Tar sands and Idaho's wilderness gateway

June 9, 2010, Copyright the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Written by Nick Gier

Extracting hydrocarbons from crude oil and coal has always been a dirty business, but tar sands processing releases three to four times the greenhouse gases that conventional drilling does. Alberta's tar sands also require 220 gallons of fresh water to produce one barrel of oil.

The waste water from the processing plants has polluted the land and the once pure Athabasca River. Cancer rates are rising among the native populations there, and their moose meat is now laced with dangerous levels of arsenic.

Canada's Imperial Oil and Exxon-Mobil are now requesting permits from Idaho and Montana to move 200 loads of equipment to Alberta's Kearle Oil Project. These loads are truly oversized: 210 feet long, 30 feet tall, 24 feet wide and 300 tons.

We can well understand why the people of Vancouver, B.C., and every town between there and Fort McMurray, Alberta, do not want this super heavy traffic on their roads, but why should the people of Idaho and Montana agree to this?

About 92 miles of the proposed route runs along the Lochsa and Clearwater rivers, which has the "wild and scenic" designation. This pristine area offers superior camping, fishing and rafting opportunities.

At mile marker 124 there is a campground named "Wilderness Gateway." From there backpackers and mule trains enter the Selway-Bitterroot, the largest wilderness area outside of Alaska.

The Idaho permits require no public input, and the Department of Transportation is treating this as it would any other oversized load. In January 2009, without consulting the people of Idaho, Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter told Big Oil that he "has pledged our support and cooperation."

Montana does allow citizen input, and on April 29 hundreds of angry people showed up at a public hearing in Missoula. Those who testified now have legal standing to file suit in federal court to stop the shipments.

In March federal Judge Donald Malloy ruled that oil drilling on 38,000 acres in eastern Montana must be suspended until the impact of greenhouse gas emissions has been considered. Short of a suit, Montana activists are hoping they can persuade the government to conduct a federal environmental impact statement.

Today, oil extraction in Northern Alberta is the largest "single point" source of greenhouse gases in Canada, and experts predict that "by 2015, the oil sands are expected to emit more greenhouse gases than the nation of Denmark."

The oil companies have invested $22-$26 million in upgrading the roads. Observing that "one doesn't build a railroad and run only one train on it," Missoula attorney Robert Gentry believes that this is only the beginning of regular transshipments of oil equipment from Lewiston to Fort McMurray. One of America's most beautiful wilderness highways could be transformed into a major industrial truck route.

The processed crude from these fields is pumped directly into pipelines to be refined in the U.S. It is predicted that 40 percent of America's oil supplies will eventually come from what has been called the most destructive extraction industry in human history.

On the fourth day of the proposed shipments from Lewiston, Imperial Oil's huge loads will sit all day long at Wilderness Gateway. I can think of nothing more offensive to me as an Idahoan who, like tens of thousands of others, loves this state's natural beauty.

These steel behemoths will symbolize everything that is bad about extracting oil from and destroying Canadian wilderness and remind us of everything that is good about Idaho's pristine land and waters.

I urge people to sign the petition sponsored by "No Shipments Network" at www.ipetitions.com/petition/notrucksnotarsands.

Nick Gier is a University of Idaho professor emeritus. For 38 years he has fished and rafted Idaho's rivers and hiked its wilderness trails.