Not long after 500 migratory ducks died from landing in a tailings pond created by Syncrude, there is more bad news for the companies capitalizing on Canada’s tar sands. A new report released by Toronto based advocacy group Environmental Defense claims that 11 million liters of leaking water from tailings ponds is being released into the environment on a daily basis. This is equivalent to filling Toronto’s Rogers Centre stadium with contaminated water 2.5 times every year.
The environmental catastrophe taking place in Canada is among the most serious found anywhere in the world. The long term effects, although not yet completely realized, are so devastating that over 150 million migrating birds will die in the next 50 years. This, of course, is in addition to the plants, people, and other species that are already dying from exposure to contaminated water from the tar sands.
Not long after 500 migratory ducks died from landing in a tailings pond created by Syncrude, there is more bad news for the companies capitalizing on Canada’s tar sands. A new report released by Toronto based advocacy group Environmental Defense claims that 11 million liters of leaking water from tailings ponds is being released into the environment on a daily basis. This is equivalent to filling Toronto’s Rogers Centre stadium with contaminated water 2.5 times every year.
The environmental catastrophe taking place in Canada is among the most serious found anywhere in the world. The long term effects, although not yet completely realized, are so devastating that over 150 million migrating birds will die in the next 50 years. This, of course, is in addition to the plants, people, and other species that are already dying from exposure to contaminated water from the tar sands.
By Michael Morris, at The Element Agency in New York