Re: Tar sands = fhttp://forums.canadiancontent.net/newreply.ilthy dirty bitumen "oil"
funny how the oil industry apologists always try to deflect.
funny how the oil industry apologists always try to deflect.
Tar sands = filthy dirty bitumen "oil"
- Thread starter dumpthemonarchy
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Re: Tar sands = fhttp://forums.canadiancontent.net/newreply.ilthy dirty bitumen "oil"
Well,i'm not an apologist nor am I a fan of big oil.
I can tell shi* from shinola though.
I would rather focus on clean ups and reclamation and due diligence then finger pointing for mistakes made from past years,guess I'm just being pro active.
Well,i'm not an apologist nor am I a fan of big oil.
I can tell shi* from shinola though.
I would rather focus on clean ups and reclamation and due diligence then finger pointing for mistakes made from past years,guess I'm just being pro active.
There are very high levels of mercury in the lakes around Nelson, B.C.... As far as I know, there ain't no oilsands in that area, so in answer to your question, yeah, it does occur naturally.
On that note, pulp and paper, coal mining ops throughout Canada and mills let alone the coal-fired generation stations that expel air-borne pollutants (lots of heavy metals in there) add to the equation.
we're talking about around and downstream from the oilsands. Not anywhere else. \the bringing up of other areas not connected to the oilsands is called deflection and has no bearing on the present discussion.
Lots of the mercury came from old placer gold mining operations and the coal mines arent as bad as most think,they use only water to clean the coal as coal floats.
You can find mercury in lots of streams in B.C. where the miners used it to catch gold in their gold pans.
Gold sticks to mercury and it has to be amalgamted to then seperate it so in the old days miners would put it right in their gold pans.
Well,unless you can provide documentation on samples taken before the oilsands existed for comparison,your deflecting as well.
Re: Tar sands = fhttp://forums.canadiancontent.net/newreply.ilthy dirty bitumen "oil"
Which I guess is why, any time anyone suggests that things can be done better, your answer is that they're pefect the way they are.
Which I guess is why, any time anyone suggests that things can be done better, your answer is that they're pefect the way they are.
The lake(s) in the nelson area have some outcroppings of the base material that has leached mercury into those bodies of water.
The only point that i wanted to make is that there are all kinds of ways that heavy metals can get into the system.... On that note, you mentioned the Lost Creek Fire and the "forest management" practices that have not allowed for the natural birth-death-rebirth cycles to operate. In 2005 (?) there was a large forest fire in and around Turtle mountain and there was a very real threat that the fire could have potentially ignited some exposed coal seams that (potentially) may have burned into Turtle mountain.
Not only would this inject massive amounts of heavy metals into the atmosphere, the fact is that there are areas in Pennsylvania and Russia that have been experiencing these fires (anaerobic in many cases) for 50+ years... Where are the eco-nutbars on this issue?
Yes, but the patterns of deposition are predictable. It's the same thing they find around the oil sands operations. It's no comfort to folks downstream/downwind from oil sands operations that elsewhere people have to deal with the same sorts of problems.
In fact it's just more of the same type of thinking that creates the problem.
The lead smelter in Trail BC was dumping slag in the Columbia River for years, and signed a deal with the EPA in the US to investigate the impacts it had. Now they're being sued by folks who live downstream. The same could happen to the oil sands operations, and even the environmental agencies in Ottawa/Edmonton who are charged with monitoring the situation.
Re: Tar sands = fhttp://forums.canadiancontent.net/newreply.ilthy dirty bitumen "oil"
what?
I'm all about things being done better,theres allways room for improvement and in my 35 years working I have seen vast improvements in environmental responsibility.
I'm not a speaker for big oil or industry,on the contrary,my work now is totally involved in cleanup and reclamation.
some of you are quick to make assumptions on what I'm talking about,i didnt help get reclamation awards for a couple big companies by letting them get away with anything.
Coal is very hard to ignite but once burning it's allmost impossible to extinguish but we werent too worried about any seams in turtle catching fire as there are no outcrops exposed that arent buried by the slide now.
Coal also burns very slowly so even if some small exposed seam caught fire,it would be thousands of years before it ever got anywhere inside the mountain.Turtle will slide on the east side again anyways in the future,that's a given,I watch huge boulders come down all the time from where i'm sitting now.
I live in Frank,the part of town that wasnt buried by the slide.:lol:
Our burning coal seams produce little smoke,nothing like the thousands of square mile coal fires that are burning in China,those are massive.
Not logging the mature pine is what attracted the pine beetles from the flathead B.C. range where they migrated from.I worked on the beetle program in 1978 and saw the damage starting first hand.
Now it's spruce beetle infestations and once again the old growth spruce stands were exempted from logging back in the 70's because of environuts that thought they were doing the right thing but only helped in creating a fire hazard.
What spruce that didnt burn is now infested with beetles.
I will also point out that most coal fires are due to spontaneous combustion,once exposed to the atmosphere they will start oxidizing and burning even though there will be no flame,in fact a pile of damp freshly mined coal can catch fire in a couple weeks if not turned every now and then,just like a compost pile.Thats why most coal seams are considered thermal near the outcrops and mettalurgical farther inside the mountain,thermal is a lower grade of coal because it has been oxidized by oxygen.
what?
I'm all about things being done better,theres allways room for improvement and in my 35 years working I have seen vast improvements in environmental responsibility.
I'm not a speaker for big oil or industry,on the contrary,my work now is totally involved in cleanup and reclamation.
some of you are quick to make assumptions on what I'm talking about,i didnt help get reclamation awards for a couple big companies by letting them get away with anything.
I mentioned the lost creek fire because not only did I run a hoe on the firelines on that fire but I also have a very close view of turtle mountain from my bedroom window and did watch the top of it burn for close to a month.As far as a coal seam catching fire,the whole lost creek fire was on coal beds and abandoned strip and underground mines.We have coal fires burning here in the pass,in sparwood B.C. and also in Elkford B.C. and they have been burning for many years.
Coal is very hard to ignite but once burning it's allmost impossible to extinguish but we werent too worried about any seams in turtle catching fire as there are no outcrops exposed that arent buried by the slide now.
Coal also burns very slowly so even if some small exposed seam caught fire,it would be thousands of years before it ever got anywhere inside the mountain.Turtle will slide on the east side again anyways in the future,that's a given,I watch huge boulders come down all the time from where i'm sitting now.
I live in Frank,the part of town that wasnt buried by the slide.:lol:
Our burning coal seams produce little smoke,nothing like the thousands of square mile coal fires that are burning in China,those are massive.
Not logging the mature pine is what attracted the pine beetles from the flathead B.C. range where they migrated from.I worked on the beetle program in 1978 and saw the damage starting first hand.
Now it's spruce beetle infestations and once again the old growth spruce stands were exempted from logging back in the 70's because of environuts that thought they were doing the right thing but only helped in creating a fire hazard.
What spruce that didnt burn is now infested with beetles.
I will also point out that most coal fires are due to spontaneous combustion,once exposed to the atmosphere they will start oxidizing and burning even though there will be no flame,in fact a pile of damp freshly mined coal can catch fire in a couple weeks if not turned every now and then,just like a compost pile.Thats why most coal seams are considered thermal near the outcrops and mettalurgical farther inside the mountain,thermal is a lower grade of coal because it has been oxidized by oxygen.
Kakato,
The point of my post was to illustrate that heavy metals get into the atmosphere through many channels. The ecotards get their panties all in a bunch over the oilsands because it is the trendy cause-du-jour and refuse to recognize that life is full of this from all kinds of sources.
The point about the Lost Creek fire had to do with the pressures applied by the aforementioned loonies that fight tooth and nail against any logging in these areas and demand that forestry management techniques be applied that act to create a potential liability.
While the opportunity for coal seams to ignite "naturally" exists, the fact is that under artificial circumstances the results of these lobby groups may be unexpectedly dire and (ironically) touch off some of these seams that will burn the coal and dump heavy metals into the localized environment.
The point of my post was to illustrate that heavy metals get into the atmosphere through many channels. The ecotards get their panties all in a bunch over the oilsands because it is the trendy cause-du-jour and refuse to recognize that life is full of this from all kinds of sources.
The point about the Lost Creek fire had to do with the pressures applied by the aforementioned loonies that fight tooth and nail against any logging in these areas and demand that forestry management techniques be applied that act to create a potential liability.
While the opportunity for coal seams to ignite "naturally" exists, the fact is that under artificial circumstances the results of these lobby groups may be unexpectedly dire and (ironically) touch off some of these seams that will burn the coal and dump heavy metals into the localized environment.
For sure and I allways look at both sides,the eco dudes had good intentions but got caught up in an agenda as the ones that had shut down or restricted logging in the bow crow forestry where the lost creek fire was had summer cottages on the way to this forestry so theres allways bad and good enviromentalists.
Weeding out the bad from the good is something I try to do as nothing hurts the environment more then a bad environut with an agenda.
I have never ever denied the oilsands pump out toxic chemicals because they do,my thing is to be proactive and with good environmentalism do something about stopping it.
Trust me,the MFT I work in is bad stuff,it burns your eyes and gives you headaches and a sore throat in seconds.That's why I wont be doing what I am for very long,i'll move on to a different operation where i'm not exposed and do more digging on it as theres not much research done on the guys working on the tailings reduction operations because the technology is so new.I'll try spread the word and facts to the guys that are working on it because there is a lot of ignorance involved when some peeps just look at the paycheque they get to send back home to Newfoundland.
I also would never drink the water downstream from the oilsands,not because I dont trust the testing going on but because theres so much bad propaganda being published that you dont know what to believe and I also know the pulp mills are responsible for lots of toxins in the Athabasca as well as natural leeching.
That has been published.
Funny that the only guys I work with that are questioning the MFT that we work with are Albertans,the rest are just there for payday and i'm not kidding.
I see them handling the stuff with bare hands and try tell them how complex of a chemical recipe their handling and most dont care and their mostly easterners.
Except that the oil sands operations and the pollution associated show distinct depositional patterns consistent with industrial sources of emission.
Something that even elementary school students can understand.
Gee Ton, you still don't get it. What cappy is sayin is that since it occurs naturally, then the industrial pollution don't matter.
No, what cappy is sayin' is that you are bending over backwards to be the biggest and best hypocrite possible.
I mentioned this earlier in the thread... Don't like the evils that come with the oil/gas industry, then don't buy their bloody products.. The solution is easy, you just need the balls to do it.
Yeah, he has a habit of ignoring the middle ground. It's all a black and white dichotomy to him. We either know everything, or we don't know anything, we either must embrace dirty forms of energy, or resort to caveman technology.
What a maroon.
roflmfao. No, the solution is to do a better job of cleaning up, or better yet, prevent the mess before hand. THAT would be being proactive. Taking the attitude you have means nothing gets done.
Prevent the mess before hand?.. Seriously?
You do understand that there are vast swaths of land where the sands have been at surface before European explorers came here, right? Hell, there are records that the local FN's used to use the oils to assist in water-proofing their canoes prior to Europeans being here.
The reality is that this situation has existed for (probably) thousands of years in central AB and Sask.
You do understand that there are vast swaths of land where the sands have been at surface before European explorers came here, right? Hell, there are records that the local FN's used to use the oils to assist in water-proofing their canoes prior to Europeans being here.
The reality is that this situation has existed for (probably) thousands of years in central AB and Sask.
well, I see discussing this with you is a complete waste of time since you don't seem capable of admitting that there is a problem.
Yes, indeed, so it has.
Does this have anything to do with the studies that show that the mining/extraction/upgrading operations dump MORE and DIFFERENT pollutants into the river?