Canada Oil Rush May Lead to Water Shortage

CANADA — Canadian water expert and dean of the discipline, the University of Alberta’s David Schindler, wrote in 2006 that Alberta, along with Saskatchewan and Manitoba, will soon face “a crisis in water quantity and quality with far-reaching implications.” Natural Resources Canada has predicted shortages for Calgary as early as 2050 if conservation efforts don’t improve drastically.

In the last 12 years, the world’s most powerful oil companies, including Imperial Oil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, Total and Norway’s StatoilHydro, have all rushed to Fort McMurray to plunk down more than $150 billion in the oil sands. The frenzied pace of investment and construction in one of the globe’s last proven oil reserves has created a national project even bigger than the transcontinental railway. The oil sands are the world’s largest energy project. Nothing in any sector matches it for capital investment.

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Source : The Globe and Mail