No one deserves a tar sands mine in their backyard.
But right now, Suncor -- the same company that's draining the Athabasca River even when water levels are dangerously low -- is trying to build a mine and toxic tailings pond dangerously close to the city of Fort McMurray.
The dangerous project would be just FIVE KILOMETRES from where families live.
Suncor just started conducting public hearings into the proposed project -- so now is the moment to stop this ludicrous project before it ever gets built.
Sign the petition to Suncor: stop the Voyageur South tar sands project now.
No one knows the exact size of the massive Voyageur South 225,000-barrel-a-day mine, but it's supposed to be larger than the city of Fort McMurray itself.
Here's the scary part: Most of the residents of Fort McMurray have no idea that a mine is being proposed so close to where they live. Suncor is conducting local meetings to build support for the project, but so far they've been sparsely attended.
That's where the over 750,000 members of the SumOfUs Canada community in. Together we can raise the profile and stakes of this project -- and make sure it never gets built.
Tell Suncor: halt your dangerous Voyageur South project now.
For years, oil companies have been building major tar sands projects downstream and on Indigenous lands and waters. Communities like Fort Chipewyan are experiencing first hand the impacts of these projects, from rare cancers, to fish with tumours.
Especially in a more densely populated area like Fort McMurray, the risks and dangers just aren't worth the corporate profits.
I've been on site at a tar sands facility, and the thing I remember the most clearly is the immediate headache I felt from airborne carcinogenic petrochemicals like benzene.
The people of Fort McMurray don't deserve to be Suncor's guinea pigs. And the planet cannot afford another shortsighted tar sands expansion project at a time when we need to shift away from fossil fuels entirely.
Tell Suncor to stop its Voyageur South tar sands project now.
The SumOfUs community has been hard at work fighting Suncor's greenwash and industrial water use. After we found out Suncor was lobbying for weak water rules in the tar sands, we launched a national campaign calling out Suncor's misleading greenwash. We took the fight right to Suncor's parent company, Petro-Canada, and delivered petitions at gas stations across the country.
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More information:
Suncor pitches Voyageur project to public, Fort McMurray Today, October 26, 2015.
Proposed Suncor oil sands mine 'too close for comfort' for residents, Ecolog, November 6, 2015.