A study conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto has found that air pollution emissions released by oilsands operations in Alberta are likely two to three times higher than previously estimated.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed U.S. journal, modeled levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) released by oilsands bitumen extraction. PAHs are toxic air pollutants released by the burning of fossil fuels, and can be highly carcinogenic.

"When dealing with chemicals that have such great potential to harm people and animals, it is absolutely vital that we truly understand how, and how much they are being released into the environment," said Abha Parajulee, co-author of the report, in a press release.

The researchers found PAH estimates "in environmental impact assessments conducted to approve developments in the Athabasca oil sands region are likely too low."

The study raises concerns about the accuracy of government-conducted environmental impact assessments on the oilsands, following the recent U.S. State Department report on Keystone XL, which claimed that the pipeline would have little environmental impact.

"If you use these officially reported emissions for the oil sands area you get an emissions density that is lower than just about anywhere else in the world," study co-author Frank Wania said. Wania is professor in the department of physical and environmental sciences at the University of Toronto.

Corporate estimates for oilsands pollution were "inadequate and incomplete," said Wania, insisting that a "complete and accurate account of the emissions" would be required before it is possible to "make a meaningful assessment of the environmental impact and of the risk to human health."

Previous government-approved estimates for PAH emissions from the oilsands, which fall within regulatory levels, do not take into account indirect pathways for the pollutant to enter the atmosphere, including evaporation from tailing ponds.

The researchers said that their model's predictions are consistent with actual PAH measurements taken near the Athabasca oilsands region by academic scientists and Environment Canada, which are much higher than reported industry estimates.

The researchers' model also factored in PAHs released by transport and storage of waste materials in oilsands production.

"Tailing ponds are not the end of the journey for the pollutants they contain. PAHs are highly volatile, meaning they escape into the air much more than many people think," Parajulee said.

"It was shocking to me to understand that current environmental impact assessments do not take [the volatility of PAHs] into account at all," said Jonathan Martin, an associate professor in the department of environmental toxicology at the University of Alberta, who reviewed the study before its publication.

"It just shows how little we know," Martin said. He added that PAH measurements need to be taken above tailing ponds to confirm the research model's projections, which would require corporate permission.

Wania said that Environment Canada has shown interest in the report's findings, and has agreed to fund further research.

"We are not at the world-class level to really be championing that," said Andrew Read, a researcher with Pembina Institute, and a member of the joint oilsands monitoring program. Read expressed doubt that there was adequate funding to properly monitor oilsands emissions.

"There is a concern there that we are not doing the effective monitoring that is necessary to really understand the full impact on the environment," Read said.

The results of the University of Toronto-funded study were published Monday.

Image Credit: Kris Krug

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After using Detroit as a toxic waste dumping ground, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers are now piling their petroleum coke from tar sands oil refineries in Chicago.

Kiley Kroh of ThinkProgress writes that petroleum coke, or petcoke, "is building up along Chicago's Calumet River and alarming residents." The Chicago petcoke piles are owned by KCBX, an affiliate of Koch Carbon, which is a subsidiary of Koch Industries.

Petcoke is a high-carbon, high-sulfur byproduct of coking, a refining process that extracts oil from tar sands bitumen crude. The petcoke owned by Charles and David Koch is a byproduct of bitumen crude shipped to US refineries from the Alberta tar sands.

Midwest Energy News reports that "a mile and a half of the Calumet River shoreline holds big black piles," some of which rise "about five stories high." Locals say that the piles have grown recently, even as the BP Whiting refinery across the border in Indiana nears completion of a $3.8 billion upgrade to process more tar sands crude.

Detroit Mayor David Bing ordered the removal of the petcoke piles from his city in August, after protests by residents and local politicians concerned about the health and environmental impacts. Residents complained of "respiratory problems as the thick, black dust was blowing off the piles and into their apartments," reports ThinkProgress. The Detroit petcoke is being moved to Ohio.

A January 2013 report by Lorne Stockman of Oil Change International estimates that taking petcoke into consideration would raise annual Keystone XL GHG emissions "13% above the State Department's calculations" for the pipeline.

While petcoke can't be used as fuel in Canada and the US because of its high GHG emissions, the waste can be sold as a cheaper, more polluting alternative to low-grade coal in countries with looser environmental and health regulations. There is high demand for petcoke in countries like Mexico, China and India, where its emissions further exacerbate the effects of tar sands production on climate change.

The waste piles accumulating in the U.S. Midwest are only the beginning, should Keystone XL be approved. As this infographic from Oil Change International shows, if the pipeline is built, "the tar sands oil flowing through it would result in massive amounts of this dirty byproduct."

Credit: Oilchange International

Stockman's report calculates that diluted bitumen delivered to the US via Keystone XL would produce about 15,000 tons of petcoke a day, all waiting to be exported as dirty fuel in piles like the ones plaguing Detroit and Chicago.

Petcoke produces 10 to 15 per cent more CO2 than coal, bringing its additional emissions to "50,000 tons of CO2 every day or over 18.3 million tons (16.6 million metric tons) of CO2 a year."

"The Petcoke piles in Chicago are another symptom of Obama's flawed "All of the Above" energy strategy. It's time we actually made choices about the kind of energy we want rather than taking anything we can get," Stockman told DeSmog Canada.

Chicago can choose to follow Detroit's lead, fighting back against the Koch brothers' dumping of petcoke. But the fact remains that petcoke is a growing environmental threat directly related to tar sands production and expansion, and remains a dangerously overlooked threat when considering the full consequences of the Keystone XL pipeline.

President Obama would be wise to sit up and take notice of the petcoke piles already threatening health in US cities when weighing whether to approve the pipeline. 

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The State Department's decision to hand over control to the oil industry to evaluate its own environmental performance on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has led to a colossal oversight.

Neither Secretary of State John Kerry nor President Barack Obama could tell you the exact route that the pipeline would travel through countless neighborhoods, farms, waterways and scenic areas between Alberta's tar sands and oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

A letter from the State Department denying an information request to a California man confirms that the exact route of the Keystone XL export pipeline remains a mystery, as DeSmog recently revealed.

Generic maps exist on both the State Department and TransCanada websites, but maps with precise GIS data remain the proprietary information of TransCanada and its chosen oil industry contractors. 

Thomas Bachand, a San Francisco-based photographer, author, and web developer discovered this the hard way. A year and a half after he first filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking the GIS data for his Keystone Mapping Project, Mr. Bachand received a troubling response from the State Department denying his request.

In the letter, the State Department admits that it doesn't have any idea about the exact pipeline route – and that it never asked for the basic mapping data to evaluate the potential impacts of the pipeline. 

Where will KXL intersect rivers or cross ponds that provide drinking water? What prized hunting grounds and fishing holes might be ruined by a spill? How can communities prepare for possible incidents? 

The U.S. State Department seems confident in letting the tar sands industry – led in this instance by TransCanada, whose notorious track record with Keystone 1 includes more than a dozen spills in its first year of operation – place its pipeline wherever it wishes.

"[State] does not have copies of records responsive to your request because the Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone pipeline project was created by Cardno ENTRIX under a contract financed by TransCanada Keystone Pipeline LP, and not the U.S. government," reads the State Department's letter denying Bachand's information request.

"Neither Cardno ENTRIX nor TransCanada ever submitted GIS information to the Department of State, nor was either corporation required to do so. The information that you request, if it exists, is therefore neither physically nor constructively under the control of the Department of State and we are therefore unable to comply with your FOIA request."

As Mr. Bachand pointed out in a July 3 blog post: "Without this digital mapping information, the Keystone XL’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) and Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) are incomplete and cannot be evaluated for environmental impacts."

When Mr. Bachand asked TransCanada for GIS data, the company said it couldn't supply it due to "national security" concerns.

Mr. Bachand's failed attempt to obtain basic information on the pipeline route exemplifies the recurring problems with the Obama State Department's botched review of the environmental and climate impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline: huge information gaps, conflicts of interest, industry lobbying muscle and bureaucratic bungling of the process.

As it turns out, TransCanada and its contractors have complete control over critical aspects of the review process, calling into question what else we don't know thanks to the Obama administration's poor handling of the most controversial pipeline decision in recent history. 

API Dues-Paying Member Did Latest SEIS

The State Department handed over responsibility for preparing the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to an American Petroleum Institute (API) dues-paying member, Environmental Resources Management, Inc. (ERM Group) – a firm with historic ties to Big Tobacco, as well as two other Big Oil-tied contractors.

State originally redacted the biography of one of the co-authors of the environmental study, Andrew Bielakowski, who had worked on three previous TransCanada-sponsored studies for ERM Group. Adding to the scandal, ERM has a history of rubber-stamping ecologically hazardous pipelines, including two high-profile projects in the Caspian Sea and in Peru. 

Since TransCanada's June 2008 Keystone XL proposal, API has spent over $22 million lobbying at the federal level for the pipeline and tar sands expansion. Furthermore, two of API's lobbyists tasked to do KXL influence peddling also have close ties to the Obama Administration.

Marty Durbin, the nephew of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), formerly lobbied for API on behalf of Keystone XL. Durbin was President Obama's former U.S. Senate colleague from Illinois before Obama won the presidency in 2008.

API also hired Ogilvy Government Relations to lobby for Keystone XL in 2012, and one of Ogilvy's key hired guns lobbying on behalf of API on KXL is Moses Mercado. In addition to serving as a key aide to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and as a super delegate representing Texas for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Mercado also served as campaign director in New Mexico for Secretary of State John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Unresolved Questions Plague State Department Review

Thomas Bachand asked all the right questions in his blog post reacting to the denial of his FOIA requesting the GIS route data. 

"Did the DOS, TransCanada, and Cardno ENTRIX all fail to perform due diligence in this case only – or is this standard operating procedure?," he asked. "Why hasn’t TransCanada supplied, Cardno ENTRIX seen fit to include, or the DOS requested, electronic data of such national importance? How does the DOS evaluate such national security, economic, and environmental interests without the electronic data?"

These are important questions that Secretary Kerry, and ultimately President Obama, must answer. The fact that neither man has any clue where TransCanada intends to place the Keystone XL pipeline is a troubling revelation that demands immediate and thorough scrutiny.

Without this basic information on where the pipeline would be located, how can the State Department and the White House form an educated analysis of the potential impacts of a tar sands dilbit spill in a neighborhood like Mayflower, Arkansas?

How many schools, backyards, drinking water sources and treasured fishing and hunting spots might be in danger of being ruined by a spill? The answer is, nobody knows, except the oil industry. 

Imagine that concerned citizens in northern states hadn't raised their voices to question TransCanada's intention to run the pipeline across the heart of the Ogallala Aquifer, their drinking water supply and the spigot for huge swaths of American agriculture. What else wouldn't we learn about the potentially devastating impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline?

Keystone XL is not only a dangerous gamble with our health and climate, it is also turning out to be a great example of the oil industry's iron grip on our democracy.

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