Alberta's Ducks

Well it was recently discovered that 500 ducks had died in a Syncrude trialling pond that is part of the tar sands development projects. The birds were coated with oil and thus couldn't fly either drowning or being rescued quickly only to die later on. This is a appalling, not that the ducks died which is awful, but the fact that our oil comes at a cost such as this, trailing ponds which cover vast areas which are a disgusting mix of water oil and other chemicals.

Trailing ponds are the result of the massive oil sands projects which pull water from the Athabasca river at a ratio of 5 barrels of water for every one barrel of oil produced. The water which helps separate the oil from the sand then is discharged into these ponds to become stagnant but often mixing with ground water or being mixed in with fresh water resources.

The environmental impact has been devastating but luckily the projects are far from urban centers so the population and voters don't see the problems. This is how the oil companies and the Alberta government has gotten away with massive developments unchallenged.

I heard the question "Are companies like Syncrude doing enough to protect the environment?", this is such a silly question. Why would they care about tar ponds created from their development? They are a publicly held company with responsibilities only to their stockholders and stockholders enter the stock market to make money, not to advance an environmental agenda. If Syncrudes stockholders have a problem with 500 ducks dieing, they would have pulled out long ago, they would have read about the environmental devastation of northern Alberta and sold shares quickly, but obviously there are still tons of stockholders remaining so they won't have a problem with a few dead birds as long as they can sell higher then what the bought the stock at. So as long as our corporate structure is centered largely about profits and money, then environmental devastation will be the result, its the same story told over again.

So while a "democratically" elected government allows oil companies to do as they please, little will be done to improve Alberta's and the worlds environmental situation.