West Coast Warned to Prepare for 'Tar Sands Invasion'

Environmentalists have issued a warning to the West Coast: Watch out…the tar sands are coming.

North America’s Pacific Coast, from the San Francisco Bay to British Columbia, is facing a “tar sands invasion,” according to an analysis released this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), NextGen Climate America, ForestEthics, and a coalition of 26 partner organizations.

“The West Coast is about to fall victim to a tar sands invasion, unless our leaders choose to protect the health and safety of our communities and say no to Big Oil.”
—Anthony Swift, Natural Resources Defense Council

The amount of tar sands crude moving through the West Coast could increase by more than 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd) if existing proposals for pipelines, refineries, and export facilities move forward, the report (pdf) states—an influx that is bound to have negative public health, climate, social justice, and environmental impacts.

Anthony Swift, deputy director of NRDC’s Canada Project, explained further in a blog post:

“Keystone is not the only way the tar sands threaten our country,” philanthropist and NextGen Climate co-founder Tom Steyer reportedly said Tuesday at an event in Oakland, releasing the report. “The owners of the tar sands are always looking for other routes to the world’s oceans and the world’s markets.”

And that search for new outlets has led straight to the Pacific Coast, where the oil industry seeks to: increase tanker and barge traffic 25 fold; increase tar sands at West Coast refineries from 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 800,000 bpd by 2040; and create a dozen new rail terminals that would significantly increase the region’s crude-by-rail traffic, according to the groups’ analysis. 

All this would increase the region’s carbon pollution by up to 26 million metric tons—the equivalent of adding 5.5 million cars to the road, environmentalists say.