Black gold’s tarnish seen in Canada

07/08/2007

Cash and jobs flow bountifully from Alberta's oil sands, but they come at a cost to the environment and native peoples.


By Tim Reiterman,
LA Times Staff Writer
July 8, 2007


FORT MCMURRAY, CANADA — The Aurora Mine exudes the odor of petroleum and the look of untapped riches.

The open pit mine plunges 250 feet deep and ranges over a couple of square miles, carved out of pine and spruce forest by gigantic machines that operate 24/7, even in the dark of winter at 40 below zero.

This is the heart of Alberta's oil sands, a remote Florida-sized region where moose, bears and beavers inhabit watery woodlands atop the world's largest proven petroleum reserves outside Saudi Arabia.

The unusual deposits — where oil is locked in the tarry soil rather than pooled beneath the surface — are yielding a bonanza of investment dollars, government revenue and jobs.

Almost half of Canada's oil production comes from the oil sands — and the energy industry estimates that enough oil can be economically extracted to fill the country's needs for three centuries.

The vast majority of Canadian oil exports goes to the United States, and the Bush administration sees the remaining resources as America's best hope for reducing dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

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