"Dirty Oil" Takes Serious Look At Oil Consumption

By Aaron Boyd

The amount of particulate matter in the smoke that is coming out of the production plants increased by 780 percent between 1999 and 2006. Photos by David Dodge of the Pembine Institute

Southampton - Director Leslie Iwerks and narrator Neve Campbell presented a world premiere screening of their new documentary "Dirty Oil" at the 17th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) this October depicting where American's get the bulk of their oil, the true impacts on the environment, and the people and the industry that tried to cover it up.

The oil industry has produced some benefits for the community, as well, as a high school drop-out can make $2,000 a week working in the tar sands fields.

The film opens with scenes of everyday citizens buying fuel at local gas stations being asked where they think the oil they are putting in their cars came from. Most answered the Middle East and Venezuela, however the narrator points out that the largest importer of oil into the U.S. is actually our neighbor to the north, Canada. With rising populations and rising individual fuel consumption, the United States' annual oil consumption exceeds the next 20 countries on the list combined, however existing petroleum fields and pipelines in Canada have ensured America's energy security for the next 10 years, according to projections.

In Alberta, Canada, an area the size of Florida has been excavated to get at the tar sands, sediment soaked in crude petroleum, of "the world's last remaining productive oil field." According to the documentary, every 400 tons of sand produces 300 barrels of unrefined oil. The ramifications of the "modern-day black gold rush," as it is called, are both wide-ranging and local, as noxious greenhouse gases contribute to overall global warming while the local ecosystem is destroyed and cancer clusters emerge among the native populous. While all petroleum harvesting affects the surrounding landscapes, the film asserts that digging and refining tar sand in Alberta has caused one of the worst environmental situations in the world, producing 1.34 million cars worth of greenhouses gases per day, strip mining the local environment and systematically polluting the waterways.

The trucks that haul the tar sands in and out are 30 feet by 30 feet by 50, the size of an apartment as one driver put it.

"A lot of people have asthma here now," one Aboriginal descendent noted, "We didn't have that before, we didn't even know what asthma was." In the area around the Boreal Forest 35 million acres have been cleared, which according to one environmentalist quoted has directly contributed to a 30 percent decline in the caribou population and is polluting the natural resources that the indigenous people live on.

While the film is clearly stating that there is a significant moral and environmental problem at issue, the director does seek out discrepant views, such as that of Alberta's Minister of Energy Mel Knight, who consistently defends Canada's environmental regulations, though each statement is directly contradicted by an environmental scientist in the subsequent frame.

Knight spoke about the petroleum industry's reclaiming efforts, where the ecosystems are recaptured after the oil is removed, restoring the areas to "similar ecosystems" compared to before the excavation began. The next scene cuts to an environmental expert who calls the reclaiming efforts "pathetic," as only 256 acres have been restored of the nearly one million cleared since 1979, and of that most was relatively simple upland ecosystem, rather than the more difficult to restore wetlands that have been ravaged. "To an ecologist looking at that community, it's not restored," the expert maintained.

An area the size of Florida has been cleared in Alberta, Canada, to excavate the tar sands that produce the majority of the petroleum used by American consumers.

The film takes on the industry - from describing the struggles of the local doctor who first identified the cancer clusters and the ensuing campaign to destroy his credibility and livelihood to the controversial study that was funded by the petroleum industry - to the environmental laws on the books that are not being enforced - however, the Canadian government is also a target, as they have been lax about applying the regulations and are "the big winner in all of this," with $80 billion a year flowing from the oil production industry into federal coffers and approximately $40 billion a year going to the province of Alberta.

The subsidization of the petroleum industry is "not just hidden tax benefits and access to cheap lands," Henry Henderson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) U.S. Midwest Program, said, "It's being subsidized by people's lungs and by their own bodies when the water and air that they depend on become the dumping ground for special interests."

While few are confused about whether oil production is a clean industry, "Dirty Oil" attempts to bring it home, showing the consequences of unrestricted commerce just over the northern border. As one environmentalist put it, "You can't have the world's largest energy project in your backyard without messing up your backyard."