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" The blog&amp;#039;s old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, the sprawling death-funnel that will bring the dirtiest fossil fuel ever known to man down through the breadbasket of the world all the way to Galveston, and thence to parts unknown, where it will help us burn down the world, gets a lot of attention just as a construction project, mostly because of the hilariously inflated estimates of its economic benefits and the numbers of jobs it will create. But we should also always keep in mind the cancer-juice that it will carry, and the fact that pipelines leak, all the damn time. The Toronto Star has done a brilliant -- and more than slightly terrifying -- job of covering one such spill in the environmental wasteland once known as Alberta. Oil spills at a major oil sands operation in Alberta have been ongoing for at least six weeks and have cast doubts on the safety of underground extraction methods, according to documents obtained by the Star and a government scientist who has been on site. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has been unable to stop an underground oil blowout that has killed numerous animals and contaminated a lake, forest, and muskeg at its operations in Cold Lake, Alta. The documents indicate that, since cleanup started in May, some 26,000 barrels of bitumen mixed with surface water have been removed, including more than 4,500 barrels of bitumen.The scientist said Canadian Natural Resources is not disclosing the scope of spills in four separate sites, which have been off bounds to media and the public because the operations are on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, where there is active weapons testing by the Canadian military. Lovely. But, don&amp;#039;t worry, the experts have everything well in hand. The company says it is effectively managing and cleaning up the spills. &amp;quot;The areas have been secured and the emulsion is being managed with clean up, recovery and reclamation activities well underway. The presence of emulsion on the surface does not pose a health or human safety risk. The sites are located in a remote area which has restricted access to the public. The emulsion is being effectively cleaned up with manageable environmental impact,&amp;quot; the company said in a statement. Which, because this is a statement from an energy company, is very likely a baldfaced non-fact. The scientist, who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job, said the operation was in chaos. &amp;quot;Everybody (at the company and in government) is freaking out about this,&amp;quot; said the scientist. &amp;quot;We don&amp;#039;t understand what happened. Nobody really understands how to stop it from leaking, or if they do they haven&amp;#039;t put the measures into place.&amp;quot;...Oil companies have said in situ methods are more environmentally friendly than the open-pit mining often associated with the Alberta oil sands, but in situ is more carbon and water-intensive. &amp;quot;In the course of injecting steam they&amp;#039;ve created fractures from the reservoir to the surface that they didn&amp;#039;t expect,&amp;quot; said the scientist, who is speaking out over concern that neither the company nor Alberta&amp;#039;s regulatory bodies would properly address the situation.  All of which has something to do with why our neighbors to the north want to ship this planet-killing Flavor-Aid through this country instead of their own. I say we put the project on hold until somebody &amp;quot;understands&amp;quot; how in the fk to get the stuff out of beavers, loons, and the groundwater. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a19082/oil-sands-spills-072313/>