“…there are no more new frontiers, we have got to make it here…” – Don Henley, The Last Resort
Like many of you, I grew up in rural Alberta within sight and sniff of numerous natural gas flares. I thought nothing of it and no one in those years had ever heard of Greenpeace. Alberta’s hydrocarbon industry was a comparatively recent discovery and our political and business leaders were carefully nurturing dreams of a place on the world’s economic stage.
Some 65 years after Leduc No. 1 launched our province on a trajectory toward significant wealth and international fame; there is cause for concern regarding the toll that the world’s unquenchable thirst for oil and gas is wreaking on our environmental and psychological health. Several substantial oil spills/leaks have polluted Alberta’s waterways in the past couple of years alone.
I am not interested in randomly bad-mouthing an industry that is partially responsible for the quality of life I enjoy as an Albertan. Alternatively, neither am I interested in allowing those benefits to blind me to the necessity of vigilant responsibility that must accompany efforts to obtain and transport crude oil around the world. We are to be stewards, not exploiters, of creation.
Every time I fly into Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to visit my son, I am heartsick by the still-visible damage inflicted on the sensitive eco-system of the Bayou State by the explosion at British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon drill in the Gulf of Mexico back in April 2010. What particularly irritates me is information I’ve gleaned via conversations with that region’s shrimpers and fishermen whose livelihoods were destroyed in a state where the average salary is around $19,000 USD. BP’s payouts are not going to immediately undo all of the damages sustained. Let us not be fooled by popular spin - money does not adequately cover all wrongs in such scenarios. Authorities estimate it will be decades before environmental damages in the Gulf can be accurately assessed.
When I learned that personnel at Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. were aware since 2005 that its Michigan pipeline was in serious need of repair yet did nothing, my confidence in a company slated to build a portion of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline took a nosedive.
I’m well aware of the compensation packages oil company executives receive. Is there a reciprocal retraction of said compensation when gross negligence is evident?
More often than not, what happens is the industry’s spin-control infrastructure kicks into high gear so that you have Canadian Energy Pipeline Association President Brenda Kenny pontificating about the Michigan spill: “The ecosystem is thriving . There is a little bit of cleanup left in a few small areas but by and large it’s back to normal or better.”
Puh-leeze! Several years ago, a simple vehicle oil-change gone awry left a substantial oil stain on my concrete driveway.
Six Alberta winters and numerous Canadian Tire guaranteed chemical-removers later, the stain is still visible.
Here’s one Albertan who would simply like to hear firms like Enbridge own-up and wise-up. As it now stands, I fear that “mea culpa” is still the loneliest phrase in the industry.
Tim Callaway is pastor of Faith Community Baptist Church in Airdrie. He can be reached at [email protected]
