In the spirit of talking about tar sands and the environmental carnage done to extract, refine, and transport that heavy metal laden, carcinogenic goo...or as I like to call it, black tar petrolium. Except it's hardly cheap. Not hardly.
Michigan itself has no tar sands that I'm aware of...and yet it's already coating our wildlife and mixing into our drinking water all in the name of keeping the old ways and the old dynasties of America in business.
There are two big issues here along Lake Michigan
1. A burst pipeline that caused one of the biggest oil spills in the history of the Midwest
and
2. Thousands of pounds of industrial sludge dumped into Lake Michigan from a tar sands refinery in Indiana, incidentally owned by BP.
Last year an oil pipe line burst near the Kalamazoo river, spilling nearly a million gallons of oil into the river...one of the worst oil spills in the history of the Midwest. The outpouring of public support in the cleanup effort was enormous, to the point that organizers asked people to please stop sending stuff. I'm sure they have a century's supply of dish soap, paper bags, and towels.
1. By some reports the spill was the largest tar sands oil spill in the US, so it's new clean-up territory for the cleanup crews.
2. Tar sands oil is a lot thicker and more viscous than your run of the mill oil spill oil. Supposedly it's the consistency of peanut butter at room temperature.
3. It's got a higher concentration of heavy metals, and is considered one of the dirtiest oils in the galaxy.
4. Tar sands oil has extra "crap" in it to make it flow through the pipelines. (hint: it's not healthy crap)
5. Did I mention that the oil company failed to tell early clean up crews they were dealing with tar sands oil. They sort of left that part out, so the clean up crew wasn't prepared.
When that combination, known as DilBit, spilled out of the ruptured pipeline, the benzene and other chemicals in the mixture went airborne, forcing mandatory evacuations of surrounding homes (many of which were later bought by Enbridge because their owners couldn’t safely return), while the thick, heavy bitumen sank into the water column and coated the river and lake bottom, mixing with sediment and suffocating bottom-dwelling plants, animals, and micro-organisms.
http://www.blogger.com/...
It should be noted this is a river system that flows out to Lake Michigan right where people draw their drinking water, and it's just 50 miles south of where I get my water from. I guess I don't want to drink more benzene than I have to.
The ecological cost itself has been devastating, creating dead zones in the river bottom, massive fish die offs, bird die offs, musk rat and aquatic life die offs from a toxic environment.
For more complete reports on the ecological damage, follow this link.
Further to the South in Indiana, BP was given the go-ahead to expand their tar sands refinery, which is already one of the largest polluters in the Great Lakes.
[2007]Under BP's new state water permit, the refinery -- already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes -- can release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. Ammonia promotes algae blooms that can kill fish, while sludge is full of concentrated heavy metals.
[snip]
The company will now be allowed to dump an average of 1,584 pounds of ammonia and 4,925 pounds of sludge into Lake Michigan every day. The additional sludge is the maximum allowed under federal guidelines.
-- Article
This substance is like oil, but far more polluting, far more laden with dangerous substances....
And because of its thicker, more viscous consistency, it's far more dangerous and difficult to transport and clean up when it's spilled.
Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse has coordinated this blogathon with Bill McKibben, who is one of the organizers for a civil disobedience action in DC from August 20th to September 3rd to urge President Obama to not give a presidential permit for the proposed tar sands XL pipeline from Alberta down to Texas. This civil disobedience action is modeled on one that the group Transafrica used outside the Washington Embassy in the 1980s: Nelson Mandela said it played a key role in raising awareness about apartheid. The plan is for a new group of people each day of the two weeks to trespass on the sidewalk in front of the White House.
This is not a protest of President Obama. As Bill McKibben noted, the protest is designed to show President Obama the “depth of support for turning down this boondoggle” as it will be the “biggest civil disobedience protest in the environmental movement for many many years.”