No Oil in Sebago Lake
ExxonMobil plans to use an antiquated oil pipeline that passes right next to Sebago Lake to transport highly corrosive tar sands oil from Canada to Casco Bay for export. We're working to stop this reckless plan and protect Sebago from the threat of a toxic tar sands oil spill.
A toxic new threat to Sebago Lake
ExxonMobil wants to use an antiquated oil pipeline that passes right next to Sebago Lake to transport highly corrosive tar sands oil from Canada to Casco Bay for export. A tar sands spill in the Sebago watershed, or near any of Maine’s waterways, would be utterly disastrous.
We’re urging Maine’s elected officials to do everything in their power to stop this reckless project.
The dirtiest oil on earth
Tar sands oil is very different than conventional oil.
Tar sands isn’t even a liquid. It’s a sticky, peanut butter-like substance, diluted with benzene and other chemicals to allow it to flow through pipelines.
Tar sands oil is much more corrosive to pipelines than conventional oil. And because it’s thicker (as much as 70 times more viscous) than conventional oil, enormous pressure is needed to move it through pipelines. These factors, and others, greatly increase the risk of spills, like Enbridge’s spill of 1 million gallons of tar sands oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in July 2010.
Tar sands oil spills are nearly impossible to clean up, since the heavy tar sands sink in water, making the tools we use to clean up conventional oil spills, like booms and skimmers, practically useless. The EPA has determined that a 30-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River is essentially permanently polluted.
Tar sands oil also is the dirtiest oil on earth. Increased reliance on tar sands oil is frustrating our ability to limit global warming and, if fully developed, would mean “game over for the climate,” according to Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist. In addition, the production of tar sands oil is destroying vast swaths of boreal forest, harming wildlife, and much more.
Tar sands oil is oversupplied in Canada and the Upper Midwest, so oil companies are pushing feverishly to get it to an oil port in order to access the world oil market and increase their already massive profits.
At risk: A Maine treasure
Sebago Lake is a Maine treasure—we escape there on hot summer days, we drink its water, and we watch our kids grow up on its shores. Families visit summer after summer, generation after generation to enjoy the lake and all it has to offer.
In addition to being a favorite place to swim, boat, and fish for generations of Mainers, Sebago Lake provides clean drinking water to the Greater Portland Area. It’s one of only a few drinking water supplies around the country that is so clean it doesn’t require an expensive filtration system.
We like to think Sebago Lake will always be as pure and welcoming as it is today. But if ExxonMobil succeeds with their dangerous plan to pump tar sands right through the Sebago watershed, the threat to the lake will be enormous.
With your help, we can protect Sebago Lake and keep Maine tar sands-free
Sebago Lake should remain pristine—a source of pure, clean drinking water and a place our families can enjoy for generations to come. And tar sands should remain in the ground. We have vast untapped reserves of clean energy and energy efficiency that don’t pollute and never run out.
Citizens, land owners, sportsmen, community leaders, and many others in Maine and across the region are coming together to stop the pipeline project.
We’re asking our elected officials at the local, state and federal levels to do everything in their power to stop the pipeline.
That means passing local resolutions and ordinances opposing the pipeline, passing legislation in the State House to create a Tar Sands Oil Spill Fund, convincing the EPA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to establish rigorous safety standards for pipelines carrying tar sands oil, and convincing the State Department to require a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement.
Going toe-to-toe with ExxonMobil and other oil industry giants is no easy task and will take a powerful movement of people coming together to keep Maine tar sands-free. If enough of us speak out, we can protect Sebago Lake.
Tell your senators: Protect Sebago Lake from the threat of a toxic tar sands oil spill!
Key Facts
- Sebago is a Maine treasure. Sebago Lake State Park is Maine’s busiest state campground.
- Between 2007 and 2010, pipelines carrying tar sands oil in North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan spilled almost three times more oil per mile of pipeline than the national average.
- Tar sands oil is extremely difficult—if not impossible—to clean up. More than two years after a major tar sands oil spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, the EPA wrote a letter to Enbridge, the company responsible, saying that tar sands pollution remains “throughout approximately 38 miles” of the river and continues to generate oil sheen and oil globules.
