Environment Committee on March 12th, 2009

[Cynthia Wright]

There have been assessments that relate to the oil sands, but my understanding is that the ponds themselves are not in fish-bearing water.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Okay.

I wanted to ask about one of my favourite topics here, the chemicals management plan. How will the chemicals management plan make a contribution to environmental protection associated with the oil sands? Can you explore that a little bit for the community? What kind of an impact will that process have on environmental impacts to the oil sands?

[Cynthia Wright]

What the chemical management plan has done is taken the 4,300 substances of concern that were identified through an initial screening and put some into a high-priority fast track or priority analysis and put them also in a perspective of sector approach. So there is always a trade-off when the government is working on chemicals. Do you look at it substance by substance or do you look at clusters and groups? So in this case we're actually trying to do both.

And the reason to look at it by a sectoral approach is to enable industry to start to understand the magnitude of their problem holistically and to start to enable them to identify trade-offs, substitutions, changes to processes that could address more than one substance. So for the case of the chemical management plan, when we clustered them from an oil and gas perspective, we found that 98 substances are relevant. And our objective is to assess those within two to three years. And then if they are found to be substances meeting the criteria under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, to add them to the schedule, risk management instruments would be developed. So preliminary risk management instruments would be developed at the same pace as the risk assessments are done.

So there will be 98 substances that are currently of concern, and we will have an idea of how many those should have action taken on them, and that preliminary action starts to develop. And of course, as Mr. Cooper explained, this is work we do with Health Canada, so we're working at the same time with both the health impacts and the environmental impacts.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Watson. Your time has expired. I know when you're having fun it slides right by.

Mr. Woodworth, you're on.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I find the technical aspects of this quite challenging, especially to try to comprehend it in the speed of the five-minute conversations we have. I'd like to do something a little summative and start with the three points I think I've gathered so far to see if I have it right, and then I'll ask for some detail.

First of all, do I understand correctly that studies have concluded that there is no leakage from the tailing ponds?

[Cynthia Wright]

Correct.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Second, do I understand correctly that studies have determined that the surface waters do not contain toxins that exceed any customary standards of acceptable content?

I don't know who to ask these questions to.

[Cynthia Wright]

I think you're asking about the drinking water.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Yes.

[John Cooper]

The treated drinking water is safe in terms of the suite of chemicals and microbiological contaminants. Surface water is a slightly different issue.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you.

And third, do I understand that there is no evidence of any unusual health difficulties in any of the downstream communities from the oil sands?

[Dr. Wadieh Yacoub]

There was no increase in unusual or rare cancers. There was a small increase in three cancers, but these increases are very small because the numbers are very small. We're talking about two or three cancers, and because of the small size of the population, a variation by one cancer can make the rate go up or down. At this time the conclusion is that we need to continue monitoring for these cancers.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Do I understand from your response, being limited to cancers, that there is evidence of any other unusual incidents of illness or health difficulty in the downstream communities?

[Dr. Wadieh Yacoub]

The health assessment done by the province has been communicated to the community in regard to other health issues like diabetes and hypertension, and the province has indicated its willingness to work with the community on these health issues.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Is there any evidence that the higher incidence of diabetes or hypertension may be related to any environmental cause?

[Dr. Wadieh Yacoub]

We have never seen any such evidence.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

And regarding the treatment of surface water mentioned earlier, can you give us more detail about that? What is the treatment alleviating? As a lay person, I'm imagining that there is something in the water that the treatment removes. Can you tell me anything more about that?

[John Cooper]

For example, Fort Chipewyan has a fairly sophisticated drinking water treatment plant, which includes filtration, flocculation, coagulation, and a holding tank. It's considered fairly effective, and it's very good in removing trace metals, certain PAHs. They are currently meeting all the guidelines in terms of safe drinking water because of the treatment capabilities. That's not to say we're still not concerned that the surface water.... If you take a multi-barrier approach, you don't want to just rely on the treatment facilities; you want to ensure that the source water is as clean as possible.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Right. I'm gathering that the untreated source water does contain some metals or other contaminants. Is that correct?

[John Cooper]

That certainly is my understanding in terms of anecdotal reports from elders and first nations people who used to drink untreated water. They're not comfortable drinking it now.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Have there been any scientific studies of the level of contaminant in the untreated surface water?

[John Cooper]

In terms of responsibility and information on surface water quality, as soon as there is some information it will be from Alberta and from Environment Canada.

[Cynthia Wright]

Most of the work is done by the Government of Alberta, but we also do sediment work, and Dr. Wrona could speak about that.

There are issues because of the naturally occurring bitumen. I think that is the bottom line.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That was going to be my next question.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Woodworth, perhaps Mr. Wrona could respond very quickly. Your time is up.