John Kitsco

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There was a time I travelled through the night doing hot shot delivery service, often to plants in and around Ft. McMurray. I enjoyed the travel and
it was exciting to be driving into the bush- deer and wolves and moose crossing the road. And of course
the various plants would need supplies or parts in the middle of the night.

It seems there are so many projects in and around
Ft. McMurray, Ft. Mackay still further north of
Ft. McMurray and always an endless stream of all sizes and shapes of trucks. Obviously business is good and the plants continue to be built.  Alberta has almost always been a good place for companies like Shell to want to build bigger and better. Shell even had there own report written about the environment and clearly outlined that with the multitude of projects in and around Ft. McMurray there would -without a doubt - be a loss of habitat  for birds, big animals like Caribou and Moose. Nonetheless the upside of more jobs and
big dollars rolling in somewhat put the environmental impact as being one of the things necessary for this development. And not only are we talking damage to wildlife habitat but possible
concerns for air and water quality.

This is where I began to question the ongoing projects and can only presume that even a company like Shell must have some second thoughts. No doubt before long organizations
like Green Peace will also question such gigantic
projects and why they need to go ahead quickly
before a full environmental impact report is made
available to the public, to Albertans and even to the rest of the world. I would think that just as the various pipelines are still waiting to hear word on what the final decision might be - we do need to not be in a hurry when the work involves moving or changing a river, the sacrifice of plants and animals
all in the name of progress...

Obviously Shell needs to continue research and expansion, but no doubt they need to determine
if there just might be a better way to complete this project - without messing with Nature....