Good morning. I'm going to talk about water quality as it relates to the environmental impact assessment process in the oil sands region in Alberta. My presentation is going to focus exclusively on surface mines.
I'd like to first introduce a slide showing the bitumen outcrops along the Athabasca River. I think it can be seen that water quality has to be influenced by hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which I'm sure you've heard about. Then I think it's worthwhile to recognize that based on this water quality and bitumen association, the ecosystem in the Athabasca River has likely adapted over thousands of years or been influenced over thousands of years by these deposits.
I'll frame my presentation on the environmental impact assessment with a focus on water quality by five basic elements: characterization of existing water quality; assessment of project design; confirmation of appropriate mitigation measures; cumulative assessment of water quality in receiving streams; and resolution of residual issues.
There has been extensive monitoring of water quality, sediment quality, and benthic invertebrates and fish, not to mention hydrologic monitoring in the lower Athabasca River for quite some time by numerous agencies. The federal government, through Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was involved in the northern rivers basin study from the mid-1990s to the end of that decade. The Panel on Energy Research and Development has been funding dozens of studies since the early 1990s on the lower Athabasca River. The northern rivers ecosystem initiative carried on the recommendations and studies of the NRBS, starting at the beginning of this decade and finishing up in 2003 or 2004. Alberta Environment and its predecessor has been monitoring water quality monthly upstream of Fort McMurray, and downstream of the oil sands development at Old Fort for quite some time.
Alberta Environment has also been involved in the northern rivers basin study with the federal government. You'll hear more about the regional aquatics monitoring program that was initiated in 1997. I'd also like to mention a couple of other regional bodies that have been doing a lot of work in the oil sands area. The first one is the Canadian Oil Sands Network for Research and Development, or CONRAD, which has been funding studies since the early 1990s on many aspects of oil sands, including wetlands research into potential acidification, tainting, loading studies in the river, and many others. In addition, the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association, or WBEA, has been monitoring potential stream acidification for some time.
The Cumulative Environmental Effects Management Association, or CEEMA, which you'll hear more about this afternoon, has been developing several management frameworks on potential acidification of lakes, management of streams, reach-specific water quality objectives, pit lakes, and several other things.
Industry also has to carry out monitoring associated with its approvals, which can be quite extensive. Proponents that are undertaking the EIAs also have to undertake extensive baseline work associated with that assessment.
None of the agencies and programs I've just talked about have been able to detect any effects of oil sands operations on the lower Athabasca River. I have a number of testimonials, and they are just a subset of many more that exist. For example, the PERD study, as reported in the northern rivers ecosystem initiative report in 2003, indicated there was “no evidence to indicate that local industries are contributing significantly to measured hydrocarbon levels or biotic impacts”.
Alberta Environment, in their 2008 report entitled Alberta's Oil Sands: Opportunity. Balance., reported:
Stringent testing has consistently shown there has been no increase in concentrations of contaminants as oil sands development has progressed. In fact, contaminant levels in other rivers in the area with absolutely no industrial oil sands activity have been found to be higher than those adjacent to oil sands projects. The contaminant sources in the area are natural
RAMP, in their 2007 technical report, indicated:
Based on comparisons of water quality between upstream and downstream stations over time, no effects of local human activities were apparent on water quality in the Athabasca River in 2007.
Finally but not least, Evans, an Environment Canada researcher, and others stated in a published paper in 2002:
There is little or no evidence of temporal trends of increasing PAH concentrations in sediment cores collected in Lake Athabasca and the...delta lakes, suggesting no or minimum impact from oil sands operations.
The mitigation measures that are proposed and in place in existing oil sands operations--against which EIA practitioners gauge their effectiveness--include sedimentation ponds that trap particles associated with muskeg and overburdened drainage waters in advance of mining. These waters are released to receiving streams. There are closed-circuit operations of all process-affected waters and waters that may come into contact with exposed bitumen during mining operations.
Tailings are in back-filled cells, of which I have an accompanying diagram. You can see that the tailings are deposited in such a way that associated seepage is directed to reclamation features that are specifically engineered to remediate those waters. On the right side of the diagram you'll see a receiving stream. That is protected by the placement of low-permeability materials to prevent seepage from travelling in that way. Each site-specific circumstance is very unique; this is just a conceptual diagram.
The appropriate design of tailings ponds and tailings sand structures includes perimeter ditches to collect seepage and run-off from the structure. Many of the new tailings ponds that are being proposed include interception wells around the outside of these structures to collect water and put it in the closed-circuit system.
At reclamation of these structures, the hydrostatic head or water pressure is reduced from the top by removing that water and tailings, so the amount of seepage is very small and can be handled within the reclamation landscape. Sustainable reclamation landscapes are developed specifically to remediate seepage on the landscape through engineered wetlands, and then ultimately through pit lakes that have to meet regulatory standards before releasing to receiving streams.
After EIA practitioners confirm, using conservative modelling, that the proposed mitigation measures are adequate to protect local receiving streams, integrated modelling is conducted to ensure that all environmental pathways are considered cumulatively under several different conditions of flow and several timeframes, as well as under many conceivable development scenarios. These state-of-the-art models include integrated outputs from groundwater models, air quality models, and surface water models. The water quality models are then used to ensure that the predictions are robust and in compliance with regulatory benchmarks and thresholds.
Sometimes an iterative process has to take place when it's shown that important thresholds might not otherwise be achieved. Additional mitigation and refinement of modelling assumptions have to take place. That might form the basis of the application that is submitted to the regulators and stakeholders. These submitted EIAs are then reviewed in a transparent and open process that often includes independent expert reviews.
For example, the federal government, through DFO and Environment Canada, has funded international peer reviews of some of the water quality and quantity work. Industry has also funded international peer reviews. Stakeholders also contract independent expert reviews on a routine basis for their assessments.
Given this rather lengthy and comprehensive process, the EIAs in the region continue to predict that the effects on the lower Athabasca River will be negligible and will continue to be negligible into the future.
In the final analysis, regulatory authorities along with stakeholder experts have ample time to review these EIAs and integrated applications and ask clarifying questions of proponents, who respond through formal and informal processes. This clarification process often lasts a year or longer in the oil sands area.
Issues that may not be resolved through the process are carried on to joint federal-provincial hearings for resolution and discussion. At the end of the day, if the project has been ruled to be in the interest of the public, the joint panel makes recommendations that are put into conditions, approvals, and regional programs to validate that systems are operating effectively and ensure that actions taken into the future are protective.
Thank you.
I'd now like to introduce Fred Kuzmic, who represents RAMP.