Fort McMurray votes to put brakes on oil sands
LARISSA LIEPENS
Canadian Press
FORT MCMURRAY, ALTA. — The mayor and council in this booming northern Alberta city voted unanimously Tuesday to try and put the brakes on all future oil sands development until something is done to improve the area's infrastructure.
Specifically, Mayor Melissa Blake and the council for the Municipality of Wood Buffalo agreed to apply for intervenor status when oil sands giant Suncor goes to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board on July 5 to apply for an expansion of its operations.
However, they also decided to take the same action for any future application by any other oil sands company.
“There's going to be a definite impact on how much the oil sands itself can advance and progress if we can't get our housing situation under control,” said Ms. Blake.
“We can't get people to move to the community. Then we'll start losing business services ... we need to get more people working in service and hospitality.”
Ms. Blake said the province and the oil sands companies must provide more funding to improve community infrastructure, or at the very least, bring in the skilled labour to help build infrastructure projects.
For instance, Syncrude recently donated $2.5-million to an athletic park as well as the skilled labour to build it.
Ms. Blake said that with the help of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, the city has been pushing for the right to tax oil sands companies separately from normal businesses, but the province has yet to review and approve the proposal.
“What we really need to drive home is the point that the community is not able to proceed any further with the limitations that we have,” she said.
“We cannot continue to accommodate debt and debt and debt on the municipality's back and not have something to offset that.”
The municipality estimates it will be carrying $263-million in debt by the end of this year.
Suncor spokeswoman Darcie Park said she wasn't surprised by council's decision to hold a vote on the issue.
“We do totally respect the municipality's right to intervene, if they decide that that is necessary,” Ms. Park said.
“We've been consulting extensively with our stakeholders and we're working hard to resolve outstanding issues.”
A municipal task force heard Monday night from about a dozen residents of Fort Chipewyan, many of them First Nations and Metis people who say the land and water they have relied on for their traditional way of life has been destroyed.
Falling water levels have dried up the rich hunting grounds of the delta, where the Athabasca River empties into Lake Athabasca south of town, presenters said.
“The delta is a natural filter for crap, and we're sitting in the toilet bowl,” said resident Ernest Thacker.
Many residents also believe the Athabasca River, the source of drinking water for the hamlet, is contaminated by unnamed cancer-causing agents released by oil sands plants.
“Long ago, we lived in the bush and ate everything,” said Mary Rose Waquan, 84. “Now the moose meat and ducks don't taste as good, the wild plants we ate don't grow along the river, and the water isn't fit to drink.” |
