Tar Sands Hell – A personal narrative by a member of Lubicon Cree First Nation in Alberta

From:  Citizen Action Monitor

Melina Laboucan-Massimo works tirelessly to get the word out about the devastation in her community

No 528 Posted by fw, July 20, 2012

“The poisons that infest these tar sands mining operations are some of the nastiest in the petrochemical world, including highly dangerous compounds like mercury, arsenic and lead. As they are dumped into rivers that flow toward the Arctic and are spewed into the cold north winds that deposit them far and wide across the remote region—thanks to powerful wind and water currents that already make it a natural sink for global toxic emissions.” —(Source: In Canada’s Tar Sands, A Dante’s Hell Threatens People Nearby and Across the Globe, by Rocky Kistner, Switchboard/NRDC Staff Blog)

“Despite the fact that Canada prides itself on being a free and democratic society where local communities are respected and environmental regulations are superior to most nations – the sad fact is that Canada is from far from it.” 

                                                                       —Melina Laboucan-Massimo

Read and watch Melina Laboucan-Massimo’s story about the destruction of her native land in this embedded short video. Melina Laboucan-Massimo is a member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation in Alberta, Canada, and a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. She is concerned about the impacts of tar sands development, saying, “What we’re seeing happening to the communities around these projects are elevated rates of cancers, as well as elevated rates of respiratory illnesses like emphysema and asthma because there’s air quality issues, there’s contamination to the water, destruction and complete fragmentation of the Boreal forest.”

Voices against Tar Sands from a Lubicon Cree First Nation Member and Environmental Campaigner   Published on Jun 22, 2012 by NRDCflix

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