Interesting little story

[cowman]

In my general area their is a place that takes in various wildlife that has been injured or orphaned and gets them in shape to return to the wild. Its called the Medicine River Rehabilitation center.
Anyway occasionally I drop off a bag of gophers(they need natural food for the hawks/owls etc.) and as I was going to be in the area I shot some and dropped in.
There was a local rancher there with a calf that had fallen in a tar pit. He'd taken him there because they are experts at removing oil and tar etc. from wild animals who have got contaminated.
I have never seen such a pitiful sight as this calf! He was literally encased in tar! The very angry rancher told me the calf had fallen in a tar pit on a gravel lease owned by the county. He leased the surrounding land. Small open pit, no fence around it.
Now what I couldn't understand was how come the municipality can have an open tar pit where anything can fall into it? He said he considered phoning Environment but the municipality had implied if he made waves they wouldn't renew his lease! He also said when he found the calf and got him out he phoned the municipality and blasted them! He said they were down at the gravel pit within an hour and hauled away all the evidence! They have told him they will pay all the bills and pay for the calf if he dies.
I asked him how this could be? Surely someone must be responsible for what is obviously a breech of environmental laws? But instead of anyone taking the fall, I suspect it will be covered up and the rancher bought off with his own tax money!
In my opinion this is NOT responsible government?

[cswilson]

Can you imagine Cowman if that was on your place and somebodies poodle fell in-unbelievable maybe someone should phone into an openline show about it. Hope the guys calf pulls through.

[kato]

Or someone's kid.

Give a teenager a quad, and just try and keep him out of a gravel pit!

[nerves]

Well cowman welcome to our neighborhood our land starts just south of there. We used to rent the land directly across the road from there till an engineer from joffery bought it. But that is the way land seems to sell nowdays. That does suprise me because if the shoe was on the other foot the county and enviroment would be all over you and it would take months to clean it up. Because the water table around here is quite high especialy when you dig away the gravel seams.

[cakadu]

Please help me to understand what we would need a tar pit for in this day and age, especially one that is not properly fenced off so that people/animals/property does not get into it.

Should our leaders not be setting examples in proper procedures and following legislation? What about the current move towards more environmentally friendly practices whether it be in farming, urban living or in a national park?

Thank goodness it wasn't a person involved, but I still feel badly for the poor little calf. What a horrible experience for calf and owner alike.

[cowman]

I imagine the county contractor just wanted to clean out the patching truck and decided to dump it in the county pit.
Now I would think this would be a total violation of just about every environmental law on the books...or do we even have any laws? Maybe its one of those wink/wink laws that no one abides by? I guess if you are the government you can do whatever you want? Maybe the law doesn't apply to the county?
The rancher was basically "urged" not to contact Alberta Environment, by both the carrot and the stick sort of thing. Apparently though he's doing a lot of talking as I heard the story again on coffee row!
How come we have these "environmental laws" when in fact our municipality can ignore them as well as the oil and gas companys? I guess they are just window dressing for the public?

[ALICIA]

I think that when it comes to money. The big goverments turn the other way.
Story in the new's that Alberta is duet free, well if thats the cause their should be lots of money for ranchers then.
In Strathmore they are worried about Mathain Gas being taken out of coal. They were showing want the water that is from the run off of mathain gas does to the land.
I'll just bet that, when they need the Mathain Gas it will not matter what it does to the land.
A couple in the US reported that if they know what damage it would do, they never would of sold for any amount of money. You could tell that they loved the land above any thing else and were just devastated, and were pleading with Canadians not to let it happen to the rockey mountains.
But our goverment promised the States a endless supply and I'll just bet if push comes to shove, they will just take the land. And they can.

[cowman]

If you live in Alberta you are in all likelyhood going to be dealing with coalbed methane. More methane in the coalbed than all the natural gas ever taken out of Alberta!
I have one methane well on some land I own and so far it has been a fairly positive experience. Most of the coalbed methane around my area is in the Horseshoe formation and it is dry gas. I do have questions about what might happen to the aquifier when all this pressurized gas is sucked off. Will the water drop down into the coal seam?
Here is my biggest complaint with coalbed methane: The main company (MGV) are American and they are extremely cheap! They have a track record of breaking all the rules, covering up problems, and not giving one rip about the land, farmers or livestock.
The Alberta government has bent over backwards to let these pirates do whatever they want, including throwing the rule book out the window! Conventional gas and oil exploration companys can only dream of such a sweetheart deal!
There are now some rather disturbing rumors that these dogs have not been telling the whole truth about what they are doing! The story goes that they are drilling into the Belly River formation and sucking up conventional sweet gas! You see they don't have to show anyone their drilling logs, including the Alberta government...its all part of their sweetheart deal! If it can be proved they are doing this, someone is going to get a trip to the crowbar hotel!
I too watched the show on CBC last night on the coalbed methane...and I can definitely agree with what the one guy said...get a good oil lawyer! He will write up a contract that will protect your interests, because if you don't you probably will not only get screwed but you just might have your land turned into a wasteland.

[ALICIA]

I'm really glad that you seen the show and I hope other people have also.
I don't live in Alberta, but I've been there.