Jaster - There's a tailing pond right to the left in your picture. They fill that up with the water used during the refining process. A good amount of it seeps into the water table. It's a very well documented for Hydraulic fracturing, and tar sands production results in a similar outcome.

Those Deadly Tailing Ponds - Alberta Surface Rights Group

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The argument you could make is that it could be cleaned up with stricter regulation; but of course regulation is the work of the devil.

Beergut, humans are making it more difficult for us to live on this planet. We're killing ourselves, and swaths of wildlife with us. Climate change is happening, and most scientists agree it is at least accelerated by us.

 

lolumad- it's "accelerated" by volcanoes, cows, geothermal activity, space anomalies and a little tiny tiny bit from humans... I've read more scientific books on the subject then you have years on this planet
It's nature- and the earth will always return to it's homeostasis... regardless.
it's a bit arrogant to think that we humans (you included ) could in the few seconds of human existence, actually alter the path / destiny of this planet-
"mother nature" is not that fragile- and those changes don't happen that quickly.

 

again... questioning your source.
The author of the article could be a wack-job conspiracy theorist who spins data to support his thesis...

 

There is climate change but most scientists (even the ones who think it's caused by us) say our contribution is 0.5% or one half of one percent as far as "greenhouse gases" goes.

It's cyclical. Greenland was once farmed by the vikings. (not the Minnesota bunch) It is not farm-able now due to cooling since that time. While the East side of the ice fields in Antarctica was shrinking the West side was growing even faster. When the NW Passage opened up a couple years ago the Eastern side of Canada was experiencing one of the worst winters on record where the seal hunting fleet got stuck in ice and had to be rescued by ice breakers. Oh, and the NW passage that the environmentalists commented on ad-nauseam closed back up and the ice was so thick off Alaska last year that Nome had to have ice-breakers clear a path so they could get oil and gas into the people.

 

well, if you've read my profile, i work for "big oil". yeah, sure do and proud of it. tailing ponds are lined with impermeable liners. all refiners are required to follow EPA's rules of all govts. it's considered a "permit to work" feature to operate in any country. if you don't follow the rules, you get shutdown. simple as that. i do have a problem with your statement about surface waters seeping back into the water table. dirt/soil would soak it up until the said soil was saturated to the point where the surface water could easily fall back into the water table. i do agree with BG, volcanos and such do FAR more damage than humans ever could.

 

Lots of changes now....

Trump administration pushing massive EPA changes

Trump administration pushing massive EPA changes - POLITICO

 

Not all of the changes Trump wants are for the better. He wanted to cut the EPA funding that pays for Great Lakes pollution cleanup by 97 percent, but I don't think he did it yet. I read somewhere a while back that he wanted to totally eliminate the budget for keeping invasive species out of the Great Lakes too. Asian carp are almost to Lake Michigan and could cost $7 billion in damage to Great Lakes fisheries. That's a whole lot more than what it would cost to keep them out. We already have other invasive species to deal with and can't take one more.

 

I hadn't read where he wants to cut those specific programs, but even if I did I would take it with a grain of salt. Trump could cure cancer and save millions of lives and the left would accuse him of putting doctors out of work.

 

You have to take the bad with the good with any politician. At least Trump isn't trying to close a bunch of areas to all vehicles, and no target shooting, like Obama.

 

Yup; Trump is actually opening up areas.