Trucking toward climate change.

• Author: Jamail, Dahr
• Position: Report

The tar sands mining project in Alberta, Canada, is possibly the largest industrial project in human history, and critics claim it could also be the most destructive. The mining procedure for extracting oil from a region referred to as the "tar sands," located north of Edmonton, releases at least three times the [CO.sub.2] emissions as regular oil production procedures and will likely become North America's single largest industrial contributor to climate change. Most of the oil produced by the project will likely be consumed by the United States, a country that, along with Canada, is already heavily invested, on many levels, in the project.

The project is operated by Imperial Oil, whose parent company, ExxonMobil Canada, has a long-term production goal of more than 300,000 barrels of bitumen (extra-heavy oil) per day. To do this, they will require new equipment to be shipped through the United States.

Trucks and trailers moving specialized, nontoxic mining equipment from where it is manufactured in Korea to the Kearl oil sands project, located in the Athabasca oil sands in northeastern Alberta, are slated to use highways in Idaho and Montana to transport the gear. This would happen after it has been shipped across the Pacific Ocean to Portland, Oregon, where it would then be barged up the Hood and Snake Rivers to Lewiston, Idaho, from which it would be hauled over land into Canada.

Pius Rolheiser, a spokesman for Imperial Oil, said this is the most cost-effective method of moving the equipment, much to the chagrin of many residents in these states.

The basis of most opposition to this idea is that the tar sands project will contribute so heavily toward worsening climate change. There are other criticisms as well, like those aimed at the size of the equipment to be shipped along routes that are designated "wild and scenic" highways that wind precariously through fragile ecosystems.

"We can speculate that this will have a significant impact on bull trout habitat, an endangered species and on grizzly bear habitat, which the EA [Environmental Agency] in Montana has noted as an issue from the construction itself, sediment buildup, paving equipment and such," said Nick Stocks, co-founder of the group Northern Rockies Rising Tide in Missoula, Montana, a group that promotes local, community-based solutions to the climate crisis and takes direct action toward confronting what it sees as the root causes of climate change.

"In Montana the construction of new pullouts and the repaying and upgrading of existing pullouts is cause for much concern along the Montana portion of Highway 12," Stocks added. "Community members and organizations have fought to clean up both of these areas and protect them as the wild and scenic places they are. New construction, new turnouts and this proposed new corridor all run contrary to decades of work and investment the community has had in maintaining these places. The risk of spill, mitigation procedures and sediment issues in the rivers have not been adequately taken into account."

The "modules" from Korea comprise loads that are more than 150 feet long, approximately 30...