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May 17, 2011

Canada Wildfires Threaten Oil Pipeline Spill Cleanup 
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Raging wildfires have forced workers to delay cleanup efforts of last
month's massive oil spill from a tar sands pipeline in Alberta, Canada.
More than 115 wildfires have been reported across Alberta. Thirty-six of
them are listed as being out of control. Fears are growing the fires
will reach the site of last month's oil spill—near the community of
Little Buffalo in the traditional territory of the Lubicon Cree First
Nation. Melina Laboucan-Massimo is an environmental campaigner with
Greenpeace who is from the Lubicon Cree First Nation.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Greenpeace: “Currently around the area where
the spill is, and this has raised concerns for people as well, because
if that oil were to ignite we would also see a whole host of problems
related to toxins being further released from the oil spill, as well as
the inability to put the fire out.”

The pipeline spill in Alberta caused a leak of 28,000 barrels of
oil—the largest oil spill in the region in decades.



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