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Calgary-based U.S. Oil Sands set to operate in Utah
11 November 2012
(CRC)—A Calgary-based oil producer as been granted a permit to start producing 2,000 barrels per day of oil extracted from tar sands in Utah, thereby becoming “the first-ever-tar sands extraction project commercially built in the United States.” The National Post of November 9 reports that “Utah is presumed to have 6.1 billion to 19 billion barrels of oil sands reserves and U.S. Oil Sands has acquired 32,000 acres in the Uintah basin—the largest oil sands holding in the state." Cameron Todd, the CEO of U.S. Oil Sands, said that a citrus-based solvent “will leave the oil-soaked sands as clean as beach sand,” with the company recovering 96 percent of the solvent and filling the pit up with the clean sand even as it continues mining,” Todd has accused Living River, the environmental group leading the court challenges of trying to block the project by whatever means: “It’s not about groundwater—it’s about not wanting development to occur, and this is their vehicle to do that.” Todd points out that “the solvent has been found environmentally safe by the Environmental Protection Agency and has even been used to help clean up oil spills along beaches,” reports City Weekly. The Living River Executive Director is Owen Lammer, the former Director and Vice-President of International Rivers Network, the international environmentalist group known for its opposition to dams. This is the group that was responsible, together with WWF-Pakistan, for stopping the building of the long-awaited Kalabagh dam,which would have prevented the flooding in Pakistan in August 2010 and saved over 1600 persons from death and over 20 million displaced Pakistan citizens! Living Rivers is also a member of the New York-based Waterkeeper Alliance, whose President is Robert Kennedy, Jr. As for the Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico Keystone XL pipeline, whose fate now rests with Barack Obama, it will be the target of a November 18 demonstration, in front of the White House, led by environmentalist Bill McGibben. |