Athabasca Tar Sands Duck Mount Cushion

A duck mount featuring an oiled, dead Mallard duck, earth moving equipment, and a skull and crossbones. Woe to any waterfowl landing in a toxic tailings pond in Alberta where a extremely viscous petroleum is extracted from tar sands (aka oil sands) with horrible environmental effects. The Alberta tar sands consist of heavy crude oil mixed with sand, clay and bitumen. Extraction entails burning natural gas to generate enough heat and steam to melt the oil out of the sand. As many as five barrels of water are needed to produce a single barrel of oil. Every day millions of gallons of water are contaminated with chemicals, including arsenic, copper, lead and zinc, to basically separate tar sands oil (called diluted bitumen) from the sand. But the water is so contaminated after this process that they have to store it in toxic sludge pits called tailings ponds. It is estimated that 3 millions gallons of contaminated water leaks from tailing ponds into Alberta's Athabasca River, and the surrounding landscape, every day. Please say no to tar sands.