Carcinogen Levels in Oil Sands Waste Water Increasing, Canada Admits

Newly released data from the Canadian government affirm that the booming oil sands industry in Alberta is leaving behind a rising environmental toll from toxic sludge ponds.

Figures released by the government-run Environment Canada reveal a jump in the level of carcinogens dumped in mining waste lakes, or "tailings ponds," like arsenic, nickel, cadmium, benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

"Sizable quantities of heavy metals" were reported, the agency said.

In total, the country's five active oil sands mines released around 50,000 tons of potentially harmful pollutants in waste lakes between 2006 and 2009, according to preliminary records in the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI).

During that time, the amount of arsenic, which is particularly harmful to human health, increased 26 percent — from 256 thousand kilograms in 2006 to 322 thousand kilograms in 2009. The data also shows that cadmium levels surged some 36 percent; nickel shot up around 30 percent, along with lead, a substance know to damage the brain.

Mercury levels, another potent neurotoxin, rose 13 percent in the same period.

The facilities, run by Syncrude Canada, Suncor Energy, Canadian Natural Resources and Royal Dutch Shell, deposited just over 50 different tailings in their ponds last year.

Environment Canada expressed some worries.

"While tailings ... in Canada are managed to reduce the risk of environmental contamination, concerns remain due to acidic drainage, potential leakage from tailings ponds and the possibility of wildlife contact with the tailings," it said of its findings.

Simon Dyer, oil sands program director at the Pembina Institute in Canada, said that while the data is not unexpected, it is nonetheless significant in that it makes exact figures public for the first time.

"[It is] very significant ... having this in the public sphere," Dyer told SolveClimate News. "In Alberta, industry talks about these things as benign water recycling structures in a way that even questions the toxicity. Clearly that's not the case."

Lawsuit Spurns Action

The disclosure of the tailings pollution was ordered as part of a lawsuit filed by Ottawa-based EcoJustice in November 2007, on behalf of Great Lakes United, a coalition of advocacy groups, and MiningWatch Canada, a mining industry watchdog group.

In 2009, the Federal Court of Canada ordered the Canadian government to disclose data on both waste ponds and waste rock from all mining operations.
Previously, miners were responsible for declaring substances pumped into air, water and land only, but not in liquid stored in man-made ponds.