This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

On July 15, a state-of-the-art new pipeline near Fort McMurray, Alberta, ruptured, spilling five million litres of bitumen, sand and waste water over 16,000 square metres — one of the largest pipeline oil spills in Canadian history. Two days later, a train carrying crude oil from North Dakota derailed in Montana, spilling 160,000 litres and forcing evacuation of nearby homes.

At the same time, while forest fires raged across large swathes of Western Canada — thanks to hotter, dryer conditions and longer fire seasons driven in part by climate change — Canadian premiers met in St. John’s, Newfoundland, to release their national energy strategy.

The premiers’ Canadian Energy Strategy focuses on energy conservation and efficiency, clean energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change. But details are vague and there’s no sense of urgency. We need a response like the U.S. reaction to Pearl Harbor or the Soviet Sputnik launch!

The premiers seemingly want it both ways. Despite its call to “Build on the ongoing efforts of individuals, businesses, governments and others to improve energy efficiency, lower the carbon footprint, and improve understanding of energy in Canada,” the strategy promotes fossil fuel business as usual, including expanded pipeline, oilsands and liquefied natural gas development, including more fracking.

The premiers’ plan is a non-binding framework, described as a “flexible, living document that will further enable provinces and territories to move forward and collaborate on common energy-related interests according to their unique strengths, challenges and priorities.” It doesn’t include specifics on how to revamp our energy production and distribution systems, but buys time until the next elections roll around.

Although the language about climate change and clean energy is important, the strategy remains stuck in the fossil fuel era. As Climate Action Network Canada executive director Louise Comeau said in a news release, “Governments discriminate against smoking and toxics in food and consumer products. What’s needed now is discriminatory policy against fossil fuels if we are going to drastically reduce the carbon pollution putting our health and well-being at risk.”

Fossil fuel development has spurred economic development, created jobs and provided many other benefits, but the risks now outweigh those benefits. The costs in dollars and lives of pollution, habitat and wildlife degradation, pipeline and railcar spills, and climate change — all getting worse as populations grow, energy needs increase and fossil fuel reserves become increasingly scarce and difficult to exploit — have become unsustainable.

Even job creation is no longer a reason to continue our mad rush to expand development and export of oil sands bitumen, fracked gas and coal. Many fossil fuel reserves are now seen as stranded assets that will continue to decline in value as the world shifts to clean energy and the scramble to exploit resources gluts the market. The Climate Action Network points out that Clean Energy Canada’s 2015 report on renewable energy trends showed that “global investors moved USD$295 billion in 2014 into renewable energy-generation projects — an increase of 17 percent over 2013.”

Yet, many of our leaders are still pinning their hopes on rapid oilsands expansion, massive increases in fracking for liquefied natural gas and new and expanded pipelines across the country — with benefits flowing more to industry than citizens.

It’s refreshing to see provincial premiers at least recognizing the threat of climate change and the need to address it through conservation, efficiency and clean technology, but we need a far greater shift to keep the problems we’ve created from getting worse. There are many benefits to doing so, including more and better jobs, a stronger economy, healthier citizens and reduced health-care costs, and greater preservation of our rich natural heritage.

The recent spate of pipeline and railcar oil spills, along with disasters like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, are the result of rapid expansion of fossil fuel development, as industry and governments race to get the dirty products to market before demand dries up.

Canada’s premiers should take these issues seriously and commit to a faster shift from fossil fuels as they continue to develop their energy strategy. They must also stress the importance of having similar, stronger action from the federal government — and so should we all.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image Credit: Two Island Films

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A fiery CN train derailment in rural Saskatchewan has many people asking what could have happened if the accident occurred in a more populated area.

The 100-car freight train derailed Tuesday about 190 kilometres east of Saskatoon. Twenty-six cars left the track, including six carrying dangerous goods. Two cars containing petroleum distillate caught fire, sending 30-metre flames into the air. Several explosions were also confirmed.

The area around Clair, Sask., was evacuated overnight. Families were allowed to return to their homes Wednesday morning according to Harold Narfason, chief of the Wadena & District Fire Department.

The volunteer fire department was the first on the scene.

Narfason told DeSmog Canada his department has long been aware that dangerous commodities are being shipped by rail through the area.

“I’ve attended numerous meetings with CN to get informed and there are more cars moving through,” Narfason said.

On the scene of the derailment, his team quickly accessed the hazmat sheets, which indicated they were dealing with the explosive petroleum distillate.

“Everything is going as good as it can under the circumstances,” Narfason said.  

The railway industry has been in the spotlight since July 2013 when 47 people died after an oil train derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, Que.

In August, the Transportation Safety Board issued a report into the Lac-Megantic tragedy that called for improved safety measures and cited inadequate oversight by Transport Canada.

Overall shipments of oil by rail in Canada have increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009.

The surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In an October 2013 report, CCPA executive director Bruce Campbell, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”

Adam Scott, a spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defence, told the Canadian Press that an accident like the one in Saskatchewan could have happened anywhere in Canada.

“The freight rail lines actually go right through the centre of almost every major urban centre in the entire country … so the risk of accidents is significant,” Scott said.

Scott said rail companies in Canada are not required to publicly disclose the types of hazardous materials being transported on trains.

ForestEthics has set up a ‘blast zone’ website, which allows users to search by address for oil train routes in Canada and the U.S.

A quick look at the blast zone map indicates CN ought to be counting its lucky stars this latest derailment happened in a town of 50 people instead of a city of 500,000.

Photo: Wadena News

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The federal agency investigating the Lac-Megantic oil train derailment and explosion that killed forty-seven people released recommendations last week to improve the safety of shipping crude oil by rail. If the recommendations are implemented by the federal government they will serve as a strong step forward in protecting communities living along railway lines. 

“The federal transport minister has a clear choice: protect public safety or secure profits of oil companies,” says Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada.

One of the country’s most active lobby groups – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) – responded to the recommendations earlier this week. CAPP asked the federal government “to ensure their implementation does not interrupt service and respects the competitiveness of transporting our products by rail.” In other words, new regulations should not interfere with business as usual for the oil industry.

“Companies have to pay the price for safety. Their profits cannot come before communities, the environment and general safety,” John Bennett, director of the Sierra Club Canada told DeSmog Canada.

The Transport Safety Board (TSB) made three recommendations to Transport Canada improve safety of oil-by-rail shipments: tougher standards for the susceptible-to-rupturing DOT 111 tank cars, strategic routing of oil trains that considers the environment and communities, and emergency response plans for rail lines transporting large volumes of oil.

Greenpeace and the Sierra Club welcome the recommendations. Both organizations have been pushing for stricter oil by rail transport rules since before disaster struck Lac-Megantic, Quebec on July 6th of last year. Rail company CN also supports the TSB’s recommendations. Rail tank cars are owned either by shipping companies or oil producers. Rail companies on the other hand own the rails, and are liable for derailments.

The recommendations focus on tank cars, not the rails themselves, which is one of the shortcomings of the recommendations. Improvements on both are needed.

Recommendations cannot protect the public if they are not implemented. Bennett is not very optimistic the recommendations will be applied by the federal government. Many TSB recommendations in the past, he says, have “just sat there” and were not adopted, like rail line improvement recommendations made after the Lake Wabamun derailment in Alberta in 2005.

Stewart speculates the federal government will wait to see what the U.S. does, something he thinks is very problematic.

“Lives are at risk. Canada should be taking a leadership role,” Stewart told DeSmog from Toronto.

The TSB and the U.S. National Transport Safety Board announced their safety recommendations for oil-by-rail intentionally at the same time. Transport Canada has ninety days to reply to the TSB’s findings. Upon release of the recommendations in Ottawa on January 23rd, TSB chair Wendy Tadros insisted “change must come and it must come now."

If adopted, applying the recommendations may prove to be difficult. Rerouting oil tank cars away from densely populated or environmentally sensitive areas is difficult due to Canada's limited rail options.

Emergency response plans also require greater communication between shippers in the public, especially regarding large oil shipments. Shippers have been reluctant to do this in the past.

“Canadians need to ask themselves why are we doing this? Transporting oil more – whether by rail or pipeline – is a risk with little to no benefits for communities because it is going for export,” says Bennett, who is based in Ottawa.

“We already have enough infrastructure to meet our own oil consumption needs,” Bennett told DeSmog Canada.

Oil tank car shipments in Canada have dramatically jumped from five hundred carloads in 2009 to 160,000 last year, but Canada’s consumption of oil has declined during the same period. All of the recent pipeline proposals in Canada are destined to export oil out of the country with the exception of the Line 9 pipeline in Ontario and Quebec.

“The federal government would be more than happy for this debate to be rail versus pipeline oil shipments,” says Stewart.

“The debate should really be between dirty energy and clean energy and why we continue to invest billions in infrastructure for the fossil fuel industry when that money should be used to fight climate change and reduce our dependence on oil,” Stewart told DeSmog Canada.

The oilsands boom in Alberta and the Bakken shale oil boom in North Dakota coupled with stiff opposition to new pipeline approvals have been blamed for the massive increase in oil-by-rail transport in North America. In the US, oil tank carloads went from 10,800 in 2009 to 400,000 in 2013.

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board

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The company responsible for the Lac-Megantic derailment disaster that took 47 lives filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday, putting into question who will be responsible for the ballooning clean up bill as well as damages for victims’ families.

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Company filed for credit protection simultaneously in the US and Canada, arguing that the cost of the cleanup has outstripped their ability to pay.

“It has become apparent that the obligations of both companies now exceed the value of their assets, including prospective insurance recoveries, as a direct result of the tragic derailment at Lac-Mégantic, Québec on July 6th, and a process under Chapter 11 and the CCAA is the best way to ensure fairness of treatment to all in these tragic circumstances,” company chairman Ed Burkhardt said in a statement. 

Furthermore, he stated that “MMA wishes to continue to work with the Québec Ministry of the Environment, the municipality of Lac-Mégantic, and other government authorities in the continuing environmental remediation and clean-up as long as is necessary, and will do everything within its capacity to achieve completion of such goal.”

Roger Clement, a US attorney for MMA told CBC’s As It Happens that bankruptcy proceedings will show that there is a “limited pot of funds available to pay claims.” The company holds a $25 million insurance fund through XL Insurance Company Limited, while court documents show the company estimates the cleanup will cost $200 million.

Credit protection law in both the US and Canada ranks debt as secured and unsecured and disburses funds in that order.

Clement says there is a special provision in US law that could give “elevated priority” to the families of the victims, so that they will get paid just after the secured creditors.

He said that the families may choose to settle out of court rather than waste limited funds on litigation.

The city and province, however, may have to wait their turn as unsecured creditors, a process Clement believes may take years. The Quebec government sent legal notices on Thursday demanding to be reimbursed for the $8 million it has already spent on cleaning up the spill.

Health Minister Réjean Hébert, who represents the area, and Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt both expressed their commitment to expediting the process.

The community has already received $120 million from provincial and federal governments in emergency funds.

Edward Jazlowiecki, an American lawyer who is representing several of the victims’ families in a class action lawsuit, told As It Happens that filing bankruptcy is a common tactic for companies facing these kinds of damages. From his experience representing families in accidents involving transportation companies, he has learned that putting off the payments is a way to mitigate their losses. “They always stall, stall, stall,” he said.

Although he questions the fairness of US bankruptcy laws in these situations, Jazlowiecki does see a positive side of the bankruptcy proceedings; the process will expose the company’s financial inner workings. He called MMA a “small cog” in the much larger Rail World Group, which has assets all over North America and as far away as Estonia.

"In a way, they're going to have to show their hand, they're going to have to put all their assets on the table," he said.

Getting companies to take responsibility for damages in accidents has always presented a challenge. Greenpeace has long been calling on General Electric, Toshiba and Hitachi to take responsibility for their part of the $250 million cost of the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant in March 2011.

“General Electric, Hitachi and Toshiba designed, built and serviced the reactors which directly contributed to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, yet these companies have not paid one cent of the cost for the reactor failures,” they say.

The Transportation Safety Board wrapped up its onsite investigation of the Lac-Megantic on August 1st, 26 days after the incident. Federal officials are still investigating the composition of the oil that was in the tankers themselves, but it is estimated that 5.7 million litres of crude oil had spilled into the air, water and soil around Lac-Megantic. 

Image Credit: thierry Ehrman via Flickr 

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Today, as hundreds of people joined First Nations leaders to walk 14 kilometers through the tar sands in Fort McMurray on the Tar Sands Healing Walk, news of several new oil disasters spread through the crowd and over social media networks.

Details are sparse so far on an oil spill reported in the Athabasca River near the Poplar Grove First Nation. Members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation oil spill response team report seeing a 5 kilometer-wide oil slick spanning the width of the river. Stay tuned for details. **Update July 11: ACFN testing reveals the oily sheen on the river likely resulted from a blue-green algae bloom.**

Meanwhile, in the eastern Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, rescue workers are searching for survivors of a series of deadly explosions that followed the derailment of a train carrying crude oil originating from North Dakota's Bakken Shale. 

At least one person is dead, an estimated 60 town residents are missing, crude oil has spilled into Megantic Lake and the Chaudiere River, and the inferno has destroyed some 30 buildings. The disaster in the middle of the night led to the evacuation of 1,000 residents.

The first explosion occurred shortly after 1 a.m., sending fireballs through the downtown core, where a popular bar with an unknown number of patrons was reportedly destroyed completely. Residents, who say the first blast felt like "an atomic bomb," ran towards the scene of the first explosion, only to be surprised by several more explosions.

The train, owned by American company Montreal Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd, was likely carrying the Bakken light crude to a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, according to sources familiar with the line.

According to BBC News, "the train's 73 cars reportedly uncoupled from a parked engine and derailed," reportedly at a high rate of speed.

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train had five locomotive engines and 73 cars filled with light crude oil, and was parked outside Lac-Megantic during an overnight driver shift-change, a company spokesman told Canada's La Presse newspaper.

The cars filled with fuel somehow became uncoupled, causing them to roll downhill into the town and derail.

Officials have set up a 1-kilometer exclusion zone around the town center, fearing further explosions as fire crews from as far away as Maine battle the ongoing blaze. 

Watch a bit of footage following the explosions:   

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