Canwest News Service |
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OTTAWA – Environmental activists are warning U.S. lawmakers and consumers that the Canadian oilsands sector is an environmental disaster that is poisoning U.S refineries.
“The environmental costs of tarsand development are staggering,” says a report released Wednesday by the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington-based group, in the latest salvo in a pitched public relations battle over Western Canada’s resource riches.
The report, Tar Sands: Feeding U.S. Refinery Expansions with Dirty Fuel, warned that much of the oil being processed in the United States would soon get dirtier since most refineries were being expanded to handle oil from Western Canada and meet Americans’ growing appetite for fossil fuels.
“As the rising price of oil has made extraction from Canadian tarsands profitable, U.S. oil refinery expansions to process the extra heavy sour crude from tarsands have come to dominate the refinery landscape,” says the analysis.