In April NBC featured a program on the tar sands oil coming from Canada and their report was disputed on the website oilsandfactcheck.org , the owner of the site is "hidden" but one can only imagine it might be a "front" group of the Koch boys, as they stand to profit dearly (some estimate $3 Billion/per year in profits), from the Keystone XL Pipeline.

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In April NBC featured a program on the tar sands oil coming from Canada and their report was disputed on the website http://oilsandfactcheck.org , the owner of the site is "hidden" but one can only imagine it might be a "front" group of the Koch boys, as they stand to profit dearly (some estimate $3 Billion/per year in profits), from the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Following is taken directly from that website, with reactions of this contributor in  emboldened parentheses:

April 30, 2013 by mattd Blog

Last Friday, NBC Nightly News aired a segment on the Keystone XL pipeline in light of TransCanada's announcement that the project timeline will be further delayed . NBC did its due diligence by making a trip to see the oil sands first hand, but fell short on reporting the facts along the way. Here are six facts NBC missed or misrepresented:

:39 min -- "[The Keystone XL pipeline] would allow Canada to send heavy crude from landlocked Alberta to the Gulf Coast."

NBC correspondent Anne Thompson reports as if the pipeline will only benefit Canada's interests, when in fact it will serve U.S. energy infrastructure needs just as well.

First, Canadian oil sands crude will be an additional feedstock to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast (described as "state of the art" by President Obama ) that are especially equipped to handle heavy crudes. Refining revenues would remain in the U.S., along with the thousands of jobs these facilities support. (The Koch boys have upgraded their Corpus Christi facility to refine this special highly toxic material. It is currently refining Venezuelan "mud", but they state they will be able to procure the TransCanada tar sands "mud" much cheaper. It might also be noted that reports have the Koch boys having as much as a 25% stake in TransCanada. Let us also not forget the Koch boys have spent well over $64 Million in debunking "global warming.")

KXL will also be a main highway for domestic sources of crude, providing 25 percent of its capacity to oil from the U.S. Bakken and other key oil fields throughout the country. All in all, the line will displace the equivalent of 40 percent of what the U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf. (Are we to assume the tar sands gloop will be mixed with the shale oil obtained from the Bakken fields will be mixed? Presently, over a quarter million barrels of Bakken oil is received in Cushing, Oklahoma without the pipeline, thus the pollution created by the fracking of the shale is currently remaining in North Dakota, Wyoming, and parts of Canada.)

:55 min -- "Getting that oil out of the ground produces 17% more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional methods, according to the State Department."

The State Department was not as definitive on its findings as NBC leads on. According to Appendix W of the latest project review, the State Department finds that "it is not clear whether [Canadian] oil sands-derived crudes are currently more GHG-intensive than other heavy crudes or crudes with high flaring rates." The appendix continues:

"The life-cycle GHG emissions of [Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin] WCSB oil sands crudes can fall within the same range as heavier crudes such as heavy Venezuelan crude oil and California heavy oil, and lighter crudes that are produced from operations that flare most of the associated gas (e.g., Nigerian light crude)." (p. 68-69).

• In fact, the State Department finds that as we move forward, the difference in GHG emissions from Canadian oil sands crudes and other crude oils is likely to become smaller.

(They state that a small percentage of the tar sands "gloop" will be extracted through open pit type extraction, thus causing total destruction to pristine boreal forestlands, while the majority will be extracted using the "fracking", they are calling it "in situ", method which they are claiming will not disrupt the forest or the wildlife, however we are seeing the effects of the "fracking" process by seeing water catch fire, water systems destroyed, air being polluted, in short destroying the environment at a profit for a few, but a "price" paid by many.)

1:19 min -- On the dump trucks

Anne Thompson stands next to behemoth-sized dump trucks used on open-pit oil sands mining sites, but fails to mention that many (if not the majority) are manufactured in the States -- further supporting domestic job creation and retention. According the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), 200 Caterpillar 797 mining trucks have been purchased from the U.S. Moreover, many of the parts that go into the 797 are manufactured here at home, including engines made in Indiana, frame components from Louisiana and tires from South Carolina. (Just how many new jobs will be created for so few vehicles? "Jobs" make for a great talking point, except within the walls of our Congress, but let's make these talking points be realistic.)

1:32 min -- "Hot water is used to separate the oil from the sand in ponds of waste that can be toxic to wildlife."

Not all oil sands development sites require tailing ponds, but we'll get to that in the next point. Oil sands companies are making significant investments in both safety precautions and land disturbance to protect local wildlife and return land back to its original state after development is completed.

According to CAPP, oil sands operators employ multiple methods to deter waterfowl from landing. Canadian Natural is even operating a new radar-controlled bird deterrent system that has successfully kept birds away from their production site since the system's deployment in 2009.

Reclamation is not only a key component to planning oil sands operations -- it's required by law. Before development can even begin, energy producers are required to submit a land reclamation plan and continually reclaim land throughout the life of a project.

Tailings Pond #4 video shot days after hundreds of ducks died landing on a Syncrude Fort McMurray tailings pond. by YouTube

(Tailing Ponds, taken from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers website:

The tailings ponds required at mines are large and impact the landscape. Existing tailings ponds cover 176 km2 (67 mi2). A tailings pond -- an engineered dam and dyke system -- is used as a settling basin/storage container for the mixture of water, sand, clay and residual oil that is left over after oil sands processing. Once in the pond, the sand quickly sinks to the bottom, and the water from the top three metres is recycled. Tailings ponds present a number of challenges:

• Seepage into ground water can occur.
• The bottom layer, a mixture of clay and water called fine tailings, takes a long time to settle and solidify. Even after many years it will still have the consistency of yogurt, and it can take up to 30 years to separate and dry out.
• The remaining water, because it has come into contact with oil during the extraction process, contains concentrations of natural chemicals that are toxic to fish.
• The small amount of residual oil that floats to the surface of the pond poses a risk
  to waterfowl.

While TransCanada and other producers claim they are employing processes that make these "safe" there is much information showing us the negative results of these Trailing Ponds, such as seepage into fresh water systems.)

2:00 min -- "A company called Cenovous is getting the oil another way: drilling. ["] Underground the oil is solid, so the steam is injected into the ground to melt it from the earth."

The process being described is known as "in situ" and despite how NBC presents it, in situ is nothing new and is more common than open pit mining. Ninety-seven percent of the oil sands would be recovered via in situ, resulting in significantly reduced land disturbance.

(This process is what we have known as "fracking" and we know of the horror stories brought about as a result of this process. This process may well put the manufacturers of lighter fluid out of business as all one needs to do is open their water spigot and light up. They may call it whatever they please, but the results are the same -- destruction of the environment and killing of wildlife, even people)

2:56 min -- "Canada's oil sands: fuelling riches and controversy on both sides of the border."

Following four and a half years of review of Keystone XL, let's hope that the Canadian oil sands don't only fuel "riches and controversy." Jobs, among other benefits, are a significant driver toward project approval.

Much of the focus has been on the project's potential for permanent job creation, but NBC, among others, discount the importance of temporary job creation. The Nightly News segment even quoted Sierra Club's yet-to-be-supported point that the Keystone XL pipeline will only create 35 permanent jobs. As a union leader stated at a recent rally in Washington, DC, both the Golden Gate Bridge and Mount Rushmore were "temporary projects," providing a legacy for centuries to come. The labor industry built this country with temporary jobs.

(While it is true temporary jobs will be created, however the after effects of this project will be far different from the examples they touted. There is no environmental destruction resulting from the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge nor from Mount Rushmore whereas the everlasting effects to the environment will be costly if not devastating, to say nothing of the loss in property values along the "highway of pipelines."

It would be much more prudent to create jobs rebuilding the thousands of bridges we now have that are not only in desperate need of repair, thus potentially saving lives, but also creating a legacy for centuries to come as they so eloquently put it. Would these be temporary positions? Yes, indeed, but for how many years to come, and to the betterment of our nation.

The Question that needs be asked: "Which project would do the most for our nation -- building a pipeline for toxic tar sands that will knowingly "spill" causing massive destruction to our environment and economy while profiting for a very few, namely the Koch boys, or to rebuilding the decaying infrastructure of our nation's bridges and roads which will benefit our entire nation?

The Answer is really not a hard one for one using a bit of critical thinking. Hmmm, maybe that is why there are states wanting to do away with that in our school systems.

Come to think of it, we have not only this impending decision to make as a nation, but many others that involve restoring the strength of the people while diminishing the power of corporations. If we do not our nation will be lost to nothing more than Third World status.

The decision may still be ours. Get active!)

Authors Bio:

Dennis Kaiser is an author and consultant focusing on individual rights. As a US citizen Dennis is deeply concerned over how our nation has fallen from being productive and full of hope to one where that hope is being stripped from the majority as more and more "freedoms' are being taken along with economic burdens weighing more heavily on their shoulders.