Sand and Soil: Ecological Management and the Framing of Mildred Lake

• Main Author: Ritts, Max
• Other Authors: Prudham, W. Scott, Ruddick, Susan M.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: oil sands; science studies; political ecology; geography; Canada; 0366; Mildred Lake; Beaver Creek
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/32911

This paper explores representations of nature that emerge through the ecological management of Mildred Lake, Syncrude’s Alberta-based oil sands extraction facility. Examining the ways Mildred Lake’s ecology has been re-presented by site eco-management teams, I argue that technologically produced visions help reproduce the regime of power infusing a state-sanctioned scientific practice of eco-management. ‘Using governmentality theory, Chapter 1 contextualizes activities at Mildred Lake: I show how the Alberta government, tethering the growth of the oil sands to technological innovation, submits eco-management questions to a capital-driven state-developmental framework. Chapter 2 examines how state-sanctioned science is discursively performed through eco-management acts. Chapter 3 uses a case study approach to consider three Mildred Lake eco-management projects: Beaver Creek, the Tailings Pond, and reclamation. While Mildred Lake’s eco-management practices cannot withstand critical scrutiny, they reveal the culturally and ecologically significant transformations of nature required to sustain authority amid the destructive effects of bitumen extraction.