The memo, released through access to information legislation, said that federal government scientists, including Quebec City-based research geoscientist Martine Savard, had discovered evidence of the contamination in new research that rejected longstanding claims that toxins in the region of the Athabasca River were coming from natural sources.
“The studies have, for the first time, detected potentially harmful, mining-related organic acid contaminants in the groundwater outside a long-established out-of-pit tailings pond,” said the memo from deputy minister Serge Dupont, dated June 19, 2012.
“This finding is consistent with publicly available technical reports of seepage — both projected from theory, and detected in practice.”
The study was published by Savard and 18 other co-authors and posted to an online government database in December. It concluded that some acids from the tailings ponds “may be reaching the river, but only in very small amounts (non-detectable).”
Environment Canada describes groundwater contamination as a serious problem since aquifers can remain contaminated for decades or centuries, leaking into lakes, rivers or streams, while potentially creating costly water supply problems.
Other peer-reviewed research, published last fall, has also found evidence that contaminants from oilsands air pollution are collecting on the bottom of lakes that are up to 100 kilometres away, raising concerns about anticipated expansion over the next decade.
Travis Davies, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the information about leaks from tailings ponds was not a surprise, adding that the new research confirmed these contaminants had not reached the river.
“Their study isn’t new in any way other than perhaps the laboratory methods and detection limits,” Davies said in an email, adding that the industry association supports science-based monitoring and peer-reviewed research. “We also know and report on the chemistry of groundwater from our monitoring wells that surround tailings facilities. So again, (there’s) no surprise.”
Prior to the memo’s release, the association’s oilsands website said the existing monitoring programs had “not detected impacts from tailings ponds seepage on surface water or to groundwater.”
Jennifer Grant, the oilsands program director with the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, an environmental policy research organization, noted that Environment Canada says prevention is the best solution to groundwater contamination.
“It’s really challenging to assess the impact and it’s expensive to clean up a contaminated aquifer, if it can be done at all,” said Grant in an interview.
The federal scientists from Natural Resources Canada who did the study were not immediately available for interviews, a spokeswoman said.
When asked whether it attempted to inform the general Canadian public about the new research, the department said the researchers presented their findings at two science conferences in Montreal and Niagara Falls, before publishing the study “through the normal channels in December 2012.”
Environment Canada told Postmedia News in a statement that it has guidelines in place for many contaminants and that it continuously reviewed them to determine if new ones were needed, such as in cases where no guidelines existed for specific contaminants.
Spokesman Mark Johnson also said that Environment Canada was pleased with early results of a new monitoring program of the oilsands, in partnership with the Alberta government, and would use new information and data gathered to determine what action may or may not be required.
The oilsands – natural deposits of bitumen in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan – are estimated by Natural Resources Canada to hold the world’s third largest reserve of crude oil.
While the Natural Resources Department estimates the oilsands industry represents two per cent of the Canadian economy, the companies face intensive scrutiny over their environmental footprint since extraction requires massive amounts of energy and water that have made it Canada’s fastest growing source of the heat-trapping pollution that warms the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.
The Pembina Institute and Toronto-based Environmental Defence have both issued reports in recent years warning that tailings ponds were leaking billions of litres of toxins every year into the ground.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Mike De Souza
No comments:
Post a Comment