Ducks the new symbol of oilsands activism; Environmentalists expected to seize on Syncrude disaster as gov't tries to downplay i

Jason Markusoff, May 4, 2008, The Edmonton Journal -- While the Alberta government and the environmentalists will each offer their own statistics, from greenhouse-gas megatonnes to river flow rates, the latest number -- 500 dead ducks in one of Syncrude's toxic tailing ponds -- has pretty clearly favoured one side of the great oilsands debate.

After years of issuing reports on the impact of global warming on boreal forests, environmental groups realize no other statistic or fact may be as potent a wakeup call.

"Just the flashpoint of 500 birds -- there's that emotional response and people realizing the vast toxic lakes they might have been unaware of previously," said Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute environmental think-tank.

"It's fair to say that most people worldwide have a dim understanding of the oilsands currently and images like this help to educate people. The more people know about the oilsands, the less they like it."

But Premier Ed Stelmach is trying to punch back, to defend the province's $100-billion-plus industry and his own government's environmental record.

His government recently announced a forthcoming $25-million "branding" campaign, and last week Stelmach dispatched his deputy premier to Washington, D.C., to help buff the province's green image.

As the week wore on and photos of oily ducks hit front pages and newscasts, Stelmach tried to downplay the issue with what he called perspective.

"It's well known that on an annual basis, the minimum number of birds killed by wind turbines is around 30,000 (in the United States)," he said Thursday.

Asked about that, Environment Minister Rob Renner replied he's concentrating on probing the Syncrude tragedy.

In March, his department released a 20-page promotional booklet titled Alberta's Oil Sands: Opportunity. Balance. Inside, positive stats abound that try to position Alberta's oilsands development as environmentally responsible. The booklet features pictures of water, trees, minimally smoky smokestacks, and no open-pit oilsands mines.

Contrast that with an Environmental Defence report earlier this year, which even Dyer admits is "provocative." Title: The Most Destructive Project on Earth. It contains repeated mentions of the Exxon-Valdez oil-tanker spill -- an ecological disaster that Stelmach last week said cannot possibly be compared to the Syncrude incident.

Which side to trust -- the government or green organizations?

"I know it sounds trite, but they've got different sets of priorities," said Andre Plourde, a University of Alberta economist and expert in energy policy and the environment.

"And I'm sure that the truth is somewhere in the middle of that story. It's hard to get, I think, the relevant information that we would need to make up our minds on a number of the issues."

Much of that is because the major oilsands firms view much of the data as proprietary and private, Plourde said.

But there's obviously a lot of exaggeration, he said. For example, the government claims "world-class" leadership on the oilsands, even though its climate-change goals are much weaker than most other international targets and no other country deals with the same resource on this level.

"It's difficult to take seriously some arguments on both sides," he said.

Plourde also took aim at environmental arguments that oilsands are the only source of rising greenhouse-gas emissions. (Dyer said they are the fastest-growing source in Canada.)

It's equally difficult to determine which side people believe. Voters elected the Tories in a landslide in March, but just before that a poll suggested Albertans have values counter to the party's longstanding policies against slowing oilsands growth.

The Leger Marketing survey suggested that 62 per cent think the government should limit the overall amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by oilsands, even if it means some projects would be delayed or cancelled.