Canadians know the oil and gas giant Suncor well, which along with Exxon/Mobil has trespassed on ancient forests and contaminated pure water from the Athabasca River - Treaty territory of the Indigenous peoples contained within in the upper Alberta province of Canada. Exxon/Mobil and Suncor were the first to build sprawling toxic "waste water" ponds, resulting from tarsands mining extraction, which leach heavy metals into groundwater amidst culturally-sustaining woodlands and waterways. Tarsands processing plants spew nitrogen and sulfur oxides into the air, sending a sour stench for miles.
The ecological impacts of mines are so deep that Indigenous peoples in the area say the tarsands industry has challenged their very existence. "The basis of all our Indigenous culture is on the land," said Jean L'Hommecourt, a member of Fort McKay First Nation nearby where the tarsands mines were dug. The first tarsands mine was drilled in 1967, an open pit where the Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) plant was built in Fort McMurray, owned and operated by the American parent company Sun - Suncor was Sun Company's Canadian subsidiary - Between 1991 - 1996 Sun divested all of its real estate and mining interests and ceased its international oil and gas operations - They changed their name to the present-day Sunoco, Inc. - Suncor became an independent company in 1991, integrated into the Canadian economy when the state-owned Petro-Canada became a Suncor subsidiary, and their revenue in 2019 was just a hair short of $39 billion - Suncor's assets now approach $90 BILLION!
Jean L'Hommecourt and her family would pass the Suncor mine in their boat when they traveled up the Athabasca River, the life-source for Indigenous Athabascan peoples, and the fumes from its processing plant stung their eyes and burned their throats - The wet cloth L'Hommecourt put over her face did nothing to lessen her pain and discomfort.
By the early 1990s oil companies had leased most of the land where tarsands surface oil had been. All of the land rightfully belonged to Athabascan "Treaty 8" First Nations in northeastern Alberta - Where they were supposed to exercise hunting, fishing, and usury rights "as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the river flows", according to Treaty 6 - Guess if oil companies block off an area of First Nations' treaty territory the size of New York City, blot out the sun with smog, kill all of the plants, and contaminate the river with "waste water" tailing ponds - Then treaties with First Nations don't apply in the Commonwealth of Canada!
Fort McMurray #468 First Nation is a Cree and Chipewyan band government - A protected Treaty 8 Nation and member of the Ahabasca Tribal Council (ATC), which represents five First Nation bands in northeast Alberta. As the tarsands industry in Fort McMurray reached its peak, in 1987 Fort McMurray #468 First Nation began to develop "growth and sustainability of our community by working with local businesses and industry partners" - The Fort McMurray First Nation Group of Companies. FMFN Group is entirely owned by the Fort McMurray nation and conducts business by "developing strong partnerships". The FMFN invests $100 thousand in scholarships every year, they've invested sustainably with 17 business partnerships, and the dividend to Fort McMurray #468 First Nation was over $3 million in 2020.
However $3 million is a pittance to tarsands oil companies operating out of Fort McMurray and the surrounding area. Tarsands extraction has an insatiable appetite and companies are energy-hungry, ramping up production despite the "man-made" climate crisis, and being Canada's LARGEST source of greenhouse gas emissions. Across the tarsands mining industry, companies produce 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools - 330 MILLION gallons of "waste water" - Every single day! Pools are so toxic birds are killed on impact, so day in and day out companies blast cannons to deter birds - Residents of Fort McMurray, McKay, and other Cree and Chipewyan communities in the area wake up every morning to the sound of gunshots coming from the toxic waste ponds.
The necessity of decreasing and phasing out tarsands oil production completely is an indisputable fact. Oil company executives will complain about their profits - The "roughnecks" are too stubborn to get trained in a sustainable industry because they're making "good money" - And the Canadian government as a beneficiary allows tarsands mining to "run-wild". From top to bottom there is no conscience or conscientiousness about tarsands severely worsening the "man-made" climate crisis. The inflated salaries for oil company executives and employees contribute directly towards enabling men engaging in the sex slavery market and trafficking of Indigenous women in the Fort McMurray area. Protecting First Nations women is equally important to protecting the Athabasca River - They are one in the same. If the Canadian government is serious about protecting MMIWG and the environment - Then stop the tarsands mining right NOW!
Environmental lawyers have defined the wide-spread environmental destruction of tarsands and related extractive industries as "ecocide" - Equal and coeval with the ongoing genocide of First Nations peoples in Canada and the U.S. - They are pushing for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to outlaw "ecocide" as a crime. Unfortunately the ICC is non-legally binding, and despite being a signatory on the "Rome Statute", which incorporates gender-based violence into its national laws, the Canadian government has done next to nothing to defend Indigenous women from the tarsands mining and other extractive industries. Additionally companies based in Canada will only allow themselves to be charged by the Commonwealth of Canada - Regardless of where they're operating and commiting "ecocide". That's the same logic as saying if someone commits murder on U.S. soil, but he's a Canadian citizen, then he can only be tried in Canada! This is kind of like how Enbridge won't shut off Line 5 through the Straits of Mackinac, despite the U.S. State of Michigan telling them they're trespassing, because Enbridge is based in Calgary - And the Canadian government says they don't have to!
Sadly part of the reason for Forts McMurray and McKay First Nations' recent financial success has been a result of being trade partners with tarsands giants such as Suncor. In September 2021 Suncor formed a partnership with 8 Indigenous communities - 3 First Nations and 5 Métis communities - Including Fort McMurray #486 First Nation. Alberta's tarsands hold the world's third-largest oil reserves - They are also among the most polluting sources of oil. It's estimated that tarsands extraction in Alberta has experienced at least one spill each day for the past 45 years. Between 1975-2012 in Alberta there were more than 28.5 thousand crude oil spills in total - Plus another nearly 31.5 thousand spills of different hazardous substances including "waste water" - That's 2 spills a day for 37 years!
Jean L'Hommecourt and many Indigenous people in the region say the tarsands mining industry has challenged their very existence, even as it has provided jobs and revenue to Native businesses and communities - "The basis of all our Indigenous culture is on the land," said L'Hommecourt. In the early 2000s as tarsands mines began to infest the region, L'Hommecourt began a path of resistance, attending a hearing for a mine that was slated to consume much of the land she'd subsisted off near Fort McKay for most of her life - And she gave them WHAT FOR! "That's when I made my choice," said L'Hommecourt. "I'm going to fight for my mom's land. My mom was an advocate for this area - She wanted this place protected."
The Peace-Athabasca Delta is the largest freshwater inland river delta in North America. Beyond the delta the terrain gives way to a mixture of forest, muskeg swamps, and drylands where sandy soil rises to the surface - Tarsands. Wide unpaved highways and paths lead to squares carved out of the forest, where companies have "explored" for oil, then beyond come the mines - Billowing plumes of smoke fill the sky - Flames shoot out of flare stacks - Green forest is replaced by vast black holes pockmarked with "waste water" ponds. The mines are terraced, there are mountains of debris towering over the toxic pools, with massive berms holding back lagoons full of waste above the newly dug pits.
Dale Marshall, national program manager of the Canadian advocacy group Environmental Defence said: "It's just the most completely ludicrous approach to industrial and energy development that is possible, given everything we know about the impact on ecosystems, the impact on climate." To extract "bitumen" - Tarsands - Oil companies heat the sand and treat it in a slurry of water and solvents - A semi-liquid mixture of cancer-causing chemicals. Since most of the surface oil was cleared by the early 1990s, oil companies have been forced to dig deeper, placing a high-pressure steam pump underground to melt the bitumen. Deeper bitumen mine deposits cover a much larger area - 55 thousand square miles - That's one fifth the size of Alberta!
TArsands oil has been bubbling out of the ground like "Texas tea" from The Beverly Hillbillies in areas like Alberta's Cold Lake, which experienced an 800,000 gallon tarsands oil spill in 2013. In addition the amount of energy required to extract bitumen is consuming roughly a THIRD of all natural gas burned in Canada every year - Comparatively the annual greenhouse gas emissions of tarsands mining are equal to that of 21 coal-fired power-plants!
There are noxious air pollutants as well - "Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" (PAHs) are known to damage DNA - A study by the Canadian National Academy of Sciences noted in 2013 expanding tarsands activities had increased air pollution. The elevated levels of hazardous air pollutants include PAHs coming from upgrading facilities north of Edmonton, Alberta - Where there were elevated rates of leukemia and other cancers in area surrounding tarsands operations north of Edmonton. Elevated levels of toxic PAHs have also been traced directly to the expansion of tarsands production - There has also been an increasing amount of methyl mercury in Alberta's waterways.
Methyl mercury is a potential neurotoxin causing developmental and behavioral problems and may even lead to death. A fatal dose of methyl mercury is estimated to be 200 mg, with paresthesia of the hands, feet, and mouth - A numb, tingly, skin-crawling, and itchy sensation - Occurring at just 40 mg. The Canadian government argues the oil surfaces of the Athabasca River and its tributaries eroding "naturally" is the main cause of pollution - "The erosion of natural resources is huge" - More like a 55,000 sq mi tarsands mine is HUGE!
The mines guzzle vast quantities of water, with nearly 58 BILLION gallons drawn from the region's rivers, lakes, and aquifers just in 2019 - When the water comes out on the other side it's heavily laced with hydrocarbons (PAHs), naphthenic acids (NAs), and carcinogenic metals. Oil companies collect their toxic "tailings" into waste ponds, which routinely leak their contents into groundwater - PAHs attack DNA, carcinogens cause cancer, and NAs cause coughing, wheezing, and asthma.
Way back in 1973, a report filed by the Alberta Department of the Environment identified tarsands waste as a problem, and it recommended placing limits on the tailing ponds' sizes and duration of use. They realized the toxic components would settle into the groundwater over the matter of a few years. The scientific reality is these "tailings" will take centuries to separate "naturally" - Yet the Canadian government calls the contamination "natural" - They're insane! Instead of finding a more viable option than tarsands, the Alberta government decided to simply expand the pond sizes - Which now cover more than 100 square miles - Remember every day tailing ponds swell with another 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools of "waste water"!
Regulatory filings show that the ponds are expected to continue to expand well into the 2030s - Then tarsands mines will be on the lookout for more Indigenous land to steal and ruin for their tailing ponds! While companies are required by law to eventually reclaim them, there is essentially no enforcement, and only a fraction of the "waste water" ponds accumulating over the past 54 years have been reclaimed. Air cannons ring out across the pond several times each minute to deter birds, ponds are surrounded by high-voltage barbed-wire fences, and ridiculous scarecrows dressed with safety vests and helmets dot the shores. Yet a 2016 report prepared for the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) - Buried for five years - Recognized tens of thousands of migratory birds were dying each year - The AER said the research in the report "was not considered complete". The endangered whooping cranes are particularly at risk - Since fewer than 900 remain!
Tarsands oil of "bituminous quality" according to "explorer" Sir Alexander Mackenzie - Bitumen is the Latin word for "asphalt" - Was first "discovered" by Europeans in 1789. By the end of the 19th-century, prospectors had identified "almost inexhaustible supplies" of petroleum in the area - The only obstacle was First Nations people. In 1891, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs in Canada Edgar Dewdney recommended drafting a treaty: "with a view of the extinguishment of the Indians' title" to open access to petroleum and other minerals. When a treaty coalition was sent to present-day Alberta in 1899 on behalf of the Crown to sign what would become Treaty 8, a member of the party named Charles Mair described giant escarpments rising on either side of the council meeting grounds, "everywhere streaked with oozing tar, and smelling like an old ship."
Indigenous peoples used the tar-like substance to seal canoes, burning it for heat when necessary, but Mair only saw dollar signs. "That this region is stored with a substance of great economic value is beyond all doubt," he wrote. "When the hour of development comes, it will, I believe, prove to be one of the wonders of Northern Canada." However Mair's vision didn't come to fruition until 40 years after his death in 1927, when in 1967 Suncor dug the first tarsands mine, which justified the extraction by stating: "No nation can long be secure in this atomic age unless it be amply supplied with petroleum."
In the late 1970s a second tarsands mine opened by a company called Syncrude, backed by the Canadian government and an American oil company (present-day Exxon/Mobil), which in December 2021 sold its interests in Syncrude to Suncor, with Syncrude being one source for Enbridge pipelines. For more than two decades there were only two mines - Suncor and Syncrude - But the 21st-century saw an explosion in tarsands oil production amidst fears that conventional sources of crude oil were running out. Multinational giants poured in cash to the "business-friendly" Canadian government, boosted their reserves, and drew hundreds of billions of dollars in new investments.
Over the course of a decade mines began to multiply - Eight active tarsands mines now form a 40-mile-long chain along the Athabasca River - A smoggy toxic industrial complex straight out of Fern Gully! The town of Fort McKay, population 756, sits in the middle of the industrial wasteland. Most people in Fort McKay and the surrounding area hang on to life as well as they can - Those who can afford to leave - But some people either can't afford to vacate, or like Jean L'Hommecourt they don't want to abandon their native homelands - Meanwhile they are squeezed into smaller and smaller spaces.
Jean L'Hommecourt has a cabin 20 miles outside of Fort McKay, but it takes more than an hour to get there, because the road has to loop in between and around several mines. Despite L'Hommecourt's best efforts as an environmental coordinator for the Fort McKay First Nation, the mines have continued to encroach on her cabin. "You're the trespasser," L'Hommecourt tells mining companies. "I shouldn't have to be answering your questions - You answer mine - That's my attitude."
The land has a linguistic connection as well for Indigenous people - "Deh" means land and "neh" means water in L'Hommecourt's native Déné language - Déné means 'human beings or people of land and water'. "In the outside world it's all English," said L'Hommecourt. "You get that sense of belonging here, and that's what I want for our peoples, to have their land back - If you have your land back, you have everything."
Photo credit Michael Kodas/Inside Climate News
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