Geoscience of Climate and Energy 12. Water Quality Issues in the Oil Sands Region of the Lower Athabasca River, Alberta

Abstract

I summarize the controversies about industrial pollutants in freshwaters near the oil sands industrial area of Alberta, the inadequacies in environmental monitoring that have led to widespread misconceptions, and recent attempts to correct the problems. Adequate data are available to show that mercury, other trace metals, and polycyclic aromatic compounds are being added by industry to the Athabasca river system and its watershed, although the relative contributions of industrial development and natural sources remain in question. Recent improvements in water monitoring by Environment Canada show promise of resolving the controversies, although independent governance for Canada’s and Alberta’s water monitoring programs in the lower Athabasca River will be necessary to rebuild public confidence in the data and their interpretation by government and industry. I document one success story in the Athabasca River: the elimination of dioxins from pulp mills in the mid-1990s has caused a consumption advisory for fish in the river to be repealed.SOMMAIREJe présente ci-dessous un résumé des controverses concernant les polluants industriels dans les eaux douces à proximité de la zone industrielle des sables bitumineux de l'Alberta, des lacunes dans la surveillance des milieux de vie à l’origine d’idées fausses répandues, et de récentes tentatives visant à corriger les problèmes. Des données adéquates démontrent que l’industrie ajoute du mercure et d'autres métaux traces ainsi que des composés aromatiques polycycliques dans le système fluvial de la rivière Athabasca et dans son bassin versant, bien que les contributions relatives provenant de ces activités industrielles et de sources naturelles demeurent toujours en litige. De récentes améliorations apportées au contrôle des eaux par Environnement Canada permettent d’espérer une résolution des controverses, mais l’application d’une gouvernance indépendante des programmes de contrôle de l'eau de l'Alberta du Canada dans la partie inférieure du fleuve Athabasca sera nécessaire pour rétablir la confiance de la population à l’égard des données présentées et de leur interprétation par le gouvernement et l'industrie. Je décrie l’histoire d’une intervention réussie dans la rivière Athabasca, soit l'élimination de dioxines provenant des usines de pâte du milieu des années 1990 et qui a abouti à l’abrogation d’un avis de limitation de la consommation de poisson dans la rivière.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12789/geocanj.2013.40.012

Geoscience of Climate and Energy 13. The Environmental Hydrogeology of the Oil Sands, Lower Athabasca Area, Alberta

“…Beyond the limit of airborne transport, the movement of industrial pollutants would be from airborne particulates and droplets landing on the surface waters that are then carried downstream (Schindler 2013) or by landing on the forest floor and being absorbed into the groundwater system. Landscape disturbance of the oil sands (surface mines, roads) could add a significant source of wind-borne 'natural' bitumen pollution to adjacent surface waters (Kelly et al 2009, p. 22350).…”

Geoscience of Climate and Energy 10. The Alberta Oil Sands: Developing a New Regime of Environmental Management, 2010–2013

“…In 2009 and again in 2010, David Schindler, FRSC, the respected environmental scientist at the University of Alberta, published papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science with his colleague Erin Kelly (at that time working as a Post-Doctoral Fellow with Schindler) showing that government-sponsored environmental monitoring data had not been correctly identifying the nature or the source of water pollution in the Athabasca River system (Kelly et al 2009(Kelly et al , 2012see also Miall 2013;Schindler 2013). In fact, until the Kelly et al papers were published, government and industry sources had been suggesting that most of the pollution in the surface water system was natural in origin.…”

“…This mode of pollution had been entirely missed by the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (RAMP), the independent monitoring organization established in 1997. RAMP had been subject to two major independent peer reviews in 2004, and again in 2010, and both times had been severely criticized for its poor scientific methodology (Schindler 2013). Schindler suggested that RAMP had not found the pollutants detailed in his studies primarily because the detection limits of the contract laboratories employed by RAMP were not sensitive enough.…”

Environmental Management of the Alberta Oil Sands: Introduction to the Special Set of Articles

“…The article was written by Kevin Percy (2013), the chief scientist with the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association, the multistakeholder organization charged with the responsibility for assessing air quality issues in the Fort McMurray region. This article is then followed by a summary of surface-water issues by David Schindler (2013), and the set is completed by a review of the environmental hydrogeology of the groundwater systems by A. D. Miall (2013b). …”