Rights Action
April 22, 2023
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Oilsands discharge into First Nations water supply latest example of exploitation
Indigenous lands are continuously exploited and delegated as sacrifice zones for the gains of the rich, powerful and white society.
By Brandi Morin, Contributing Columnist Toronto Star, April 20, 2023
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2023/04/20/oilsands-discharge-into-first-nations-water-supply-latest-example-of-exploitation.html
Once again Indigenous communities are bearing the brunt of the corruption, contamination and pollution of their territories by industry.
Yet another oilsands corporation has dumped 5.9 million litres of oilsands “overflow” water and mud into a creek that discharges into the Athabasca River. Announced on Tuesday by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), the amount released was two times over provincially regulated limits.
Fort Chipewyan is in Northern Alberta, where mostly Dene, Cree and Métis people live, along the banks of the Athabasca River. The community of approximately 1,200 were (non-surprisingly) left in the dark about the spill into their main water source. Because side-stepping regulator rules is becoming standard practice by the biggest players in the business of oil. At the same time, the AER is failing to hold these industries to account.
You may recall in February, Fort Chipewyan learned of a 5.3-million-liter toxic tailings leak from Imperial Oil’s Kearl Lake Mine. This mine had been previously spilling for a whole year and Imperial, along with the AER, did not notify effected First Nations like Fort Chipewyan.
On Monday, Indigenous leaders from Fort Chipewyan testified in hearings in Ottawa about the impacts to their community. Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) Chief Allan Adam called the AER a “complete joke” and called for its disbandment.
In a statement released Wednesday, Chief Adam said, “Suncor’s actions highlight the continued failure of the AER to prevent, properly communicate, or proactively regulate environmental catastrophes in the oilsands. The AER needs to be disbanded and replaced with a new agency that is able to properly oversee industry. An agency that is rooted in the protection of our section 35 and Treaty rights.”
Chief Adam then criticized the AER on Wednesday after First Nation communities further downstream in the Northwest Territories were not informed about the spills, instead they found out from the ACFN.
Are the oilsands executives performing test drills for their planned disposal of trillions of litres of aging tailings ponds waste into the Athabasca? The federal government is expected to finalized legislation for the oil industry on how to “safely” dump “treated” tailings into the river.
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TESTIMONIO: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala
Edited by Catherine Nolin (UNBC) and Grahame Russell (Rights Action)
Read about how mainly Canadian mining companies operate in Indigenous Mayan “sacrifice zones” in Guatemala, for the gains of the rich and powerful in Canada and the global north.
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