For Immediate Release: February 15, 2011

ST. PAUL – Canadian oil producers have recently begun a significant increase in the delivery of diluted bitumen—raw tar sands oil diluted so that it can be forced through a pipeline—to American oil depots and refineries. The huge risks this oil brings to Americans are highlighted in Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks, a new report by Natural Resources Defense Council, Pipeline Safety Trust, National Wildlife Federation, and the Sierra Club, to be released this Wednesday.

Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks shows that the increase in tar sands oil delivery brings new threats because of the significantly increased acidic and corrosive nature of raw tar sands oil, as well as the increased heat and pressure necessary to move it through pipelines. It identifies elevated risks in the Lakehead system in the Upper Great Lakes specifically (the same oil pipeline that burst in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River and in suburban Chicago last summer) and the controversial Keystone XL line. The report also discusses the vulnerable locations in the pipeline’s path—including sensitive and economically important watersheds. It also analyzes the chemical differences between raw tar sands oil and the more traditional petroleum products moving through American pipelines and how American regulators do not differentiate between this new oil product and other more standard petroleum.

Coinciding with the release of the report on Wednesday, Fresh Energy’s executive director Michael Noble will speak at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. His talk, “Oil: Can’t America just get over it?” will address the following questions:

• If deepwater drilling and destroying vast landscapes in Canada are the only ways left to get at oil, isn’t it time we try something different?
• What are the realistic prospects and policies for reducing reliance on oil?
• Do Americans have the political will to move away from oil?

Copies of Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks will be available.

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ST. PAUL – Canadian oil producers have recently begun a significant increase in the delivery of diluted bitumen—raw tar sands oil diluted so that it can be forced through a pipeline—to American oil depots and refineries.