is already changing the playing field for wildlife and urgent action is needed to preserve America’s conservation legacy, according to our new report: Wildlife in a Warming World: Confronting the Climate Crisis.

“We know what’s causing the climate changes Americans are seeing in their own backyards and we have the solutions to secure our climate and safeguard our wildlife for future generations,” said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “What we need is the political leadership to make smart energy choices and wise investments in protecting our natural resources. We can’t leave this problem for our children and grandchildren to fix – they’ll judge us based on what we do now.”

How We Can Transform Our Energy Future

Photo: Marine Jaouen

On Sunday, February 17th, join thousands of Americans at a historic rally in Washington D.C. to protect polar bears and other wildlife at risk from climate change.

Protect wildlife from dirty fuel that is contributing to climate change!

With protests this weekend against Keystone XL in the nation’s capital, the poll shows that the President has a mandate to fight climate disruption. Keystone XL takes the fight to slow climate change in the wrong direction.

Here’s the two key Zogby findings:

Support for dirty fuel from Keystone XL is dwarfed by support for clean energy. Last year, thousands protested at the White House to urge the Administration to abandon Keystone XL. Another action is set for this weekend in Washington, DC.

• Asked to pick the highest priority to help solve America’s energy challenges, twice as many voters select renewable energy like wind and solar power (38 percent) than any other choice. Independents favor wind and solar over fossil fuels by a 4-to-1 margin – 48 percent pick renewable energy while just 12 percent select the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and only 11 percent prioritize more oil and gas drilling on America’s public lands.
• Voters also expressed frustration with polluter influence peddling. Two thirds of voters (67 percent) say they’re very or somewhat concerned that political donations by oil, gas and coal industries are influencing politicians in Washington to approve policies that benefit their corporations.

That’s right folks, Keystone XL barely gets out of single digits, while support for clean renewable energy is two to four times higher.

The Keystone XL carbon bomb has been said to be the pollution equivalent of putting six  million additional cars on the road. The pipeline is designed to carry tar sands, a dirty heavy oil that is far more polluting. At a time when President Obama says need to be reducing carbon pollution, Keystone XL takes us exactly in the wrong direction.

The poll of 1,016 actual voters was conducted on November 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.

Superstorm Sandy a Wake Up Call

Hurricane Sandy couldn’t have made it clearer that society will continue to pay a high price for gorging on carbon. After a summer’s worth of unprecedented devastating heat and weather related events that will costs billions, Sandy’s the latest high priced  wake up call from Mother Nature, estimated to cost us tens of billions.  Economically, we cannot afford to further accelerate the already alarming pace of debilitating weather events.  Morally, we cannot leave our children an inhospitable world.

You cannot build Keystone XL and be serious about addressing climate change.  The math doesn’t add up. EPA says the lifetime carbon pollution emissions would be over 1 billion tons, and another estimate says it’s the equivalent of putting six million additional cars on the road.

The Keystone XL pipeline presents a choice. Get serious about climate, or double down on high carbon tars sands for decades.  A final denial of the project would send a clear signal that we are turning away from climate calamity and towards a clean energy future.  Allowing it would further ignite the climate bomb.  The American public is demanding climate action and rejecting the fossil fuel industry’s well financed plea for business as usual.  It is time for the Obama Administration to say no to Keystone XL and yes to a clean energy future for our children.

NWF’s report, written by Jeff Alexander and co-authored by our own Beth Wallace, says the company’s plans for the aging line put at risk the drinking water supply for millions of Americans, while also putting at risk wildlife and the vital tourism economy supported by the Great Lakes.

Submerged in the waters where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet, the pipeline in question, known as Line 5, moves more than 20 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas fluids pumped every day. The 60 year old pipe is run by the Canadian pipeline giant that caused the worst inland tar sands oil disaster in U.S. history.   (It’s competitor is TransCanada, which is proposing to build the dangerous and controversial Keystone XL pipeline.)

Beth makes a strong case for protecting the Great Lakes from another tar sands threat.  Watch for yourself. The video is HERE.

You can support NWF in protecting wildlife from the threat of tar sands oil, the dirtiest on the planet.  Take action now!

Photo by Todd Powell

It’s expensive to produce, and difficult to transport. Thousands of people—from Alberta, Canada to Winnsboro, Texas to Portland, Maine—have been fighting pipeline developments in their backyards, but too often oil companies have been unabashedly ignoring the environmental and health concerns that residents and scientists alike share about pipelines and the development of this dirty fuel.

However, the conversation is changing, and this time it’s including voices that TransCanada, Enbridge, and other corporate tar sands giants can’t ignore. In addition to the investor action this week, markets showed a case of the jitters over tar sands in two separate incidents last week. Both major tar sands pipeline companies, TransCanada and Enbridge are under tight scrutiny and being watched closely.

When TransCanada announced it was shutting down the original Keystone pipeline over a safety concern, oil prices bounced downward for several hours. And when NWF issued a report that was critical of Enbridge’s operation of the aging Line 5 Midwest pipeline, NASDAQ noted Enbridge’s stock dipped downward.

Reining in Growing Giants

“Oil sands development is the fastest growing industrial source of GHG emissions in Canada, projected to approximately double by 2020.” -Environment Canada, Canada’s Emissions Trends, July 2011

Alberta Tar Sands

“When Wall Street says there are serious problems with tar sands development, it should send a clear message that betting on a dirty oil future is a loser for everyone.”

Make your voice heard! Take Action to protect climate and wildlife from the development of the dirtiest fuel on the planet!

Conservation groups and now the Canadian government are expressing concern that TransCanada lacks a safety culture. The same lapses resulted in numerous incidents by their competitor Enbridge, including the deadly explosion pictured above.

Joe Mendelson, National Wildlife Federation climate and energy policy director responded to the news saying,

The reason TransCanada needs to keep shutting down Keystone is because pipelines are inherently dangerous. When a pipeline carries heavy tar sands, the risks multiply. Canadian tar sands are not inherently better or safer, quite the opposite, they require the construction of massive and unstable infrastructure that will eventually fail.  The best approach to our energy challenges isn’t building more pipelines, it’s embracing clean energy solutions that don’t spill or explode.

The news comes just days after the Canadian government said it was launching a probe of TransCanada for lapses in its safety culture.

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

Oil from a failed Enbridge pipeline fouls the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

In the order, PHMSA explains continuing to operate the line is a hazard to “life, health and property.”

As noted in a recent report released by NWF, this latest spill is merely one of hundreds for Enbridge. Far more worrisome, regulators are allowing Enbridge to continue to move forward with plans to expand this very system even as it fails to maintain current capacity safely. In addition to this most recent CAO by PHMSA, NWF is urging U.S. regulators, and the Michigan Public Service Commission, to table all expansion plans by Enbridge. U.S. Regulations also need to implement all recommendations outlined in the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) report of the Marshall, Mich. 2010 disaster.

“Shame on us if we allow Enbridge to supersize their pipelines when the company shows a steady disregard to our communities, resources and wildlife,” explains Beth Wallace, Great Lakes outreach advisor with the National Wildlife Federation. “It’s vital regulators respond in proportion to the threat.  Let’s not kid ourselves. PHMSA made a start this week, but there is much more that must be done to stop the spills.”

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.

An oiled blue heron was among the wildlife victims of Enbridge’s massive 2010 tar sands spill into the Kalamazoo River. Image from howtobearesponsiblesteward.blogspot.com

Enbridge, the company that spilled a million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River two years ago this week, and that the National Transportation Safety Board likened to the “Keystone Kops” of pipeline safety, has reportedly just spilled another 1200 barrels. This time from its line 14 in Wisconsin according to Reuters.

Little is known about the spill and whether any significant damage occurred.  The NTSB is reportedly on the scene.

One critical question is whether what spilled was tar sands oil?  The thick heavy crude is more toxic and corrosive than conventional oil, and is believed to corrode pipelines more  often and quicker.  There are conflicting media reports that the pipeline sometimes carries tar sands.   The controversial Keystone XL pipeline under consideration by the U.S. State Department would carry the same crude.

The National Academy of Sciences has begun an investigation into just how corrosive tar sands is to pipelines.  The NAS panel heard testimony from NWF and our partners this past week.

Just this past week, NWF was also highly critical of Enbridge, releasing a report blasting the oil giant for spilling more than 800 times in the U.S. and Canada since 1999.

You can take action to protect wildlife and stop the mad rush to exploit risky tar sands by telling the State Department not to approve Keystone XL . Click here to to learn more.

Deny Deny Deny

A 2011 Keystone XL protest outside the White House gates got the attention of top White House officials and helped derail the Keystone XL project, at least for now. The industry is adapting to avoid another Keystone controversy. Image from treehugger.com.

Their departing CEO, Patrick Daniel, showed no remorse and gave no apologies for one of the biggest fossil fuel disasters in North American history. Instead, he sounded frustrated last week, saying he wished the tar sands pipeline business hadn’t become so controversial. Good riddance Mr. Daniel.

Last spring, his company announced a plan to reverse the direction of a pipeline called line 9, so that it could carry crude east rather than west. No big deal, right? What Enbridge didn’t do was show all its cards. The real plan is to send dirty tar sands oil across several Great Lakes and New England states to Portland, Maine, for transfer by ship to refineries or for export. The project, called Trailbreaker, was floated two years ago, and then abandoned when the recession set in.

When local groups in New England announced opposition a few weeks back to piping tar sands near precious rivers in the area, Enbridge reached up its sleeve for the denial card. A spokesman for Enbridge told the Associated Press, “We have been absolutely clear on the fact that the company is not pursuing the Trailbreaker Project.”

That’s not credible. As NWFs Curtis Fisher retorted in the AP article, Enbridge denied it was looking at reversing Line 9, until they went ahead and announced they wanted to reverse Line 9. In fact, the company is salivating at the prospect of moving (by their 2008 estimate) 150,000 barrels of tar sludge a day to Portland.

“We’re pretty excited about [Trailbreaker],” an oil executive said in a 2008 presentation,”because it provides capacity on an as-needed basis, and it involves existing assets so it can be completed at low cost and on a quick turnaround.”

So what’s the truth? Enbridge appears to be playing a dangerous game of denial, putting the pieces in place for a tar sands route to New England, while denying the once and future Trailbreaker (or something by a different name) is happening. Elephant in the room, what elephant?

Divide and Conquer

Meanwhile, another pipeline giant, TransCanada, has split the 2,000 mile Keystone XL into two, in an attempt to move the project piecemeal and shrink the scope of the State Department’s environmental review. Wildlife Promise recently referred to this as divide and conquer:

[A]after Keystone XL was rejected the first time, TransCanada decided to split off the “Gulf Coast segment” of the pipeline, which stretches through Oklahoma and Texas, as a stand-alone project. Because this route doesn’t cross the US border, it avoided the need for the Presidential Permit and the review it entails.

That particular tactic paid off for TransCanada last month, as the Army Corps of engineers  gave a green light to construction of XL in Oklahoma and Texas. The oil execs at TransCanada probably had some high-fives last month as well when the State Department announced its new environmental review will ignore the southern segment of Keystone XL.

[Click here to take action and stop latest attempt to resurrect Keystone XL.]

Must History Repeat?

In the summer of 2010, over a million gallons of tar sands oil spilled when an Enbridge  pipeline ruptured near Marshall, Michigan, contaminating  the Kalamazoo River. Families were driven from their homes and wildlife suffered and died. Responding to the spill, Michigan Congressman Fred Upton said, “Each and every one of us is all too familiar with the devastation wrought by the BP Gulf disaster and now we have a nightmare here in our own backyard. The mistakes and missteps that sabotaged the response and cleanup in the Gulf cannot happen here in southwest Michigan.”

A wonderful sentiment to ride out the news cycle, but Rep.Upton went on to champion Keystone XL, even as the mess persisted in his back yard.

The Environmental Protection Agency ordered Enbridge to clean up the mess, but it is still not cleaned up. Workers are still struggling to remove residual crude oil and are increasingly resigned to the possibility that it may never be cleaned. According EPA’s website, after the spill 39 miles of the river system were closed to public access. By April 17, 2012, three miles–three—had been reopened. Other segments may reopen this year, says EPA, if it is safe.

Accidents in the Trailbreaker pipeline may be more likely because it’s so old. One section is 52 years old, and other large section dates to 1975. A spill from this pipeline could sully rivers, lakes and bays. At risk would be cherished places like Lake Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River, the Connecticut River, the Androscoggin River, Sebago Lake and Casco Bay.

Can We Afford to Trust Enbridge?

A 2007 Enbridge pipeline explosion in Minnesota, pictured here, killed two and spewed oil, fire and smoke into surrounding communities.

Just recently, we learned from media reports that Enbridge has under-estimated the risk of a tar sands spill along its Northern Gateway Project across western Canada, basically ignoring their dismal record in Michigan.

A former insurance CEO, Robyn Allan, concluded that Enbridge does not have “adequate insurance coverage or the corporate structure to cover a multi-billion dollar spill,” reported Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee.

‘There is no reason to believe Enbridge would be directly responsible for the cost of any spill based on the limited partnership structure. This structure allows profits to flow to Enbridge, but from what I have seen in the documents, not spill liabilities,’ explains Allan.”

Allan also suggested that Enbridge only minimally understands how the heavy crude oil behaves. It usually sinks to the bottom of a river and is harder to clean up than other fuels.

Allan added that the “company suffers from a corporate culture that places growth as priority above operational safety.”  That offers little reassurance to New Englanders. That was made evident when media recently reported that even as the Kalamazoo spill was happening, Enbridge employees, hundreds of miles away had one priority: get the oil flowing. Rather than check for a spill, they attempted to restart the pipeline, not once, but twice.

If Enbridge’s misadventures weren’t so heartbreaking it would be hilarious. Maybe we should call it “Heartbreaker,” not “Trailbreaker.”

[Note: special thanks to NWFs Peter LaFontaine for advice and editing in drafting this post.]