Thursday, May 01, 2008

No Excuse part two

Yesterday I posted in regards to the news of 500 ducks landing in one of the tailing ponds at a Syncrude oilsands site. I was not impressed at all. In my anger I was not very clear in regards to my reasoning. It is not about the number of ducks killed. Hell, I probably have shot more birds than that in all my years of hunting...

What got me was the non reaction from Syncrude. How they did not report this and that we had to find out about it from a tip from the public at large. That is not acceptable!

The image of the oilsands projects as "not environmentally friendly" is bad enough without shit like this happening. The Alberta government is now spending 25 million dollars of OUR MONEY to try and curb this poor image.

[...] Environment Minister Rob Renner concedes the incident has put a major dent in Alberta's efforts to counter the message being spread by environment groups that the massive northern oilsands projects are taking a major toll on the environment.

“It's a real blow to our messaging that we are working very, very hard ensure that we do have sustainable development,” Mr. Renner told The Canadian Press.

“Are people going to focus on this for their own political interests? Of course they are,” said the minister. “Does this mean that we're not doing an adequate job of protecting the environment? No it doesn't.” [...]


How do you think this news is going to go over internationally? EnvironMENTAL groups love this sort of thing. They will use it as ammunition in their rhetoric to bash these projects even more so.

Prime Minister Harper see's it in the same light as I do.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says there's no doubt that Canada's environmental image has been hurt by the deaths of 500 ducks on a toxic oilsands tailings pond in northern Alberta.

Harper says this loss of wildlife should not have happened and he says federal officials are investigating. [...]


Syncrude... do the right thing, Cut a check right now and send it to Ducks Unlimited and at least save some face here.

4 comments:

Gayle said...

Good morning, Tim.

I really do detest the fact that this will give the environuts more ammunition against the Alberta Oil Sands. With the fix we are in having to depend on Saudi and Hugo Chavez for oil, it's not a good thing. I agree that Syncrude should cut the check and let this issue die as quick a death as possible.

Tim said...

Unfortunately Gayle... it is already too late. It is already international news. Alberta/ Albertan's will now have to work harder to change the image projected by the environMENTALists and this little episode.

Gayle said...

#%&@!

Tim said...

Should I translate? naaaaa.....