tar sands

By NELLIS KENNEDY-HOWARD
Indianz.com (October 3, 2011)

Today, President Obama has the choice. Clean technology is at our feet. Sustainable resources are in our hands. And, here we sit in the past digging for oil. The State Department is currently reviewing a proposal to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a pipeline that will extend 2,000 miles across America and to the Gulf of Mexico. Crossing over 70 rivers and streams, the pipeline will also cross critical water sources such as the Ogallala Aquifer. The pipeline is scheduled for review by the Obama administration with a congressional deadline demanding a decision by the end of 2011. Read more...

August 19, 2011 (YES! Magazine)
BY NELLIS KENNEDY-HOWARD

Why developing the tarsands has been called "world's most destructive project."

What does it mean to live in an energy sacrifice zone? For many First Nations of Canada, it means that the land and water your families have lived on for generations is no longer safe. Nearly every major oil company in the world is participating in making the homelands of indigenous peoples unsafe by investing in the Athabascan tar sands. Read more...

August 18, 2011 (NRDC Switchboard)
BY DANIELLE DROITSCH

Today, the nation’s oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), announced their opposition to the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.  This important announcement adds to the growing chorus of voices across the United States opposed to this pipeline and clearly finds that an additional tar sands pipeline is not in the national interest. 

The NCAI resolution firmly states how Keystone XL is not in the national interest: Read more...

Topic of Discussion: The Alberta Tar Sands; the Heavy Haul and Using the Columbia River as a Means to Transport Coal and Oil Drilling Equipment.

BY WINONA LADUKE, Indian Country Today Media Network (March 24, 2011).

When 750 Nez Perce, accompanied by 1,000 horses, fled the U.S. Cavalry on a 1,200-mile route through the mountains, valleys and rivers of Washington, Idaho and Montana in 1877, their path took them past the Heart of the Monster, from whence the Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu people, originated, and through their precious Bitterroot Mountains. Their route was treacherous but their determination to survive was unshakable.

Some 140 years later, the black heart of industrial society has come to torment the Nimiipuu, using that same route. Read more...