NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) may issue a permit tomorrow reversed an earlier decision and ordered a full environmental review rather than issue a permit to Global Partners for a facility to accept and heat heavy crude from the infamous Alberta Tar Sands in Canada, the dirtiest oil in the world. Tar Sands produces less net energy than ordinary crude and emits far more greenhouse pollution.
Reports say that DEC could announce a decision to permit the project this Thursday 5/21.
New York state regulators said Thursday they'll require further environmental review before deciding whether to allow a fuel transport company to install facilities at the Port of Albany that critics say would make the port a hub for heavy Canadian tar sands crude oil. -- Mary Esch, AP UPDATE: Rumors last week had been that the permit was a done deal, but the combined impact of a powerfully argued long letter to DEC by Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato, 1900 public comments, protests by the threatened South End community and People of Albany United for Safe Energy (PAUSE), calls for a full Environmental review by Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, the Albany Common Council, and Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, a message this week to DEC from EPA Regional Admistrator Judith Enck pointing out unresolved questions, and the work of PAUSE, MoveOn.org, and a tweet by Bill McKibben to generate calls to Gov. Cuomo who gives DEC its marching orders, tipped the balance.As David Suzuki said "in the environmental movement, every time you lose a battle it's for good, but our victories always seem to be temporary and we keep fighting them over and over again." We are prepared to keep fighting.
The GLOBAL HEATING facility would use multiple boilers to heat rail cars full of “heavy crude oil” to allow it to flow enough to be pumped to barges on the Hudson. The only heavy crude in sight is from the Tar Sands, which Global has not denied. Tar sands crude, AKA dilbit (diluted bitumen), sinks in water and would pollute the Hudson indefinitely if it spills. The 2010 Kalamazoo River dilbit spill cost over $1.2 Billion.
CALLS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY are needed to let Cuomo know that Tar Sands development is the poster boy – as in PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE – for the emerging clean energy/climate justice movement. Top climate scientist James Hansen says that development of the huge Tar Sands reserves would mean “game over for the climate”.
Other routes from the Tar Sands to US refineries have been held off by massive, militant, sustained opposition. Pres. Obama has refused so far to permit the Keystone XL pipeline to go forward; First Nations in Western Canada are resisting pipelines through their sovereign land; there is also strong opposition to proposed pipelines through eastern Canada. Letting a tentacle of the Kochtopus into NY State would undo the good will Cuomo has gained by halting the effort to frack New York.
As greenhouse gases increase, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, like the record California drought, firestorms in the southwestern USA, historic flooding of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, rapid retreat of glaciers on every continent, crop failures, hurricanes and superstorms flooding cities as energy and moisture in the atmosphere increases. The western USA is on track to become a permanent Dust Bowl in the next few decades. The northeast could face superstorms like Sandy every year later this century, unless we rapidly phase out fossil fuels, starting with the dirtiest, and accelerate deployment of clean renewable energy.
