Dangerous hunt for tar sands oil

By Dave Starr, Las Vegas

Friday, May 16, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

Most political issues are dictated by money, not facts.

TransCanada must get its tar sands crude oil to a sophisticated refinery to get it ready for sale to the world market. The Canadian government denied TransCanada’s proposal to build a pipeline to send its dirty product through northern British Columbia to oil tankers.

In an initiative to support TransCanada, the Canadian government contacted its oil-crazy southern neighbor with a proposal to run a pipeline through several states to Texas refineries. It is not a secret that this pipeline would run directly over the United States’ biggest aquifer.

So TransCanada calibrated and strategically concocted a spin of lies directed to the media. Do you think TransCanada cares about what happens to our water system?

There is a 250-acre area in Alberta where the tar sands oil product is being drawn from the ground, and it is now a wasteland similar to Chernobyl without the radiation. Nothing will ever live or grow in that area.

The tar sands oil spill in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan is still there after four years. The oil company has spent billions and can’t remove the oil on the bottom of the river.

Oil companies’ spill cleanup techniques have not improved in decades because they don’t spend enough money on spill cleanup technology — it affects their bottom-line profits.

If an oil spill gets into the aquifer, the aquifer will be gone forever. The oil cannot be removed. Think about it.