Reality Check: Water and the Tar Sands

A new report, Reality Check: Water and the Tar Sands, sets the record straight on industry claims that misrepresent the tar sands industry’s use of the Athabasca River.

Tar sands companies used approximately 170 million cubic metres of water in 2011 to extract bitumen – that’s the same as the residential water usage of 1.7 million Canadians. And 95 per cent of the water used in tar sands mining is so polluted it has to be stored in toxic sludge pits.

LINK (via:Environmental Defence)

Rainbow Grout?

A mining companies failed environnmental repair job has created a concrete creek.

Contractors working for coal giant Glencore Xstrata pumped more than 180 tonnes of concrete into a tributary of Cockle Creek at Lake Macquarie in Australia.

LINK (via: The Newcastle Herald)