Syncrude in Court

casterpollox

casterpollox

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Syncrude Canada is on trial on federal and Alberta environmental charges over the deaths of 16-hundred ducks after they landed in a gooey tailings pond in April 2008.

Prosecutors say Syncrude was the only oilsands company that failed to deploy noise cannons two years ago and that workers responsible for deploying the noise-makers were not working that day.

The judge in the case is considering a request from Syncrude for the court to proceed with either the federal or the Alberta charge, but not both.

If convicted on the Alberta charge, Syncrude could face up to a 500-thousand-dollar fine.

The penalty for the federal charge would be at the discretion of the judge.
 
So this is finally in court. What are your thoughts?

I would suggest public pressure has forced the governments hand on this one and they will be charged.

Personally, I'm more interested in the prevention methods that will be suggested at the end of the trial. How do you cover those ponds so birds won't land there? Or will they be forced to clean the water before storing it? I know when we were still farming, sound cannons only worked for so long before the birds came back to our pea fields.

It will be interesting to see the results.
 
From what I heard from a manager at Syncrude was that the ponds where frozen one day .
They where supposed to install the noise cannons literally by the following day the ice came off faster than they could install said noise makers.
Something about not expecting it to thaw....
But my info is just third hand and if any of it is true it will be told in court.
While Syncrude is the Company involved the work is done by a contractor ,yes ?
Only time will tell.
Rob
 
If it was a contractor then it would be a third party court case where Syncrude is responsible since they own it, but they would, in turn, sue the contractor for the fines.

If I understand the law correctly.
 
From what I heard from a manager at Syncrude was that the ponds where frozen one day .
They where supposed to install the noise cannons literally by the following day the ice came off faster than they could install said noise makers.
Something about not expecting it to thaw....
But my info is just third hand and if any of it is true it will be told in court.
While Syncrude is the Company involved the work is done by a contractor ,yes ?
Only time will tell.
Click to expand...

Total B.S.I was working at the site at the time of the incident.The water was open,and ducks and geese were in the area well before Syncrude made any attempt to install the noise Canons.They left the job of setting up the canons way too long,and then a snow storm struck causing even more delays.However,even the snow should not have stopped the deployment of the canons,as Syncrude has all terrain vehicles that easily traverse deep snow and most other terrain.Syncrude screwed up,but they simply won't admit that they were at fault.
 
I don't really give a duck !
There are over a billion birds killed annually in North America by flying into windows....and there is a stink raised about THIS?
Geezuz !
 
I think they are trying to send a message to Syncrude. Syncrude's attitude is that they are exempt and can do what they like. I worked at Aurora mine for a year, this philosophy runs through the whole company.
 
As hunters, we should care about how this plays out. Are we not conservationists at the same time?

We piss and moan about poachers all the time taking a hundred ducks or geese or 5 or 6 deer every year, but some say this court case doesn't matter? I just don't get how you can come to that conclusion. If it was a poacher or a couple of people from Toronto that didn't know the hunting laws that had killed 1600 of these ducks, would you be saying that it doesn't matter?

I don't know the details of the case or claim to be a lawyer and I'm certainly not a member of the green party, but an example needs to be made to the rest of the industry.

As a person that loves the outdoors, this is unacceptable in my eyes. Be it a legit accident or whatever, something needs to change.
 
The situation is really very simple,Syncrude agreed to have the canons in place as a condition of being allowed to run their operation.They did not have the canons in place and 1600 birds died as a result.Syncrude violated the terms of their agreement,end of story.
Had this happened five or ten years ago,before Exxon took over management of the plant,the company would likely just have admitted that they were at fault,paid the fine,made a donation to DU,and this would all be forgotten.However,with the present Exxon management in place,they act as though laws and regulations do not apply to them,they are too arrogant to accept responsibility for their actions.
 
Couldn't they have rolled out either a layer of chain link fence or some kind of study mesh/net on top of the pond that would have prevented these birds from landing and thus prevented that incident from happening altogether ?

It's only a matter of time before the birds get used to those "noise cannons" and start ignoring them after all ...
 
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