Mikisew Cree First Nation live downstream of the Alberta Tar Sands. The tar sands are a contentious topic for many reasons. There are many reasons for concern regarding further development of the tar sands for oil. However, there it has also been estimated that the tar sands hold the largest reserve of oil in the world paralleling that found in the Middle East region. Therefore, there are many companies eager to further tap into the natural resource. The tar sands have become an attractive investment for two primary reasons. The first is that all of the oil reserves in the world that are easily accessible have already been utilized. All of the remaining oil on the planet is much harder to get to which has driven the price of oil much higher than it had been formerly. At the new market prices, the oil found in the tar sands has become more financially attractive. It was previously too expensive to extract the oil from the tar sands and this made the operation financially unfeasible.

Another factor that has contributed to the development of the tar sand has been the improvements in...

The oil is extracted from the tar with a process that relies heavily on steam and energy to produce the steam from water. However, this extraction process requires a great deal of energy and water usage to complete and thus makes it a bigger source of greenhouse gas emissions during the production of the oil compared against more traditional oil extraction.
The pollution generated by the process generates issues that occur on multiple levels. First of all there is the localized pollution that affects the Mikisew Cree First Nation. They can longer eat the fish from the water…