Tar sands crude is choking America

Recent debate over the Keystone XL oil pipeline has turned a spotlight on Canada's controversial and oil-rich tar sands, which would be the source of crude oil flowing through the pipe to the Gulf of Mexico. Tar sands oil has faced stiff criticism from environmental groups, which say that it's far dirtier than its Middle Eastern counterpart despite claims from the Canadian government and industry groups that they keep a close eye on environmental impact.

But long before the Keystone XL became a cause célèbre, tar sands oil was already ubiquitous in America: It goes to fuel our cars and corporations' trucking fleets, and it's used in the production of products from aluminum cans to asphalt. Starting last year, San Francisco-based environmental advocacy group Forest Ethics launched a campaign to encourage American companies to boycott tar sands oil and, specifically, the refineries that process it (below).

Using data from the federal Energy Information Administration (which tracks imports of unprocessed crude oil), Forest Ethics compiled a list of nearly 50 US refineries that handle tar sands oil (MoJo made the above map based on that list). In these refineries, the heavy, molasses-like "bitumen" from the tar sands undergoes heating, blending, and other refining steps and comes out as useable fuel, ready to be pumped into a long-haul semi. What the map shows, Forest Ethics campaign director Aaron Sanger said, is that "unless you take action to take tar sands oil out of your footprint, you've got it in your footprint."

By "you," of course, Sanger doesn't mean you, dear reader: When you fill up at the local gas station, there's really no way to know from which refinery your fuel is coming. (Chances are it has been blended from several before reaching the pump.) Instead, he's referring to companies whose in-house or contracted trucking fleets buy fuel in bulk directly from refineries or through a broker (known as a "jobber" in industry parlance). Forest Ethics has persuaded 14 such companies, including Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and LUSH Cosmetics, and Chiquita, to downsize their transportation footprint, in part by avoiding fuel from any of the refineries on the map.

"You and I as individuals don't have much leverage over the fuel sources," Sanger said. "But big companies do."

At stake is a serious chunk of change: The tar sands industry was worth $13.4 billion in 2009 (down from $20.5 billion in 2008), and oil from Alberta, the western Canadian province the tar sands call home, made up 15 percent of American crude imports, according to statistics from the Albertan government.

Consequently, applying that leverage is no easy task. Over the last couple years, Sanger and colleagues have reached out to 200 big companies, and in every instance when one agreed to investigate its fuel sourcing, there was tar sands oil in the mix, he said. TA Travel Centers, a major "over-the-road" fuel supplier to trucking fleets, found that it buys fuel directly from a quarter of the refineries on the map. For companies on the Forest Ethics list like Walgreens, cutting tar sands oil out means negotiating with fuel brokers and/or truck refilling stations and the possibility of not renewing contracts with those who are unable or unwilling to avoid tar sands oil. Sanger said that Trader Joe's, for example, has made avoidance of tar sands oil a contractual obligation for its distributors.

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