As production in Alberta's oilsands continues to expand, waste byproducts continue to build up as well, from petcoke piles to tailing ponds. Now the energy companies behind the oilsands boom are planning to dump their growing volumes of toxic wastewater into man-made lakes, in the hope that they eventually become natural habitats.

Jeremy van Loon of Business Week writes that Syncrude Canada, Royal Dutch Shell, and ExxonMobil affiliate Imperial Oil "are running out of room to store the contaminated water that is a byproduct of the process used to turn bitumen–a highly viscous form of petroleum–into diesel and other fuels."

By 2022 the monthly output of wastewater from these companies "could turn New York's Central Park into a toxic reservoir 11 feet deep, according to the Pembina Institute," writes van Loon.

To accommodate the growing volume of byproduct, the energy companies have reportedly "obtained permission from provincial authorities to flood abandoned tar sand mines with a mix of tailings and fresh water." According to van Loon, this would "transform northern Alberta into the largest man-made lake district on earth."

Syncrude's Base Mine Lake, on which work began last summer, will measure 2,000 acres when complete, and is expected by the company to "eventually replicate a natural habitat, complete with fish and waterfowl."

Non-profit environmental group Pembina describes these end pit lakes as "high-risk and experimental," noting that "historical data about using end pit lakes as toxic waste dumps are insufficient to determine whether or not they are a safe, long-term tool for reclaiming tailings waste as no example of a functional end pit lake currently exists."

There are about 30 end pit lakes planned for the Athabasca Boreal region, according to Alberta's Cumulative Environment Management Association.

"There's no way to tell how the ecology of these lakes will evolve over time," said Jennifer Grant, director of oilsands at Pembina. "It's all guesswork at this point. It's reckless."

"We're playing Russian roulette with a big part of an important ecosystem," said David Schindler, an ecology professor at the University of Alberta. "Nothing is going to grow in that soup of toxic elements except perhaps a few hydrosulfide bacteria. And all of the unforeseen events are being downplayed."

Syncrude began creating an end pit lake 30 miles north of Fort McMurray this summer, filling in a mine with fresh water from a dam to a depth of 16 feet to keep toxic tailings down at the bottom. According to company spokeswoman Cheryl Robb, trials involving "test ponds" resulted in naturally occurring ecosystems, with microbes helping to break down pollutants.

However, van Loon writes that the "largest test pond was 4 hectares–roughly 1/200th the size of Syncrude's lake."

"The big question we have is how long will it take before the water is clean, how long is it going to take before the littoral zones develop and the shoreline vegetation builds up?" said Robb. "But we're confident in the technology."

One of the major concerns surrounding end pit lakes is the possibility of contaminated water seeping into the boreal ecosystem. In October, "communities bordering Canada's Athabasca River were cautioned not to drink from the waterway after a breach in a coal tailings storage pond dumped 1 billion liters (264 million gallons) of contaminated water into an area west of Edmonton."

According to Pembina, the exact amount of seepage from tailings in Alberta is "either not known or has not been made public," but modelled estimates suggest that "11 to 12.6 million litres of tailings leak from tailings ponds each day."

Image Credit: WhitneyH / Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people from across Canada and the US will walk into the heart of tar sands country to be part of a spiritual gathering called the Tar Sands Healing Walk on July 5th-6th.

They will come face-to-face with the environmental destruction caused by the tar sands industry. Open pit mines, tailings ponds, industrial facilities and more dominate the landscape of the walk near Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The fourteen-kilometre Healing Walk is neither a rally or a protest. Organizers describe the event as a spiritual gathering focused on healing the land, air, water and all living things harmed by the relentless expansion of the tar sands industry.

“Protests, rallies, marches are all good and necessary, but we felt like people needed something more spiritual. Something to create or strengthen a connection to the land,” says Jesse Cardinal, co-organizer of the Healing Walk.

As the international movement to stop the tar sands has grown, the Healing Walk has also grown since its birth four years ago. In its inaugural year the Healing Walk was a one-day event with one hundred participants. Hundreds and very possibly thousands will come to this year's two-day event that includes workshops, ceremonies, internationally-renowned guest speakers and the walk.

Organizers anticipate the 4th Tar Sands Healing Walk to be the largest event yet.

“First-time participants of the Healing Walk need to prepare themselves for an emotional journey,” Cardinal told DeSmog Canada.

This year's Healing Walk is attracting big name speakers such as 350.org founder Bill McKibben, author Naomi Klein, and co-founder of Idle No More Sylvia McAdam.

Invitations have been extended to Alberta premier Allison Redford and federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver to attend. Thus far neither have accepted the invitation.

“We want people to have an understanding of the scale and size of the tar sands industry, but we also want people to leave with a sense of hope for renewal,” says Cardinal.

Cardinal is also the coordinator of the Keepers of the Athabasca, an alliance of First Nations, Inuit, Metis, environmental groups and other concerned citizens advocating effective stewardship of the Athabasca River and Athabasca Lake Watershed. The Keepers of the Athabasca have been the main organizer of the Healing Walk from the beginning.

The Healing Walk will begin with a pipe ceremony at Crane Lake, north of Fort McMurray. First Nations elders and ceremony people will lead participants on the 14-kilometre journey through existing tar sands operations, and tailings ponds. The Athabasca River is less than ten kilometres from these industrial sites that spew toxins into its waters. Prayers for the land will be made along the way.

First Nations tar sands campaigner Clayton Thomas Muller in a recent article recalled being struck by scenes of vast deserts of wet and dry tailings ponds and industrial facilities that could have been straight out of a science fiction novel on his first Healing Walk.

A campsite is available for participants planning on staying over night and some catering will be provided by the organizers. Meet and greets as well as workshops on pipelines, First Nations cultures and tar sands impacts will take place the day before the Healing Walk. A feast and closing ceremony will conclude the event.

The Significance of the Fourth Healing Walk

Four is a significant number in many indigenous cultures. There are four seasons. Four directions. Four parts to life (mental, spiritual, emotional and physical).

“The fourth Healing Walk is significant because it indicates the ending of one cycle and the beginning of another,” explains Cardinal, who is Metis and a member of the Kikino Metis Settlement in northeastern Alberta.

Coincidentally, four organized cross-country treks will arrive in Fort McMurray to participate in the Healing Walk. Two groups are travelling from the US. A third group is coming from British Columbia.

The fourth and longest trek will be made by Dion Tootoosis who left traditional Mi'kmaq lands in Nova Scotia on June 12th and will bicycle over 5000 kilometres to reach Fort McMurray in time for the Healing Walk.

Tootoosis, from the Poundmaker Cree Nation of Saskatchewan, says he wants his journey to inspire conversations about natural resource extraction in Canada, particularly the tar sands, and stimulate discussions about solutions.

“I believe that the answer to the Alberta tar sands, and other locations across Canada where natural resources are being exploited, lies within the people of this country. Only a people know what is best for their community,” says Tootoosis in a statement.

Image Credit: Kris Krug via flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

If you ask an Environment Canada media spokesperson about contamination resulting from tar sands operations, they will not tell you the federal government has failed to adequately monitor the mega-project's effects on water.

They most certainly will not say outright that the federal government has failed to monitor the long term or cumulative environmental effects of the world's largest industrial project. They won't say it, but not because it isn't the case. 

The tar sands are contaminating hundreds of kilometres of land in northern Alberta with cancer-causing contaminants and neurotoxins.

And although federal scientists have confirmed this, they are prevented from sharing information about their research with the media. 

The result is an overly-monitored process that causes burdensome delays in media-scientist interactions. The overwhelming consequence is that the media has stopped talking to the country's national scientists.

No federal studies have researched contamination in furbearing mammals living near the tar sands, although species decline – as is evident in the disappearance of caribou – is becoming an increasing problem.

The Alberta Cancer Board confirmed in 2008 that higher than normal rates of rare cancer were present in the small community. The government refused to remove the charge of alarmism from O'Connor's file until late 2009, despite express wishes from the residents of Fort Chipewyan to have the accusation dropped.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.