Duck Deaths and Delicate Deals

The death of 350 ducks in tailing ponds this week has added to the oil sands' image problem, but let's face it, birds die all the time.

The latest chapter in the debate over the environmental impact of Alberta’s oil sands was written this week when 350 migrating ducks had to be euthanized after landing in toxic tailings ponds. The incident came just one week after Syncrude was fined $3.2 million for the deaths of 1,600 birds in its ponds in 2008.

The sight of 350 waterfowl covered in toxic sludge is tragic, says a Calgary Herald editorial, but, “Some perspective is in order.” According to one study, power lines are responsible for 130 to 174 million bird deaths a year in the U.S., automobiles for 60 to 80 million, pesticides for 70 million, and cats for 40 million. “Much of this gets ignored in the hypersensitivity over oilsands environmental issues.” And the National Post’s Scott Stinson recalls a story filed by a Post reporter who spent one morning in Toronto with a group of people who collect birds killed by flying into the city’s skyscrapers. In a single morning “(t)hey counted as many as 300 dead birds, or about as many as died on the Mildred Lake tailings pond this week, thus earning Syncrude the wrath of every politician within reach of a microphone.”

In other words it’s a veritable feathery holocaust out there, and 350 birds is the equivalent of a brush fire beneath a nuclear blast.

True, but beside the point, argues the Edmonton Journal. The problem is “nothing is ever going to make people happy about toxic material in the environment once it's on the radar. That's why it does no good … to point out other man-made reasons birds die.”

The future of the oil sands depends on lucrative deals with the U.S., and those depend on Americans’ perception of the industry. As the Post’s Don Martin reports, when a U.S. State Department official visited the oil sands this week, “the ghosts of 350-and-counting dead ducks were never far from the discussion … Should the tailing pond wildlife toll keep on rising, the next casualty could be plans for oilsands expansion that’s needed in an energy-thirsty world.”