Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline

Link to the source - NRDC Switchboard

Anthony Swift’s Blog

Posted December 20, 2011

Keystone XL is a tar sands pipeline to export oil out of the United States

One of the most important facts that is missing in the national debate surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is this – Keystone XL will not bring any more oil into the United State for decades to come.  Canada doesn’t have nearly enough oil to fill existing pipelines going to the United States. However, existing Canadian oil pipelines all go to the Midwest, where the only buyer for their crude is the United States. Keystone XL would divert Canadian oil from refineries in the Midwest to the Gulf Coast where it can be refined and exported. Many of these refineries are in Foriegn Trade Zones where oil may be exported to international buyers without paying U.S. taxes. And that is exactly what Valero, one of the largest potential buyers of Keystone XL's oil, has told its investors it will do. The idea that Keystone XL will improve U.S. oil supply is a documented scam being played on the American people by Big Oil and its friends in Washington DC. 

The fact that Canada has excess pipeline capacity is well known. In a Department of Energy report evaluating Keystone XL's impacts on U.S. energy supply over the next twenty years, the agency found that it will take decades for Canada to produce enough oil to fill existing pipelines. On page 90, the report concludes that the United States will import the same amount of crude from Canada through 2030 whether or not Keystone XL is built.

From Canada's perspective, the problem with existing pipelines is they all end in the U.S. Midwest and only allow one buyer - the United States. As Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recently said, "we export 97 percent of our energy to the U.S. and we would like to diversify that." However, the Canadian government has put the breaks on the two pipeline proposals to export tar sands through its provinces due to the need to take more time to listen to its own public's concerns about water and safety. 

Keystone XL would be Canada’s first step in diversifying its energy market. The pipeline would divert large volumes of Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, where it would be available for the first time to buyers on the world market. To sweeten the deal, many of the refineries on the Gulf Coast happen to be located in foreign trade zones, where they can export Canadian oil to the world market without paying U.S. taxes. Oil Change International investigated this issue in a report that found the Keystone XL pipeline was part of a larger strategy to sell increasing volumes of Canadian crude on the international diesel market.

When Canadian regulators at the National Energy Board (NEB) considered the Keystone XL proposal in 2008, they asked TransCanada to justify another pipeline when there was already so much spare capacity.  TransCanada conceded that Keystone XL would take oil from existing pipelines, increasing shipping costs. However, TransCanada argued that this cost would be more than offset as shifting Canadian oil from the Midwest to the Gulf would increase the price that Americans paid for Canadian oil by $3.9 billion.

In fact, TransCanada refused to support a requirement that oil on Keystone XL be used in the United States in a recent Congressional hearing. Earlier this month, Representative Edward Markey asked TransCanada's President Alex Pourbaix to support a condition that would require the oil on Keystone XL to be used in the United States. Mr. Pourbaix refused, saying that a requirement to keep oil on Keystone XL in the United States would cause refineries to back out of their contracts. That very well may be the case as Valero, one of the largest prospective purchasers of Keystone XL's crude, has already told its investors the its future business is in international export. 

Simply stated, Keystone XL is a way to get Canadian oil out of the United States, not into it.

Go to www.stoptar.org to take action.

Great dog

Ghost Birds

US asks scientific journals to censor bird flu studies

US requests scientific journals publish redacted versions of studies on a version of bird flu that could spread to humans.


Reuters
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011 -  go to the source to this article by clicking on this link to the Guardian 

Bird flu virus: the journals say censorship would restrict access to information that might advance the cause of public health. Photograph: Matthias Kulka/ Matthias Kulka/CORBIS

The US government has asked the scientific journals Nature and Science to censor data on a laboratory-made version of bird flu that could spread more easily to humans, fearing it could be used as a potential weapon.

The US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked the two journals to publish redacted versions of studies by two research groups that created forms of the H5N1 avian flu that could easily jump between ferrets - typically considered a sign the virus could spread quickly among humans.

The journals are objecting to the request, saying it would restrict access to information that might advance the cause of public health.

The request was a first for the expert panel, formed after a series of anthrax attacks on US targets in 2001. It advises the Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies about "dual use" research that could serve public health but also be a potential bioterror threat.

"NSABB has never before recommended to restrict communications on research that NSABB has reviewed that has potential dual use implications," Dr Amy Patterson, director of the National Institutes of Health's Office of Biotechnology Activities, said in a statement.

The bird flu virus is extremely deadly in people who are directly exposed to infected birds but so far it has not mutated into a form that can pass easily from person to person.

The National Institutes of Health funded the two research labs' work to see how the virus could become more transmissible in humans, with the aim of getting early insight to contain threats to public health.

The NSABB wants to keep this information from falling into the wrong hands.

The articles involved work done by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist, and Dr Ron Fouchier and colleagues from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.

The National Institutes of Health said the health department agreed with the panel's assessment and gave the journals non-binding recommendations to withhold key elements of the studies.

But the NIH said the government was working out how to allow secure access to the information to those with a legitimate need to see it.

"It is essential for public health that the full details of any scientific analysis of flu viruses be available to researchers," the editor in chief of Nature, Dr Philip Campbell, said in a statement.

"We are discussing with interested parties how, within the scenario recommended by NSABB, appropriate access to the scientific methods and data could be enabled."

Dr Bruce Alberts, editor in chief of Science, said the advisory board asked the journal to delete details on the scientific methods and specific mutations of the virus before publishing an article by Fouchier and colleagues.

"The NSABB has emphasised the need to prevent the details of the research from falling into the wrong hands," Alberts said in a statement.

He said scientists who study influenza have a need to know the details of the research to protect the public. He said Science was evaluating how best to proceed.

"Our response will be heavily dependent upon the further steps taken by the US government to set forth a written, transparent plan to ensure that any information that is omitted from the publication will be provided to all those responsible scientists who request it, as part of their legitimate efforts to improve public health and safety," Alberts said.

Other researchers voiced concern over government censorship of science.

"It is a very worrying idea that information from this type of work may be restricted to those that 'qualify' in some way to be allowed to share it," Professor Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College London, said.

"Who will qualify? How will this be decided? In the end is the likelihood of misuse outweighed by the danger of beginning a Big Brother society?"

Invasive Species can ruin the environment and cost us billions of dollars.

It's up to each of us to take action to protect our waters from being invaded. Fortunately, the best thing we can do is very easy - we must make sure that we are as clean as possible when we move between waters. 

Be A Clean Angler

Inspect - Clean - Dry

Join the Clean Angler by clicking HERE 

Merry Fishmas :o)

Bristol Bay needs all the help and support it can get - please help

Bristol Bay needs all the support it can get, so please help us 

get as many LIKES and SIGN UPS as possible.

Use this link to sign up or like 

Fishing in a dump or.......

Fishing in a dump or....

I went fishing with some of my fishing friends some day's ago.......... 

The first place we fished were in a deposit for old and broken building parts - a pure dump. Apparently they caught plenty of fish in this quite disgusting place, among all the trash and garbage. The reason for the success, when it come to catching lot's of sea trout, in this very "special" place is because of a fresh water channel that runs out ( just besides the red house in the top shoot) into the fjord area we were fishing in. This attrachts the sea trout when the water temperature drops. 

 BUT 

I must say that I have reached a state in my life where I consider if I want to spend time fishing in such a place at all. I defiantly prefer to  fly fish in quiet and beautiful surroundings - it's simply half the experience for me. The second spot we drove to, as you can see in the rest of these pic's, was much more appealing. Besides I love to shoot photos when I'm out fishing, and there isn't much to shoot in such a "dump scenery" ( top pic )!!

Fly fishing to me, is a state of mind where you just relax while your senses are being stimulated by a beautiful scenery, and if you on top of that are able to catch a few nice fish at the same time, then everything just comes together on a higher level.

I'm probably spoiled from all the fantastic places I've been to so far in my "fishy life" and I feel really priviliged to have so many fantastic memories in my mind and heart. So I really don't know if I ever will join my fishing buddy's to the "dump spot" anymore - life is simply to short to spend on these kind of "garbage fishing spots"!!

Human development....

Read and learn....

Open publication - Free publishing - More conservation

The Fly Fishing Show is on - don't miss it.

I which I could attend to these fly fishing shows - so much interesting stuff going on in all of these places.

Check out where and when by clicking on this direct link to the Fly Fishing Show

Think about eating farmed salmon... think again...

Who Cares About this Planet?

and this one as well....

 

Salmon virus in B.C. for decades

source to this article CBC News 

Salmon virus in B.C. for decades, say biologists

World experts defend sample results

CBC News 

Posted: Dec 15, 2011 

Department of Fisheries (DFO) biologists have told a federal inquiry that fish samples, dating back more than two decades have tested positive for a potentially lethal wild sockeye fish virus — but that fact wasn't publicly reported.

Dr. Kristi Miller, the head of molecular genetics for DFO in Nanaimo, told the Cohen Commission on Thursday that frozen samples dating back to 1986 have been tested, and show infectious salmon anemia (ISA) has been in B.C. waters for at least 25 years.

The public inquiry into the decline of the Fraser River sockeye salmon stocks was extended for three extra days after ISA was detected in wild B.C. salmon two months ago by Simon Fraser University Prof. Rick Routledge.

That revelation put the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and B.C.'s fish farming industry on high alert, but those results couldn't be confirmed and government scientists announced earlier this month that extensive testing came up negative.

The alleged presence of ISA in B.C. salmon stocks is controversial because the virus had never before been found in salmon off B.C.'s coast, either in the Atlantic species that are farmed in ocean pens or in B.C.'s indigenous wild salmon.

The virus is known to be devastating to farmed Atlantic salmon and opponents of the fish farm industry have suggested farmed fish could spread ISA to wild stocks, with catastrophic results.

The virus has been linked to the destruction of the salmon farming industry in Chile and Europe.

The crisis has prompted the Canada Food Inspection Agency to develop a regular surveillance program for ISA, that is expected to be in place as early as next spring.

Hope that the DFO people will get this kind of Santa visit...

Hope that the Canadian "DFO people" will get this kind of Santa visit... :O)

These 8 pictures say's it all

These 8 pictures from -  www.salmonaresacred.org -  just say's it all.

Where to fish 2011

Where To Fish – The Good Fishing Guide – 92nd Edition

1st published in 1858 and still the most comprehensive reference source of fishing locations throughout the UK and Ireland.

Suitable for both beginners and experts, Where To Fish also gives important information on licensing, regulations, instructors, clubs, agents, boat hire, tackle shops, hotels, national bodies and much more.

Over 640 pages of detailed information, in a durable hardback format.

Keep at home or in the glove box of your car!

Where To Fish, is your passport to new challenges in 2011. 

Getting a little nervous.....

Great shot from the National Geographic web

Salmon inquiry in News Now

I'm concerned...I'm really concerned....

Someone wrote to me that he thought that the Pool 32 blog were only focusing on the ISA situation at the moment, and to that I can only say - But of course!!!!! - this is a very serious situation for all of us.

The perspective of this virus and what it potentially can do, not only to all the exciting wild salmon (the farmed salmon I don't care about) - but also to us humans is not at all clear. In salmon it infect their whole biological system in such a terrible way, that if I start thinking about what would/could happen if the same symphtoms began showing in human bodies - then Hell would break loose - big time!!!.
Here is a very interesting article from the Living Ocean Website which just is another confirmation of what is going on in Canada right now - poor Canadians, your reputation will suffer a lot because of all these Norwegian owned fish farm companies.

PS don't forget to download the pdf of a DFO mail - it's just unbelievable and proof that this has been know for years!!!

Only one word comes to my mind, and it's  - "$almongate"

Evidence unveiled at federal Cohen Inquiry into Fraser River sockeye salmon

VANCOUVER, B.C. – A 2009 memo from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) entered into evidence at Canada’s federal Cohen Inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye Thursday reveals that salmon at the AquaBounty facility in Price Edward Island have tested positive for the Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) virus.

The genetically-engineered (GE) salmon, currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for potential sale to American consumers, tested positive for the ISA virus in November  2009. An email from a senior DFO fish health official was sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, notifying the agency of the positive test results.

“AquaBounty’s genetically modified fish are in a closed, land-locked facility,” said Catherine Stewart of Living Oceans Society, the group whose research uncovered the evidence. “This suggests the virus could only have entered such a facility through eggs or smolts, proving once again that Canada must take action to both ban egg imports and implement more rigorous testing for ISA.”

In the notification to the food health authority, DFO notes that based on molecular strain testing at two separate laboratories, the virus appears to be a new strain of ISA. The email also states: “With respect to international exports of live fish or eggs from this facility, DFO would identify that the facility has tested positive for ISAv should we be asked to sign a fish health certificate for export.”

Download a pdf of the DFO email. The DFO email will be posted to the Cohen Commission website as Exhibit 2083.

For more information contact:
Catherine Stewart, Living Oceans Society
Cell: 604-916-6722 (call or text)
cstewart@livingoceans.org

Ms. Stewart will be attending Cohen Inquiry hearings into ISAv Friday, Dec. 16 and Monday, Dec. 19.

Marlin eaten by Tiger Sharks

Mail from Alexandra Morton - DFO covers up disease in wild salmon

DFO covers up disease in wild salmon - day one of explosive testimony at the Cohen Inquiry into ISA virus

Source to this article - Alexandra Mortons blog.

Dec 15, 2011 Vancouver Immediate Release Four salmon disease experts were on the stand today at the Cohen Inquiry into the decline of the Fraser sockeye. Dr. Are Nylund of the University of Bergen is an expert in salmon viruses, including the ISA virus. Dr. Fred Kibenge runs one of only two World Organization for Animal Health labs for ISA virus. Dr. Kristina Miller is the head of the Genomics Lab at DFO’s Pacific Biological Station. Nelle Gagne is a researcher at the DFO National Reference Lab in Moncton a non-accredited lab.

On December 2, 2011, the Minister of Fisheries announced, “there has never been a confirmed case of ISA in British Columbia salmon” http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/statement-declarations/2011/20111202-eng.htm However, on the stand today, Justice Cohen heard the DFO “Reference lab” is the only one that can’t seem to find ISA virus. The difference was in the type of software and assays used by Moncton. ISA virus is a type of fish flu, appearing worldwide wherever there are salmon farms, it has a tendency to mutating into highly virulent strains in the crowded.

But it got worse. Testing farm salmon in Clayoquot Sound for a jaundice yellow condition killing the farm fish for the past 7 years revealed both ISA virus and a new Norwegian virus that causes Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI) in salmon. Dr. Miller also reported higher levels of both ISA virus and HSMI in Fraser sockeye smolts in 2007, than 2008. The 2007, sockeye smolts were the ones that never came home in 2009. This raises the question how much these diseases contributed to the sockeye crash.

The scientists on the stand were unsure how long ISA virus may have been in BC. Dr. Miller revealed evidence it could have been here since the late 1980s, shortly after the first farm Atlantic salmon came to BC in 1985. What was most disturbing is that DFO never told the public and did not reveal the ISAv and HSMI findings to the Inquiry. Justice Cohen instructed DFO over a year ago to produce all evidence on the health of the Fraser sockeye. One hundred percent of the highly endangered Cultus Lake sockeye of the Fraser River tested positive for ISAv in 2002, 2003 and DFO never revealed this to the Inquiry and maintains the position ISA virus is not here.

This is a dangerous and shameful breach of public trust, DFO lost all credibility, they are like addicts when it comes to salmon farms, they will do and say anything. They are going to destroy wild salmon as they did wild cod of the North Atlantic, no one has the right to be careless with viruses.

At the hearings in August, the BC Salmon Farmers suggested they would develop a protocol with Miller to allow her to test Atlantic salmon for viruses. However, when asked today Miller said she refused an arrangement where the salmon farmers would have become managing partners in her research on Fraser sockeye while delaying access to Atlantic salmon until some future, undefined date.

While the public has been told all the wild salmon that tested positive for ISA virus were healthy, a researcher in Dr. Miller’s lab, Brad Davis, discovered that in fact ISA virus positive salmon exhibit symptoms of the flu – suggesting harm.

The Commission also heard evidence that when the provincial vet provided Dr. Miller with farm salmon samples that were so degraded and spoiled they were useless.

Tomorrow Dr. Simon Jones of DFO takes the stand because he co-authored the paper that found ISAv in 100% of the Fraser sockeye, a paper DFO never provided to the Inquiry.

Scientist claims evidence of salmon virus from early as 1986

Scientist claims evidence of salmon virus from early as 1986, feared lab would be closed

By Craig McCulloch

A Canadian scientist testifying in front of a commission over the collapse of the Fraser River salmon fishery says that in original tests done as far back as 2002 her lab did find indicators of the ISA Virus in pacific salmon.

Dr Kristi Miller, Head of Molecular Genetics in Nanaimo for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Ocean, testified in Vancouver, B.C., that Canada's food inspection agency was not happy with her doing the tests.  

She said there was a general feeling she should not be looking at viruses or diseases. She was fearful that all samples would be taken from her lab and was also very concerned that samples from her genomics program, also based in the lab, would be removed.

When asked by commission lawyer Brock Martland if there was any indication of a virus, Dr Miller testified, "there is a virus here very similar to ISA."

Miller added that it has not been established if the virus causes any disease.  Miller is continuing to test for the virus. Miller also tested fish samples stored in her lab from 1986 and found evidence of ISA. It is not yet known what strain of the virus may exist in the Pacific salmon.

Miller is testifying with two other scientists from Canada and one via teleconference from Norway. The Cohen Commission was created two years ago to study the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River, which also habitate in American waterways.

This hearing regarding the ISA virus is being held in a modern conference room with dozens of lawyers and onlookers gathered around in elevating levels of circles.

The lawyers represent multiple levels of government and stakeholders involved in the fishing & aquaculture industries. The scientists were crossed examined by some of those lawyers.

Follow the ISA Hearing at the Cohen Commission on Facebook

Interesting in following the 

Cohen Commission by using this LINK 

How does tar oil sand effect our souroundings

In Canada, the oil industry is transforming one of the world's last remaining intact ecosystems into America's gas tank.

Alberta's boreal forest and wetlands are home to a diverse range of animals, including lynx, caribou and grizzly bears, and serve as critical breeding grounds for many North American songbirds and waterfowl. Oil companies are scraping up hundreds of thousands of acres of this wildlife haven to mine tar sands -- silty deposits that contain small amounts of crude bitumen.

Extracting tar sands, and turning bitumen into crude oil, uses vast amounts of energy and water, and causes significant air and water pollution, and three times the global warming pollution of conventional crude production. The rush to strip-mine and drill tar sands in the boreal will destroy and fragment millions of acres of this wild forest for low-grade petroleum fuel.

Large quantities of highly radioactive water

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 December 2011

Workers decontaminate the roof of an Okuma town office near the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Photograph: Kyodo/Reuters

Large quantities of highly radioactive water have leaked through a crack in the wall of a treatment facility at the Fukushima power plant, and some may have founds its way into the sea, the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], said.

The firm said as much as 45 tonnes of water had leaked through the concrete wall of a building being used to purify contaminated water that is then used to cool molten fuel in the plant's three damaged reactors.

The firm has piled up sandbags to prevent further leaks but fears some water may have already found its way into a gutter that connects to the Pacific ocean about 600 metres away.

Experts believe the water could contain high levels of strontium-90, a beta-emitting radioactive substance that, if ingested, can cause bone cancer.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that although caesium levels in the leaked water were low, it could contain up to 130,000 becquerels per cubic centimetre of strontium, which has a half-life of 29 years.

Workers temporarily halted the purification apparatus after spotting a puddle of water on Sunday. They later recorded 1.8 millisieverts [mSv] per hour of gamma radiation and 110mSv per hour of beta radiation on the surface of the puddle, the company said in a statement.

It said the leak appeared to have been stemmed, adding it already had enough purified water to continue cooling the reactors as scheduled.

The discovery underlines the difficulties facing Fukushima Daiichi workers as they struggle to contain and reuse large volumes of contaminated water.

In October, the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, a French government body, said the plant had been responsible for the biggest-ever discharge of radioactive material into the sea.

More details have emerged, meanwhile, of the workers' desperate struggle to save the power plant in the moments after it was struck by a tsunami of up to 14 metres in height on the afternoon of 11 March.

One of the unnamed employees, who was in charge of the main control room at the time of the disaster, recalled how, at one point, he had begged colleagues not to abandon the plant.

He realised that the tsunami had caused a disaster when the lights on the plant's control panels flickered, and then went out. "I came to realise that a tsunami had hit the site when one of the workers came rushing into the control room, shouting 'Sea water is gushing in!'" he said. "I felt at a complete loss after the power went down."

He said the plant's "anxious" employees argued over how to contain the crisis, with one suggesting they had no choice but to flee. "He said: 'Is there any point in staying when there is nothing we can do?'

"I bowed my head and begged them to stay."

Workers at the site in the aftermath of the accident – quickly nicknamed the Fukushima 50 because they initially worked in groups of around that number – have been hailed as heroes for remaining at their posts and preventing an even greater catastrophe.

One recalled how he had volunteered to enter a reactor building to manually open a ventilation valve in an attempt to ease the pressure building inside.

"We put on full protective gear, but we couldn't possibly let younger workers do that job as we were entering an area with high levels of radiation," he said.

"When I got there, I heard a strange, loud popping sound from below, and when I tried to start work, my black rubber boots melted [due to the heat]."

The workers echoed fears voiced recently by the plant's chief, Masao Yoshida, who has taken early retirement due to an unspecified illness, that there were moments when they believed they would die.

"We experienced big aftershocks and had to keep fleeing [from possible tsunami] up the hill still wearing our protective masks," said one worker.

Another recalled how he and his colleagues constantly worried about being electrocuted as they worked while standing in puddles of water.