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Oil sands toxins get airing in report
Gary Park For Petroleum News
It’s one of those “on the one hand on the other hand” debates.
In the four years from 2006 to 2009, volumes of arsenic and lead produced and deposited in tailings ponds at Canada’s oil sands rose by 26 percent. Quantities of some other substances rose even faster.
But the unpleasant, often toxic byproducts of bitumen extraction accounted for only 10 percent of the total tailings and waste rock reported to the federal government.
The information was contained in the 2009 National Pollutant Release Inventory published by Environment Canada and covering all mining operations from bitumen to minerals.
David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the oil and gas industry is just one of the sectors that makes an impact.
“Transparency and reporting processes like the NPRI are essential to understanding industrial contaminants and balancing our need for environmental protection, economic growth and secure reliable supply of resources,” he said.
In defense of his industry’s efforts to improve its tailings pond performance, Collyer said more than C$1 billion will be spent over the next year on research and upgrades to reduce tailings inventories and speed up reclamation of the land, starting with Suncor Energy’s first pond.
Tailings from oil sands Tailings substances reported to Environment Canada originate in oil sands ore (clay, sands, water and bitumen) or are the results of processing to improve bitumen recovery.
They are contained in ponds to allow sand and clay to settle, with clarified water from the ponds being recycled, which covers 80-90 percent of the water used to extract oil from the oil sands, thus reducing the demand for fresh water.
On the flip side, the mining operators — Suncor, Syncrude Canada, Royal Dutch Shell and Canadian Natural Resources — released 70,658 metric tons of volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere last year, and 111,661 metric tons of sulfur dioxide, a leading contributor to acid rain.
The tally includes 322 metric tons of arsenic, 651 metric tons of lead and measurable volumes of mercury, chromium, vanadium, hydrogen sulfide and cadmium.
The latest numbers in the NPRI tracked 85 mining facilities, with metal ore mines delivering the worst results, generating 54 percent of tailings and waste rock, followed by iron ore mines at 25 percent. Other mines, including diamond, asbestos and phosphate, generated 5 percent.
Dangerous substances But oil sands operations were pinned with contributing the bulk of several dangerous substances, which are blamed for tumors of the lung, skin and bladder; some are carcinogens.
Justin Duncan, an attorney with Ecojustice, which spearheaded a 2007 court case that forced Environment Canada to release the NPRI data, said that if one of the tailings ponds broke its banks, thousands of pounds of heavy metals would pose a “catastrophic risk” to the Athabasca River, the region’s main water system.
Simon Dyer, oil sands program director for the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, told the Globe and Mail it is essential for more information to be made available and permit a “meaningful discussion about the unacceptable risk of these tailings ponds.”
The four mining operators are currently developing new tailings technologies, while universities and agencies are researching new methods to accelerate the separation of water and silts, enabling faster recycling of water and faster returns of tailings areas to productive landscapes.
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