Yesterday, the tar sands industry met unexpected opposition.

The Salt Lake Tribune captured it best:

“A small Canadian company, in need of millions for its ambitious plans, also is facing stiff opposition from two Utah environmental groups that are trying to thwart its efforts to build one of the first commercial tar sand mines in the country.”

Photo credit: Sarah A. Miller/Deseret News

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining (DOGM), held a hearing on Canadian company Earth Energy Resources’ proposal to mine tar sands in Grand and Uintah Counties in Eastern Utah. Well over half of the people attending the hearing came to support Peaceful Uprising and Living Rivers in opposing the mine. John Baza, Director of the the Division noted that there were far more people than usually attend these hearings.

“This project has no real value or contribution to society,” said John Weisheit, Colorado Riverkeeper and Conservation Director of Living Rivers. “The total amount of oil produced by this mine over seven years of operation would cover just 4 hours of American oil demand – a tiny blip on the radar. However, it will take millennia to restore the watershed they are about to destroy.”

And for that small amount of oil, Earth Energy Resources and the State of Utah are willing to put the entire Colorado River watershed and the 30 million people it supports at risk. Here are a few of the concerns we brought up at the hearing:

• The oil produced by the mine would increase the amount of tar sands oil refined in the Salt Lake area by 13%. This places local communities at increased risk for contamination from arsenic, lead, mercury, nickel, cyanide and other toxic substance.
• The mine will generate significant amounts of dust, which contaminates local bodies of water and settles on snowpack, causing it to melt faster.
• Although tar sands produce on average three times the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil, the DOGM refuses to take climate change into account for the permitting of this mine.
• Earth Energy Resources already has a poor track record in preventing groundwater contamination. Their pilot mine was essentially abandoned, left unlined, unmonitored and untreated for years, available for wildlife and livestock to consume.
• The chemicals to be used by Earth Energy Resources have been untested as potential carcinogens, or reproductive and developmental risks, and are known to be endocrine disruptors.

Earth Energy Resources claims they will operate the mine with zero discharge, but there is no man-made technology that can guarantee zero leakage of contamination into our waters.

Steve Adler, an attorney with the Utah Energy Office, asserted that the DOGM was simply approving the permit according the requirements set by the State of Utah, and that DOGM wasn’t responsible for addressing many of the objections raised in the hearing, specifically climate change and water impacts. Baza will decide within a month whether or not to uphold the agency’s decision to approve the mine permit.

The biggest message that came out of this hearing is that no one is steering this ship. There is no single agency or government body evaluating whether tar sands development is actually a good idea for Utah. Instead, each agency simply approves rules and permits that were not designed for to regulate the tar sands industry. If Utah is going to consider opening up its lands and waters to tar sands, we should actually have that conversation about Utah’s energy future.

“This is only the beginning,” said Ashley Anderson, Coordinator of Peaceful Uprising. “Communities around the state and country are getting active in opposing the tar sands. We’ll be there fighting back every step of the way.”

Thank you to everyone who attended the hearing and everyone who has gotten involved in our work to stop the tar sands!

This weekend, Moab residents hiked up to Delicate Arch to call on governments and banks to stop funding the expansion of tar sands in North America, as part of the International Stop The Tar Sands Day.

Utah could soon have first tar sands mine in the country, located north of Moab in the Colorado River watershed.  Canadian company Earth Energy Resources aims to extract 2,000 barrels a day of tar sands oil from their PR Springs Mine.  Earth Energy Resources has received all of the required permits to begin operation except for the Conditional Use Permit from Grand County.

“Grand County Council has the power to choose between investment in a dirty fuel that destroys our land, water and wildlife, or development of clean energy sources that enhances our beautiful and vibrant way of life,” said Moab local Ashley Anderson.

Tar sands, also called oil sands in Canada, produce one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet.  On average, each barrel of tar sands oil generates three times the greenhouse gases as conventional fuel, consume or contaminate two to four barrels of water, and expose ground water to toxic pollutants such as arsenic, lead, mercury, nickel and cyanide.  Extraction of tar sands in Canada has devastated an area the size of Florida.

“This area should be known for the iconic beauty that draws travels from around the world, not for introducing one of the worst forms of energy to the United States,” said Juliana Williams, one of the organizers for the event. “We refuse to sit idly by as the State of Utah and Earth Energy Resources trade away our future.”

Other events with the “International Stop the Tar Sands Day” took place in Berlin, London, Copenhagen, Montreal and Toronto.

[Download the PDF for printing]

A struggle is increasingly being fought between water and oil, not only over them. Tar sands are at the center of this tension. As the province rushes towards a large-scale extraction, the social, ecological and human impacts are hitting a crisis point. In only a few short years the continent will be a crisscross of pipelines, reaching from the arctic all the way to the southern US.

When: Tuesday, July 20th, 7:00 pm

Where: First Unitarian Church of SLC, 569 S. 1300 E. [map]

This is a free screening, but donations to cover the costs of screening and promoting are welcome. Following the movie, join Peaceful Uprising for a short discussion about the threat of tar sands to Utah.

Written by Deb Henry

Did you know Canada is now the biggest oil supplier to the United States?

The Alberta Tar Sands are one of the most horrific environmental catastrophes of all time — yet bring Shell and it’s Big Oil bandwagon record profits at the expense of the local population, world population and landscape. The area in Canada that has been devastated is larger than the state of
Florida and has diagnosed unprecedented numbers of rare cancers occurring in the same area. Fuel from the oil sands is the dirtiest in the world, producing three times the global warming
pollution as conventional oil.

Tar Sands have never been thought to be economically viable in the USA. I’m not even really sure they make sense now, but there is a company called Earth Energy Resources that is going to try to find
out. They’re opening the first tar sands mine in the United States…and it’s going to be here in Utah. The process itself is extremely energy intensive producing a low energy return on investment compared to the original energy investment. It’s one thing if an investment is energy intensive to produce a cleaner energy source…but tar sands use a dirty energy investment to produce a even dirtier energy product. This is a huge step in the wrong direction.

“A nation that does not innovate has no wings. A country that does not innovate, stagnates.” – Joe Biden

Tar Sands (also called Oil Sands in Canada) produce an unconventional fossil fuel from bitumen, a “thick tar-like substance” that is the lowest grade of crude oil. According to Earth Energy Resources, after strip-mining, the ore will be heated and treated with chemicals into a slurry with the “consistency of a thick gritty milkshake.” One the bitumen is separated from this slurry, it is cooked and upgraded to a synthetic crude oil and trucked to refineries. Refineries remove and store toxic pollutants such as arsenic, cyanide, benzene, salt, lead,
mercury and nickel before finally processing the crude into gasoline or diesel fuel.

This process is going to consume other dirty fossil fuels …to produce more fossil fuels. There is a natural gas pipeline nearby which will help run the machinery that makes this mining possible. Natural gas in and of itself is a gross process that uses the under-regulated hydraulic fracturing, and the so-called clean energy it produces is being used to mine one of the ugliest forms of energy that exists. The mine will also have diesel generators on hand just in case the supply of natural gas is unavailable. The materials
will be trucked in on a dirt road (that is not designed for large trucks) to haul these materials. This will produce large amounts of dust which will blow right into neighboring states (if even more water is not used to constantly spray down the roads), potentially compromising their ski resorts. The only way that EER is going to be able to make this a profitable enterprise is by externalizing the consequences onto us.

For each barrel of oil that is produced, two barrels of water will be used (4,000 barrels per day, total). These means that water rights which would have typically gone to down-stream farmers, are going to be used by EER. The PR Spring Mine Tar Sands Mine site is situated right between the Colorado River, Green River and White River. The potential contamination of a river system that funnels down into Lake Mead and Lake Powell, not to mention Mexico is very real. We don’t need a disaster like the mess in the Gulf of Mexico poisoning such a critical water source.

Is this the best innovation we can come up with for energy? Are we really willing to endure the consequences of all of these byproducts, not to mention water consumption? The production capacity is only going to be 2,000 barrels of oil per day. Contrast this against 19,500,000 barrels per day that the USA consumes.
This isn’t even going to be a drop in the bucket and Utah is going to be the place that endures the consequences for the over-consumption of the USA as a whole.

Beyond Earth Energy Resources, several other companies are lining up to mine tar sands in Utah, including Nevtah, Korea Technology Industry of America (KTIA), and Red Leaf Resources. The outcome of the Earth Energy Resources PR Spring Mine will set the tone for future tar sands development in Utah and the country. If the mine is constructed, it will ease the way for increased future tar sands extraction. But if we stop the PR Spring Mine, it will send a message to investors that Utahns do not want tar sand mines in our state.

Utah deserves better.

Why not just create good-paying, lasting American jobs that wind and solar and efficiency projects create — the kind of jobs that can’t be outsourced. Instead of investing in these strip-mine-sinkholes of temporary solutions to energy, Utah could be creating real, constant sources of energy and jobs. We could be creating new markets and new technology for alternatives but instead we continue to spin our wheels by clinging to our oil dependency.

What you can do:

• Come see the movie H2Oil on 7/20, at
  7:30pm in SLC, location currently at the Unitarian Church, but may
  change to a larger venue.
• Come to the meeting at 7/27, 2pm, at the DOGM
• Join the mailing list at Peaceful Uprising.
• Help us get local businesses to sign on that they don’t want tar
  sand mines in Utah.

Links:

• The Energy Return of Tar Sands
• Love
  Winter, Hate the Oil Sands
• DirtyOilSands.org
• AlterNet: Save Winter – Stop Tar Sands, the Dirtiest
  Form of Oil
• Alberta researchers receive apology for attack on oil
  sands study

Tomorrow, July 2nd, is the deadline for public comments on the Keystone XL pipeline that could bring 900,000 barrels of tar sands to American refineries each day. Tar sands are the dirtiest fuel we use, creating 3 times the greenhouse gases as conventional oil, contaminating entire rivers and watersheds from leaking toxic tailings lakes and devastating an area of Canada the size of Florida.

Last August, the State Department approved the permit for the pipeline, but they opened up the process to receive comments from the public. From the perspective of the State Department, this pipeline is in the public interest, bringing in oil and jobs. However, they fail to fully account for the massive impact that tar sands oil has on the climate, the pollution created by refining tar sands into gasoline and the danger the pipeline poses to landowners and communities along the pipeline route.

The good news is that public opposition is rallying to stop the pipeline. A week ago, 50 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging the State Department not to rush the permit through. At a public hearing at the State Department on Tuesday, over 80 people showed up to provide comment. Although Brian Duggan, the moderator of the hearing, noted that “the oil industry got up real early this morning, so their names are the first 20 on my list,” he alternated between speakers from the oil industry and groups opposed to the pipeline.

According to Sarah Murphy, who attended the hearing, approximately two-thirds to three quarters of the people attending the hearing opposed the pipeline. “At one point lobbyist from a trucking group testified and in his eyes I saw nothing but giant dollar signs,” she said. “From what I witnessed at the hearing today, its obvious that the dirty energy lobbyists care about only one thing- money.”

Please take five minutes to submit a comment to the State Department, urging them to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. They are required to read every comment, and we need to show them that the American public opposes this project. For ideas on what to include in your comments check out dirtyoilsands.org and Pubic Citizen in Texas, where most of the refineries would be located.

Merriam-Webster defines opportunity as: a favorable juncture of circumstances; a good chance for advancement or progress.

Few things seem to be going right in the this country at the moment: the economy is still weak, the oil spill continues to devastate communities along the Gulf, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to drain our country’s resources without much progress, the social fabric of this country feels frayed and divided.  It would seem that our only shining bright moment was Landon Donovan’s goal in the World Cup yesterday.

It would seem that way if you simply focus on the headlines. Amidst the bad news is an underlying narrative that the current trajectory is not working.  And when something is not working, it is time for a change.

The pessimistic conventional wisdom would tell a story like this: Eventually the oil spill will be stopped, tighter safety regulation on the oil and coal industries may pass to appease public outrage, but we will continue to throw billions of dollars overseas each year for oil, we will continue to drill and mine and frack our communities for the energy beneath them, while energy companies continue to make record profits.   Superficial changes will be politically popular but will do little to change our dysfunctional energy system.  Then the next energy crisis will hit.

Here in Utah, it would seem that this story is playing out. In response to the Gulf oil catastrophe, Utah Governor Gary Herbert released an energy plan where he asked: “Why are we drilling in the middle of the ocean where there is extreme environmental risk when we could be meeting the demand for domestic production from on‐shore development in areas with minimal environmental risk such as Utah?”

Two days later, an oil spill in Salt Lake City dumped 33,000 gallons of oil into a creek that runs through neighborhoods, parks and eventually drains into the Great Salt Lake.

Further, Utah stands poised to adopt the injudicious honor of opening the first tar sands mine in the country.

But like the shining moment of Landon Donovan’s goal yesterday, our country has the opportunity to follow a different story. This year’s litany of coal mine disasters, natural gas explosions and oil spills are forcing Americans to face the question: how much longer are we willing to continue our dependence fossil fuels? As a result of these highly visible and truly unfortunate disasters, public opinion has shifted, recognizing that not only is offshore drilling unsafe but that we need to make the switch to cleaner, safer energy sources.

An opportunity is not a guarantee that change will happen.

Now is the time to call for bolder changes than we have before.  Now is the time to break the myth that drilling and mining and fracking are safe ways to get our energy.  Now is the time to stop the viral growth of tar sands extraction, here in Utah and around the country.  Now is the time to stop subsidizing these destructive industries and kickstart our economy again with investment in clean energy technologies.

As thousands gather on Saturday in Hands Across the Sand events across the country, it is critical that we not only call for an end to offshore drilling, but boldly tell the story of a country that can buck the corrupting stranglehold the fossil fuel industries hold on our nation and can build an economy that values innovation, community revitalization and a cleaner, brighter future.

We have an opportunity to redefine the narrative of this country.  Now is the time to do it.

Thought oil was bad enough already? Tar sands are worse.

Tar sands are the dirtiest fuel on the planet and are currently destroying land the size of Florida in Canada. Now, Canadian company Earth Energy Resources (EER) wants to bring there here to Utah. But we still have time to stop them.

Although the Department of Oil, Gas and Mining has approved EER’s permit to build the first commercial tar sands mine in the country, they still need to finalize environmental permits and raise money for construction. So, Peaceful Uprising is working to stop those permits and build public opposition to the mine to scare off investors.

Join Peaceful Uprising for our No Tar Sands campaign kick-off and find out how you can help keep tar sands out of Utah.

John Weisheit, the Colorado Riverkeeper, and Juliana Williams, No Tar Sands Organizer Extraordinaire, introduce the campaign and lead discussion of how we can work together to protect Utah from the sticky menace that is tar sands.

WHEN: Tuesday, June 29th, 7:30-8:30pm

WHERE: First Unitarian Church of SLC, 569 S 1300 E [map]