Waste sitting in pits could fill almost 883,000 Olympic-size swimming pools, and oil companies say they need to find a way to reduce it
The companies, including an affiliate of Exxon Mobil, are lobbying the Canadian government to set rules that would allow them to treat the waste and release it into the Athabasca River by 2025, so they have enough time to meet their commitments to eventually close the mines.
Of course they are.
Lmao oil companies asking politely for permission to cause unimaginable ecological damage like they haven’t been doing it for decades. Is their argument that the Athabasca is already so heavily contaminated that they might as well dump the tailings straight into it? Because I imagine that’s all they really have here. What a ridiculous proposal.
I guess I’m just glad the Alberta government doesn’t get the final say here, because they’d be pouring that shit into every single waterway and trying to bill the rest of Canada for the “export” of residual bitumen.