If the fact that the Alberta Oil Sands are the largest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada isn’t enough to get you to stand up and take notice, maybe the ducks trapped and dying in the toxic tailing ponds will.

The oil sands are licensed to use more fresh water in a year than the entire City of Calgary (about the same size as Austin, Texas) and 90% of that fresh water ends up in massive tailing ponds, so large that that they are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world.

Bad news for our fresh water, the global climate and apparently, ducks.

It is being reported today that “hundreds of migrating birds are dying after landing on a tailings pond in northern Alberta owned by Syncrude,” one of the largest players in the Alberta oil patch.

Environment officials said the birds are “clearly heavily oiled” and are not able to fly.

This all coming at the same time that the Alberta Government has launched a $25 million PR offensive to dispel the “myths” surrounding the environmental impacts the Alberta Oil Sands are having on our planet.