Evidence of meeting #20 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was technologies.
8:30 a.m.
Liberal
8:30 a.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
You can try French. I'm told the simultaneous interpretation devices are working now.
8:30 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you.
I apologize for being late; I misunderstood the meeting start time and I unfortunately missed part of your presentation.
Ms. Guigard, I believe you mentioned the “natural” pollution of the water table by the oil sands. In any case, they contain agents that are present and that have always been pollutants.
What exactly is “natural” pollution of the water table?
8:30 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
We're talking about the water table, not the river.
They do a lot of studies at Waterloo University on the compounds present in the water table around the oil sands. This isn't my field. Consequently, I don't have a lot of information on the subject. However, the toxic compound that I know little about concerns the naphthenic acids.
I know that the concentrations of naphthenic acids are much higher in the tailings ponds than in the water table. The studies being conducted at Waterloo University and the University of Alberta are attempting to establish whether there is a way of distinguishing the naphthenic acids naturally present from those present as a result of the extraction of bitumen. They're currently trying to determine whether those compounds come from bitumen that is naturally present or are there as a result of bitumen extraction and, consequently, whether it comes from the tailings ponds.
I don't know the current levels. Also, all the data from the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program, which of course studies the Athabasca River, not only the water tables, have shown that there weren't a lot of naphthenic acids in the Athabasca River. I suppose the same is true of the water tables, but I don't have the data with me.
8:30 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
So the water was relatively hazardous to health. The wells were naturally relatively dangerous.
8:30 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
The concentrations weren't high. From what I know, the naphthenic acid concentrations are very low in the water tables. They are very high in the tailings ponds, but the concentrations are quite low, indeed non-toxic, in the water tables.
8:35 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Are they low enough for people to be able to draw the water without any danger to their health?
8:35 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Once again, I don't have the figures with me. I haven't monitored the concentrations. So I'm not sure. Perhaps we should look at the data that Waterloo University has published in this field.
8:35 a.m.
Bloc
8:35 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Not as far as I know.
8:35 a.m.
Bloc
8:35 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
There are heavy metals in the ores. These are heavy metals that were present, but the concentration levels of which have greatly increased as a result of the process.
8:35 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
One day or another, can it filter through the soil or wind up in the river in some other way?
8:35 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Heavy metals are not very mobile in the environment. You often find them in solid tailings, but not in the liquid part. They are often associated with solids, not with liquids, except if they are chemically combined with other compounds. However, they often stay with solid tailings.
8:35 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Could heavy metals be transported long distances by the river? If they pass through the soil, could they wind up a few kilometers downstream?
8:35 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Heavy metals are often associated with solids. Consequently, if heavy metals wind up in the rivers, they'll be found in river sediments.
8:35 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
When the river was not being used and was in a natural state, did heavy metals that degraded from the river banks flow into the river?
8:35 a.m.
Associate Professor, Environmental Engineering Program, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I don't know. You should perhaps consult the data of the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program.
8:35 a.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual
May I add to Dr. Guigard's comments?
The heavy metals are extremely difficult to remove from the bitumen. They have no mobility in the ecosystem. My own personal research has been in finding ways to try to remove those metals from the oil sands system. So far we have not succeeded. It's so difficult that even in a laboratory we have not found effective ways to remove those metals and get them to mobilize. If anyone could come up with a method, we would be thrilled to use it in processing this heavy material so that the metals are not an issue.
The tailings material and the nature of the oil sands are unique compared to mining anywhere else in the world. If you hear about tailings problems in mines elsewhere in Canada, the tailings are fundamentally different for the oil sands. The contamination is organic material. It's partly biodegradable, as Dr. Guigard said, based on studies at Waterloo and Alberta. It's not things like arsenic, cyanide, nickel, or other heavy metals, which are so much of a problem with tailings elsewhere in Canada.
So it's a completely unique system. If you canoe through these rivers, which I have, you find that oil is part of the natural ecosystem in the Fort McMurray area. You go to a campsite on the Clearwater River, and you see little droplets of oil coming up out of the riverbank with naphthenic acids at low concentration. As Dr. Guigard said, the key question for the ecosystem is not whether these compounds are present, it's the concentration. It's a unique system. The Athabasca River has an amazing capacity to degrade oil. You can watch little oil slicks form and then disappear as the organisms in the water degrade the material.
The load is the key question. How much release, how much concentration, and how much of that material will go downstream to communities like Fort Chipewyan? That's the question for which, as Dr. Guigard said, we don't yet have the answers.
8:35 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you.
I was very interested, Dr. Gray, at the very beginning when you talked about what the barriers are to advancing, making the tar sands profitable and environmentally benign. I'm encouraged that you've identified not only that it's a cost but it's a regulation. Do you think the regulations there are strong enough to drive the adoption of better innovations and cleaner production?
8:40 a.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual
I think you need to look at which impact you're concerned about. You need to partition them, I think, a little bit. The impacts that I see are on land and land reclamation, water use and tailings, energy use and greenhouse gases.
The first two I think are much more amenable to regulation and getting the industry to speed up reclamation and to minimize the accumulation of tailings. The greenhouse gas issues I think are much less amenable to relatively painless regulatory implementation because the technologies that are available for dealing with carbon dioxide are significantly more expensive.
8:40 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
If I could, I'll just interject, because I'm not understanding your answer.
My question is, do you think that the regulations are stringent enough now on the impacts on the land and water that they're actually driving the investment in the improved technology?
8:40 a.m.
Professor, University of Alberta, As an Individual
Yes, I think they are. But the other side of it that you need to keep in mind is, at least in the industry as it stands now, when a new mine is opened, it's opened after a regulatory process that approves the plan of how that resource will be developed, how the tailings will be managed, and how the mine will be closed. The opportunity in terms of regulation and public discourse is essentially at the stage when a mine project comes up for approval. When it's approved, that's essentially a contract between the regulatory agencies and the companies that then governs how that particular lease will be developed over the course of its life.
If I look at the history in Alberta, you can't rewrite the book with a company. My personal feeling is that you can't try to change the rules once the company has done half of its plan. The plan that Syncrude filed, for example, was before it opened its mine in 1978. They laid out, based on the technology of the day, what they were going to do with the oil sand and how they were going to reclaim the mine site, and they're proceeding with that reclamation process.