An integrated knowledge synthesis of regional ambient monitoring in Canada's oil sands

Abstract

This article is part of the special series "A Decade of Research and Monitoring in the Oil Sands Region of Alberta, Canada." The series documents the history of monitoring in the region and critically reviews a synthesis of monitoring results published within key environmental theme areas to identify patterns of consistent responses or effects; significant gaps in knowledge; and recommendations for improved monitoring, assessment, and management of the region.

Exploring the Influence of Industrial and Climatic Variables on Communities of Benthic Macroinvertebrates Collected in Streams and Lakes in Canada’s Oil Sands Region

“…Industrial activities in the OSR likely affect the ambient environment via multiple effect pathways [3] and this was likely reflected in this analysis. The results of the current analysis strongly support the importance of atmospheric deposition of CoCs as a primary exposure pathway in the OSR [3] and beyond, e.g., [24,105].…”

“…Industrial activities in the OSR likely affect the ambient environment via multiple effect pathways [3] and this was likely reflected in this analysis. The results of the current analysis strongly support the importance of atmospheric deposition of CoCs as a primary exposure pathway in the OSR [3] and beyond, e.g., [24,105]. While stack emissions estimated by SBM-FPU and SML-FPU may influence benthic communities, contributions from other atmospheric pathways may also be captured by the industrial metrics, such as CBP and SCP, including particulate or gaseous emissions from mine fleets, mine faces, and tailings ponds [106][107][108], suggesting the industrial metrics used here are complex surrogates of industrial activity.…”

“…Identifying, tracking, and understanding the individual and combined influence of multiple stressors on the chemical and physical status of the environment is a common focus of ecological monitoring [1,2], including programs in Canada's oil sands region (OSR). Throughout the OSR, multiple contaminants of concern (CoCs) have been identified and attributed to industrial sources [3,4], including the historical loading of some elements, such as Ni, V, and Ti associated with emissions of petroleum coke fly ash from the Suncor Basemine (SBM) prior to the installation of electrostatic precipitators [5][6][7]. Particulates were also emitted after installation of the precipitator at SBM and following the opening of the Syncrude Mildred Lake (SML) mine [5].…”

“…In multi-stressor environments, detecting impacts in biological organisms and identifying the causes are also primary goals of monitoring [29,30]. However, identifying causes may not always be straightforward in areas such as the OSR which are (1) rich in geological resources where exposures to CoCs from natural and industrial sources may co-occur, (2) where industrial activities can affect ecosystems through multiple effect pathways, (3) other anthropogenic stressors are present, and (4) predevelopment exposure scenarios may not be well-characterized [3,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. For example, in the OSR differences at sites adjacent to mines compared to upstream reference areas are often observed, but natural confounding effects can obscure the identification and tracking of any potential impacts of industrial development on biological indicators [8,34,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53].…”

A decadal synthesis of atmospheric emissions, ambient air quality, and deposition in the oil sands region

“…Another novel aspect of this review is that it is part of a series that synthesizes the current state of knowledge across all media (i.e., air, aquatic, and terrestrial). A summary paper integrates results across air, water, terrestrial biological, and community-based monitoring themes to identify crosscutting, system-wide linkages, and pathways that are not immediately apparent within a single theme review (Roberts et al, 2021a). In addition to the novelty of this paper, the need for an integrated monitoring system in the OSR has been noted previously (e.g., Hopke et al, 2016;Swanson, 2019aSwanson, , 2019b, which requires a comprehensive cross-thematic understanding of the current state of knowledge of the environment in the OSR.…”