Impacts to Landscapes and Ecosystems

Resource extraction of all types effects landscapes and ecosystems by disturbing land, removing vegetation and soil, building roads and waste dumps, pipelines, transmission lines and other types of industrial infrastructure.

Dirty Energy sources like tar sands, oil shale and coal-to-liquids are especially damaging because they require that other energy sources be developed to serve their needs. For example, tar sands requires natural gas in order to extract and upgrade bitumen; oil shale development will require electricity, which is likely to be supplied by coal-fired power plants; and coal-to-liquids plants will require massive new coal mining operations to provide the raw materials to produce syn-fuels.

Consequently, not only does Dirty Energy impact local landscapes, it can also devastate lands and ecosystems potentially far removed from the areas of extraction and production.

Tar sands

Destruction of the Boreal Forest

The tar sands are located in the Canadian Boreal Forest in Alberta. This northern forest ecosystem is a highly efficient and globally important carbon sink that is critical to protecting the planet against global warming. Its forests, lakes and wetlands produce oxygen and purify water. The Boreal is the source of life for many First Nations communities and home to thousands of species of animals, birds, plants and insects. It is such and important area that the Ontario government recently announced that it will prohibit mining and forestry in about half of that province’s Boreal forest -- designating the land for tourism and traditional aboriginal use.

Tar sands mining and in situ bitumen extraction are destroying large portions of the Boreal Forest. Open pit mining literally scrapes away the forests and drains wetlands, and both mining and in situ drilling can alter and pollute the water systems that sustain the Boreal. If full-scale in situ recovery of deep tar sands deposits is allowed to proceed, an area of land approximately the size of Florida (close to 14 million hectares) will be disturbed. Similar to conventional oil and gas development, in situ development requires a complex web of wells, roads, and pipelines, and waste disposal sites, which causes wildlife habitat loss and fragmentation. But according to the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) and Pembina Institute the infrastructure, water and energy needs, and wastes associated with in situ developments are far greater than those associated with conventional oil and gas operations .

Reclamation is questionable

The ability of the industry to restore impacted lands to their current state is highly questionable. After 41 years of tar sands mining only one square kilometer of disturbed land has been certified as being reclaimed. CPAWS and Pembina write that, “Although mitigation and reclamation efforts will be beneficial, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, even with state-of-the-art practices, the cumulative ecological impacts of in situ development will be devastating.” In situ project developers have acknowledged a local risk to biodiversity, and have publicly disclosed that they will be unable to restore certain ecotypes.

Coal

Land Disturbance

Coal mining, especially strip mining, dramatically alters landscapes and ecosystems. In a typical surface mining operation:

• Forests and soil are removed,
• Materials other than coal are also brought to the surface in the coal mining process, and these are left as solid wastes on the surface,
• Coal is washed, creating additional waste material

In some cases, the waste materials left on the surface are acidic, because they contain sulfur-bearing minerals removed with the coal. After the mining is completed, the land will remain barren unless special precautions are taken to ensure that proper topsoil is used when the area is replanted.

Land Obliteration

An extreme example of surface impacts can be found in Appalachia, where coal mining companies often remove entire mountain tops to expose the coal below. Mountaintop removal can involve removing 500 feet or more of the summit to get at buried seams of coal. The rock from the mountaintop is then dumped in the neighboring valleys.

In 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency completed an Environmental Impact Statement on mountaintop removal in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and Tennessee. Some of EPA’s findings include:

• Approximately 7 percent of Appalachian forests have been or may be cut down for mountaintop mining,
• For the most part, reclamation of disturbed sites back to forested ecosystems has not been successful,
• Impacts to migratory and mature-forest birds may occur through loss of habitat,
• more than 1,200 miles of headwater streams across the region have been buried or impacted by roads and waste ponds.

Coal-to-liquids

The creation of a CTL industry in the U.S. would have a significant impact on landscapes and ecosystems, because CTL plants require massive amounts of coal. As seen above, the extraction of coal can transform landscapes and obliterate ecosystems.

The Department of Energy has calculated that a CTL industry producing 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) would consume approximately 475 million tons of bituminous coal or 960 million tons of lignite per year. In 2007, the U.S. produced 535 million tons of bituminous coal, and 79 million tons of lignite. In other words, in order to support a 2.5 million bpd CTL industry the U.S. coal industry would either have to sell all of its coal to CTL plants and stop selling to other customers, or essentially double its coal production. (Another alternative would be for the U.S. to import coal for CTL from foreign suppliers.)

Oil and Gas

Dispersed but widespread industrial development

Public and private lands are being leased for oil and gas development at an ever-increasing pace. The development of oil and gas creates a spider-web of effects across the landscape: roads, pipelines, well pads and waste disposal sites create habitat fragmentation; waste pits threaten the health of migratory birds, wildlife and livestock; air pollution from compressors, pumps, landfarms, pits and oilfield equipment diminishes the quality of air; and water is threatened by a number of oil and gas development practices such as drilling, waste water injection, waste storage and hydraulic fracturing.

In many areas, the effects on the land and on communities have become so obvious that even those with longtime ties to the industry say oil and gas producing regions must improve their practices. A Rocky Mountain News article quotes Vince Matthews, a 22-year veteran of the oil industry and current head of the Colorado Geological Survey as saying that the prospect of full-out mineral development in the state is frightening. "Colorado is a special place and we've got to do it right -- and I don't think it's right for Colorado to be a national sacrifice zone."

Impacts to land, parks and wildlife

But landscape level effects are already occurring in Colorado and other states.

• Many thousands of miles of oil and gas roads criss-cross the Western states, and increased development will lead to more road construction. Roads are widely recognized as having direct, indirect, and cumulative effects on wildlife -- from providing more access to poachers, to fragmentation of habitat.
• The impacts are not only felt in Western states. As a result of oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, the Allegheny has the dubious honor of having as many miles of roads as much larger national forests in the western U.S. -- more than 2,700 miles. Road densities in some part of the Allegheny National Forest approach densities found in urban areas -- definitely not appropriate wildlife habitat.
• In Wyoming, studies show that gas drilling is driving mule deer and sage grouse out of their traditional range.
• A study on roads and elk found that more than 640 acres of elk habitat can be affected by one mile of road.
• Emissions of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter from drilling activities are contributing to reduced visibility in a number of wilderness areas and National Parks in the West, including Mt. Rushmore National Memorial and Rocky Mountain National Park .

Oil Shale

The Wilderness Society reports that large-scale development of oil shale would irreversibly disturb landscapes throughout the Western states where oil shale development could occur. Extraction of oil shale requires that companies scrape clean the majority of each project site, displacing all other uses including recreation and hunting. And as with tar sands and oil and gas development, wildlife habitat will be fragmented by the tangled web roads, pipelines, and transmission lines needed to support each oil shale project.

• Commercial-scale oil shale development would negatively affect most of the threatened, endangered, and sensitive species that occur in the counties where development could occur. For example, the Bureau of Land Management has estimated that large-scale oil shale development would result in the permanent loss of 35% of Colorado River cutthroat trout fisheries. Oil shale would also adversely impact Colorado’s largest elk herd by severing migration corridors and destroying the winter range of all big game species.
• To support the projected oil shale development, 10 giant new power plants and five large new coal mines would be required. These facilities would affect the landscape directly, through surface disturbance and waste disposal, and indirectly, by emitting pollutants that damage ecosystems. For example, emissions of the major culprits in acid rain -- sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide -- could each increase by over 35,000 tons per year.

Uranium

Uranium mining operations involve major disruptions of the surface landscape, and surface and groundwater flows. The natural environment and wildlife in the vicinity of uranium mines and mills can become contaminated with radioactive chemicals through windblown dust from tailings sites and effluent discharges to surface waters.

Radioactive waste dumps

Uranium waste rock and tailings, much like wastes from other types of mines, are typically concentrated in surface containment areas near a mine-mill complex. The Pembina Institute reports that Canadian uranium mines and mills have created 109 million metric tons of waste rock and 214 million metric tons of tailings. In the U.S., the U.S. Geological survey estimates that the approximately 4,000 open pit and underground uranium mines in their database have generated about three billion metric tons of waste rock.

Long-term impacts

Reclamation of uranium and other types of mines may include partial or complete backfilling of pits, stabilization of waste rock piles, appropriate contouring of disturbed land surfaces, and revegetation.

Full reclamation of uranium mining and milling sites is often impossible because some of the wastes remain long-term problems. Uranium mine tailings and waste rock are typically acidic or potentially acid generating, and contain long-lived radionuclides, heavy metals and other contaminants. So the waste disposal sites often require long-term care and operation. According to the Auditor General of Canada, “In Canada a walk-away solution is not realistic for decommissioning most uranium tailings sites. Long-term storage requires long-term institutional care.” In other words, these sites will be a mar on the landscape and a threat to ecosystems for many years to come.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, radiation from uranium mines can also remain a potential risk concern for thousands of years due the extensive half-lives of uranium isotopes and their progeny. “Even when state-of-the art remediation methods have been used for stabilizing a site, proof that the methods have been successful can sometimes only be obtained through long-term monitoring of air and water pathways.”

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