I THINK MINING

   Another week earning an honest living working for the mining industry, in this case the oil sands of Fort McMurray.  On evening we wondered into the pub part of the Keg, arguably the best and certainly one of the most expensive restaurants in Fort McMurray.  I looked around in frustration for there was no free tables, all taken up by the big men who man the oil sands.  We had barely settled at the bar on high stools, when one of our number pointed to a far table and asked: “Isn’t that David Suzuki?”

  From deep in my memory arose an image of a slim oriental with an inscrutable smile.  I looked and saw only a rather fleshy old man with a scruffy white beard and unkempt hair–like any other oil rig worker I keep in my mental image library.  He was sitting at the table surrounded by other very McMurray-ordinary men.  Although one was even larger than the others. “Must be his body guard,” one of our party remarked. 

  The bar tender confirmed that indeed we were staring at THE David Suzuki who was in town on a taxpayer-funded jaunt to see the oil sands mines.  Apparently something to do with a CBC-funded project involving, no doubt, a series of dull TV shows deprecating the oils sands–they will probably refer to the tar sands as they drive their expensive cars to private planes. 

   I can find nothing via Google news on Suzuki’s visit to Fort McMurray, not even about his dinner at the Keg.  For the record we had fine steaks and mashed potatoes and the bill for four would feed an African village for a month.  But hey, I have a clear conscience: if Suzuki can do it, so can I, for it must be OK.   And I had spent the day working on closure of an oil sand tailings impoundment.  He had merely flown over the engineering works in a helicopter. 

  The next morning, the radio had a short statement telling of Suzuki being in town and having remarked something to the effect that the tar sands are important to all Canadians because oil sand air impact negates all the good things the rest of the country is doing to meet Koyoto standards, or are those now Copenhagen standards.  No matter, there was no new insight in his reported statement.

I told this tale gathered from a now-old dam design engineer.  He told me that many years ago he was sent by the consulting firm in Vancouver to examine a site about 40 miles up river from Fort McMurray and to report on its suitability as a site for a new dam.  He roughed his way through the arboreal forest to the selected site.  He told me he concluded thus: “There is no way you can build an earth embankment there.  There is just too much oil oozing out of the sands on what would have to be the abutments.”    He was sent up and down the river looking for a suitable site, but they all had too much oil oozing out of the sands to make a suitable abutment.  The dam was never built. 

   Now I wonder for how long, for how many decades oil has seep out into the river waters.  At a dinner party I wondered why this had never affected the health of people down stream.  A sarcastic nurse at our dinner table remarked:  “Because in those days they died young–they did not live long enough to develop cancer.”

We will watch with interest for Suzuki’s statements on his visit to Fort McMurray.