Giant US Tar Sands Project Lurking in the Shadows

While rightful attention has been focused on Alberta’s tar sands development and its slated transport through the Keystone XL pipeline, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, along with Utah lawmakers, have quietly pushed forward plans for a similarly massive tar sands project back in the U.S., an exposé in Esquire highlights Thursday.

Much like Alberta’s vast tar sands oil extraction that has devastated public and environmental health and the climate, the BLM’s recent approval of mining projects will exploit more than 800,000 acres of public and private land for tar sands development across several western states.

The massive Green River Formation, a stretch of land that runs through Utah, Wyoming and Colorado, would be dug up and excavated, and Utah lawmakers “are eager to capitalize” on the imminent oil boom, according to the article.

As Esquire writes, “Already the state is literally paving the way for mining companies, including improving a highway that runs through one of last pieces of wilderness in the state at a cost of $85 million — most of it public funds.”

“With all eyes on Keystone, there’s an equally or even bigger GHG problem brewing right here on American soil—and on Obama’s watch,” Taylor McKinnon of the Grand Canyon Trust told Esquire.