Guest Column: Tar Sands Meet Salish Sea

By Chuenchom Sangarasri Greacen

What do you think about the tar sands industry exporting its crude to the world through the Salish Sea in addition to the planned coal exports from Cherry Point?

A sticky tar-like form of crude oil mixed with sand and clay, tar sands of Alberta, Canada – also called oil sands – are one of the largest remaining deposits of oil in the world. The combined carbon in tar sands is more than all the carbon emitted from oil use in the world history thus far.

Extracting the tar sands by strip mining, solvents, and steam has created the biggest and “most destructive” project in the world, according to Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace.

Map of existing and proposed oil sands pipelines

Despite the high energy and environmental costs to extract, tar sands are rising in prominence as a major source of oil. The U.S. main and growing source of oil imports is from Canada, surpassing the Middle East and Mexico. And more than half of the Canadian oil production in 2010 is from tar sands. Already very large, the tar sands crude production is expected to grow 150% by 2025.

According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian oil industry is in an “oversupply” situation and looking for an “outlet.” President Obama halted (at least for now) the Keystone XL pipeline project to export tar sands oil through the Gulf. Now our Salish Sea and the Strait of Juan de Fuca are seen by the tar sand industry as an attractive gateway to export this excess oil to Asia.

In fact, it’s already been happening. The existing “Trans-Mountain” oil pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to Vancouver, BC and with a spur pipeline to Anacortes provides the only access for Canadian oil to reach the West Coast. In 2007, over 3.4 million barrels of crude oil were shipped to China from Vancouver.

And that’s just the beginning.

Houston-based Kinder Morgan (KM), one of North America’s largest oil pipeline companies, is planning for a major increase in the quantities of crude oil shipped through its Trans-Mountain pipeline and Westridge dock east of Vancouver.

Already, oil tanker traffic has tripled between 2005 and 2010, and is planned to triple again by 2016 . Pipeline expansion will increase crude oil deliveries from 300,000 to 850,000 barrels per day by 2017. KM announced last month it planned to double the capacity by January next year, hoping to beat other competitors to get oil to the coast.

About 450,000 bpd would be exported while the remaining are for BC, Washington refineries and some shippers. KM also plans to dredge the Burrard Inlet allowing for larger tankers (160,000 deadweight-ton “Suezmax”) to reach the terminal.

These massive oil tankers will skirt the west side of San Juan Islands on their way out to the Pacific. Though the ships will likely stay within the Canadian border, devastating impacts from a spill accident will not.

Unlike the case of Keystone XL, we do not have a direct say in this. Well, not yet anyway, unless we act.

Both the Washington and BC governments and citizens must be involved in the dialogue of whether KM should be permitted to expand the pipeline and whether increased traffic of tankers carrying toxic crude should be allowed in our shared waters.

KM has yet to file an application with the Canadian National Energy Board to expand the pipeline. There is still a window of opportunity to make our voice heard. Write Governor Christine Gregoire. Talk to your neighbors. Mobilize. Drive less.

Hopefully, tar sands crude will not meet the Salish Sea, not directly or indirectly. Nor will the coal trains.

Chuenchom Sangarasri Greacen is an energy researcher living on Lopez Island and a member of Islands Energy Coalition, a volunteer-based group of energy enthusiasts interested in a happy, resilient future of San Juan Islands.