content: I would disagree with you. There is few things that will stop this madness. Simply because what we saw in these pictures is a small scale exploratory operation that is not profitable yet.  * In order to for tar sands to be profitable for these companies first they must build roughly 1300 miles of pipe line trough entire United States in order save money on transport.  * Than they need to expand the mining area several times. Tar sands cover the area of 54,132 square miles ( about same size as entire New York State ) * Currently they have rights to strip mine about 60% of that territory. Problem is that rest of the land is held by native tribes who for the most part are not interested moving and destroying environment.  * Price of crude oil must go up by over 100%! In the last 3 years price dropped significantly from little over $110 per barrel to current price of about $46 per barrel. In order for tar sands to turn in to large scale operation and become profitable first all these things I mentioned above must be implemented. Than price of crude oil must climb to over $96 per barrel. This is a problem because Opec countries Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela recently decided not to lower their production and let the market decide fair price for oil.  Tar sands are by far least effective and most destructive way to produce oil. Devastating area this size will affect not only Canadians but everyone globally. Saying that companies operating these mines are here to stay and that there is nothing that we can do about it is really irresponsible. Like any other business oil companies must make money and currently they are in deep red. Excluding Canadian Government there is only few companies that have enough starting capital. Most of the investors will cut funding once they realize they can't  make any money during their lifetime.  Finally I do agree with you that tailing ponds are currently one of the biggest environmental problems and that everyone should try to influence decision makers in to passing the laws that will force them to change their practices.