Thank you very much for the invitation.
I have written about oil and gas issues in Alberta for more than twenty years, and I am the author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.
The tar sands, arguably the world's largest energy project, clearly illustrate the troubling nexus between energy and water. It takes water to produce energy, and it takes energy to move, pump, and treat water. Bitumen, a difficult and dirty hydrocarbon, requires more water for its production and upgrading than conventional light oil. As such, its water intensity signals the end of cheap oil as we know it. The bitumen mining process also creates unsustainable volumes of waste water, and I know the committee has heard much about this practice. The rapid and irresponsible development of Alberta's vast bitumen deposits has created several critical problems that I believe are diminishing Canada's reputation both at home and abroad.
Today I wish to draw to the House's attention four areas of concern: the creation of an acid rain problem in Western Canada, the problematic recycling of tailings water, the uncertain state of groundwater in bitumen-producing zones, and the case of Dr. John O'Connor.
Acid rain was once thought to be an environmental concern that only affected eastern Canada, but a 2008 paper by the air quality research division of Environment Canada predicted that some parts of western Canada in the vicinity of large SO2 sources, such as the tar sands or Fort McMurray, were already exceeding critical loads for acid rain. A critical load is an estimate of how much sulphur or nitrogen pollution a tree or lake can absorb before it damages or kills it.
The report called this prediction a concern because the release of acidifying emissions is projected to increase in the next decade in the tar sands. According to Alberta Environment, the province's oil and gas industry now produces a third of the nation's nitrogen oxide emissions and nearly a quarter of its sulphur oxide emissions. These two pollutants make acid rain.
By 2010, the province will produce more acidifying pollutants than any other part of Canada. Most of these emissions will blow into Saskatchewan. These pollutants, which can poison and sterilize forest soils, have already reached critical levels in Alberta and Saskatchewan. According to a 2008 report for the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, upland forest soils downwind of the tar sands currently receive acid deposition levels greater than their long-term critical load. In other words, pollution from upgraders and steam plants is now damaging lakes and soils throughout western Canada.
In 2008 Julian Aherne, a researcher at Trent University, reported to the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment that nearly 10% of Alberta's mapped forest soils received acid deposition in excess of critical load. Last year a Saskatchewan study of 148 lakes within a 300-kilometre radius of the tar sands identified that the majority of these assessed lakes were sensitive or highly sensitive to acid rain.
Given these findings and predicted increases in acid emissions from the tar sands, why has Environment Canada not made western Canada's new acid rain problem a national priority? Why didn't the federal government set up a special agency, perhaps modelled after California's successful Air Resources Board, to manage both air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands?
The committee has heard much about the unsustainable growth of tailings ponds for bitumen mining operations. They are among the world's largest impoundments of toxic waste. According to Alberta's Energy Resources and Conservation Board, these dams now occupy 120 square kilometres of forest land north of Fort McMurray.
Industry and government officials routinely defend their presence by arguing that 80% of the waste water is being recycled. What they fail to add is that the continuous recycling of tailing waste has concentrated pollutants in the water and made a bad problem much worse. According to a 2008 report by Eric Allen of Natural Resources Canada, the recycling of tailings water has increased the salinity of the ponds by 75 milligrams per litre since 1980.
Recent increases in hardness, sulphate, chloride, and ammonia have raised concerns about the corrosion of equipment used for bitumen extraction. Toxic chemicals of concern, of course, in the ponds include naphthenic acids, bitumen, ammonia, sulphate, chloride, aromatic hydrocarbons and trace metals such as arsenic and mercury. In other words, the recycling of tailings water has increased its toxicity, which in turn poses challenges for bitumen extraction, water consumption, and the reclamation of tailings ponds. The paper strongly suggests that all wastewater in the ponds be properly treated.
Steam plants, or steam-assisted gravity drainage, or in situ technology, typically heat up bitumen deposits to 240 degrees Celsius. They have the potential to impact groundwater over an area the size of Florida. In 1973, a report by the Alberta Research Council on the environmental impact of in situ technology recommended constant monitoring to prevent contamination of the groundwater supplies, which may be needed for domestic or industrial purposes. This wasn't done. Many steam plants now operate in an area south of Fort McMurray that is home to one of North America's largest freshwater aquifers, the Wiau Channel.
Neglect of groundwater, like the neglect of surface water in the Fort McMurray region, has been a persistent part of rapid tar sands development. In fact, the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board and Alberta Environment didn't release a draft directive on requirements for water measurement, reporting, and use for thermal in situ oil sands schemes until February of 2009. Last month the Council of Canadian Academies released an exhaustive report on the state of groundwater in Canada. A pointed section on the tar sands found regional mapping remained incomplete, that information collected by regulators was inconsistent, and that there was little or no data on cumulative effects of saline withdrawals for the steam plants.
For the record, it takes approximately three barrels of groundwater, fresh or saline, to make one barrel of bitumen. The report concluded that knowledge is lacking as to whether the aquifers of the Athabaskan oil sands region can sustain these groundwater demands and losses.
Last but not least, the case of Dr. John O'Connor raises serious questions about the state of water in the region as well as the dysfunctional nature of Canada's new petro state. Dr. O'Connor, a family physician, worked downstream from the world's largest energy project in Fort Chipewyan for nearly eight years. In 2006, he naively asked some valid questions about the number of rare cancers he uncovered in that aboriginal community. He did not point blame at the tar sands. He did not point blame at the pulp mills on the river. He did not point blame at agricultural run-off. He did not point blame at the abandoned uranium mines on Lake Athabaska. He merely asked for a proper health study.
Nevertheless, representatives of Health Canada, supported by representatives of Environment Canada and Alberta Health have accused this physician of causing undue alarm in the community. They threatened to take away his medical licence by filing a complaint through the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta. For representatives of Health Canada to use a patient complaint process to vilify and persecute a family physician who simply advocated for his patients remains an unprecedented abuse of power in Canada.
This year, the Alberta Cancer Board vindicated Dr. John O'Connor. This study confirmed lymphoma and rare blood and bile duct cancers in the community. It also reported a 30% higher rate of cancers in the community in general than expected, yet Health Canada continues to shamefully persecute this physician and sully Canada's international reputation as a fair and democratic country.
Dr. O'Connor's story is now the subject of three separate international documentaries and scores of stories in the international press. It should be the subject of a public investigation by the Canadian Parliament.
Thank you.