Tar Sands

Tar sands oil is one of the dirtiest, costliest, and most destructive fuels in the world. Unlike conventional crude oil, unrefined tar sands is hard to extract, and in order to mine this resource, oil companies are digging up tens of thousands of acres of pristine forest in Alberta, Canada and leaving behind a toxic wasteland. 

Extracting tar sands: 

• Destroys enormous swaths of important ecosystems in the boreal forest;
• Produces lake-sized reservoirs of toxic waste;
• Releases toxic chemicals when it is refined in the U.S. and Canada;
• Emits significantly more global warming pollutants than fuels made from conventional oil.

It also has direct impact to many wildlife species.

 
What Happens When Tar Sands Pipelines Break?

Not only is the development of tar sands destroying Canada's ecosystems and our global atmosphere, but transporting this dirty fuel to U.S. markets has also proven to be extremely dangerous, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

• Exxon Mobil Pegasus Pipeline (Mayflower, Arkansas) - On March 29, 2013, an Exxon Mobile pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada burst in the middle of a residential area in Arkansas, sending thousand of gallons of heavy crude oil through neighborhood streets.

• Enbridge Line 6B Pipeline (Kalamazoo River, Michigan) - In the summer of 2010, a ruptured pipeline dumped more than 1 million gallons of raw tar sands oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, poisoning people and wildlife for miles around. It is known as the largest freshwater tar sands oil spill in U.S. history.

NWF Fighting Reckless Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion

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The tar sands industry is on the brink of a major expansion that could spell game over for our planet’s climate—but they need new pipelines through the United States in order to accomplish this goal. 

Spanning New England, the Great Plains, the Midwest and the Gulf, foreign companies like TransCanada Corporation and Enbridge, Inc. are mounting enormous construction efforts to send their dirty fuel to international markets.

If the industry gets its way, Canada gets the jobs, China gets the oil, and the U.S. gets the risk. 

Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline (Great Plains)

TransCanada, a Canadian pipeline company, has proposed a massive pipeline which would carry up to 35 million gallons per day of tar sands oil from operations in Alberta more than two thousand miles to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline—called “Keystone XL”—would cut through six American heartland states from Montana to Texas, threatening the Ogallala aquifer and crucial habitat for Sandhill cranes, sage grouse and more. 

LEARN MORE about the Keystone XL pipeline, and what people across the country are doing to fight it >>  

Exxon & Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline (New England)

ExxonMobil and Enbridge Inc—the company responsible for the disastrous Kalamazoo River tar sands spill—are secretly working on a project in New England that would put Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in harm’s way. Construction of this covert pipeline could mean transporting up to 12.6 million gallons of tar sands oil per day through those states and would contribute to the expansion of habitat-destroying tar sands operations in Alberta, Canada. 

FIND OUT about the Exxon & Enbridge pipeline project, and what NWF is doing to stop the expansion of the dirtiest fuel on the planet >>

Enbridge’s Enormous System Expansion (Great Lakes and Midwest)

Enbridge is looking well beyond New England in their rush to boost profits: the corporate giant is also pushing plans from the Great Lakes to Texas that would dramatically ramp up their industrial footprint by expanding old infrastructure and constructing new tar sands pipelines in Missouri, Illinois, and other states across the region. These projects even beat the Keystone XL pipeline for sheer volume: the proposed “Alberta Clipper” pipeline expansion alone would result in 37 million gallons per day of toxic tar sands flowing through the Great Lakes watershed.

LEARN MORE about Enbridge's tar sands projects and the threat they pose to the Midwest >>
 

Help support NWF's work to protect wildlife from tar sands and other threats >>