Evidence of meeting #28 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 research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Is any of the seepage coming from the tailings pond, then?
9:55 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
In the best studied example, and the oldest one, which is Pond 1, Tar Island dike, the modelling suggests that about 3% of the water might be coming from the pond and 97% from the dike.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
That's interesting.
Do you have any recommendations on how to address or prevent seepage from the dike?
9:55 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
We've done a small study for one of the companies on one of their existing dikes. From that, we identified that in fact process-affected water was able to get beyond their ditch, which was their collection system. Fortunately, they had another ditch further out that seemed to be collecting everything.
We were advising them that if they were going to rely on this single-ditch system, they should pay a little more attention to the possibility of groundwater underflowing it, meaning going under it. A critical issue seemed to be maintaining the ditch. Sand gets blown in, and it stops operating as effectively as it did. We've identified those issues as something they can do during operation to limit the impact they might have.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Mr. Braid. Your time has expired.
Mr. Trudeau, you can kick us off on a five-minute round.
9:55 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you.
I'll go back a little with both of you.
Dr. Barker, you work with Suncor as well. Dr. Dixon, do you have any associations with oil companies?
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I don't have any in a consulting capacity at the present time, nor have I had any in the last.... Actually, this whole exercise started 15 years ago with a three-day consulting job to look at the potential for the presence of some toxic chemicals. I said that, yes, there were some, and pointed out some issues. I thought this area might be something to research. Since that time 15 years ago, it's all gone through the university to support graduate education.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
Thank you.
I'm trying to get a sense of the general conclusions that you're both bringing forward as scientists. We have no detailed overall sense of the impacts on the environment right now. There are a lot of gaps in our knowledge.
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
We have information about specific areas. If you were asking me whether there is a surface water release from the Athabasca oil sands that is causing an impact in the Athabasca watershed, I would say no, because there is no surface water released to the system. Is there a groundwater release? Yes, I know of probably two areas where there could be a groundwater release. Is it of sufficient volume and magnitude to cause an impact? I would suggest possibly not, but there might be further research needed in that area to determine that.
In terms of aerial transport and deposition, that area has not been widely explored at all, and I could not give you an opinion on that aspect.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
There are still a lot of unknowns in creating the big picture around water and the oil sands.
One thing I do get is that there's no sense of the long-term cumulative impacts yet. We're just trying to catch up. We don't really know where we're going on that.
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Exactly.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
In the idea of the end result of returning this land to ecosystems--services, capacity--we really have no sense of what that's going to look like.
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
We have done what I would say is preliminary information. Please understand that on the Syncrude lease there are seven ponds that were constructed with waste material and different overburden, and those have been followed for years. This demonstration pond was built afterward. There are a couple of consolidated tailings wetlands that people have looked at. What we haven't done is scale up to the next scale. That's the next step, and, frankly, it's the logical step.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
As a scientist you're keenly aware of the difference between what you can do in a controlled laboratory environment and what happens when you go up to full scale.
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I do a lot of field work, believe me. Yes.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
We're basing an awful lot on our capacity to scale up, although we know that there are huge unknowns that are going to kick in as soon as we get there. There really is no overall sense of the impact of the oil sands on water and where we're going to be in 50 or 100 years. Well, maybe we can get an overall sense of it and be concerned, but there are no facts around it. Until we get to the long-term time, we can't know what's going to happen.
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
The modelling that has been done is sufficiently complex that the only way you're actually going to find out if something like an end-pit lake works is to build one and monitor it for about 10 to 15 years and determine whether it will work.
That's what's being done at Syncrude and at Suncor. Remember that it's up to the companies to remediate. So, frankly, if that strategy doesn't work, the province is not going to accept the lease lands back and they're going to have to go back to looking at alternative strategies.
10 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
That seems perhaps not in the best long-term interests of the citizens of Alberta, for example, and the wildlife that lives there, that we're banking on capacity to do something that's never been done before and never successfully proven, and we're banking an awful lot on that.
10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I would suggest that is perhaps correct. Having said that, please understand that there's been sufficient activity up there now that there is already a huge amount of area that needs to be reclaimed and something has to be done about it. So if we take a look at this strategy now, it has to be done. It's not like we can stick our heads in the sand and leave town. There is significant damage there already that we have to deal with.
10:05 a.m.
Liberal
Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC
We don't even know yet, as you say, what the equivalent ecological capacity of our goal would be in terms of the lands, the services, the wetlands, the dry lands, and what they are offering.
We really don't know where we're going with this.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I can give you a definition of what I think an equivalent capacity would be for a lake, but whether or not all aquatic scientists would agree with me and whether or not that would be acceptable to the regulatory authorities in the Province of Alberta is a different matter.
I won't bore you with telling you what I think it is now.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Mr. Trudeau. Your time has expired.
Mr. Calkins, the floor is yours.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. I certainly appreciate having an opportunity to ask a few questions.
I'm going to start with some general questions, and then I'm going to talk to you about fish, because I have a zoology degree in fisheries and aquatic sciences, Dr. Dixon, and I'm going to ask you some fairly direct questions about fish, if I have time.
The first question in the line of questioning I want to follow, though, is dealing with the scientific independence. You have been quite clear, Dr. Dixon, that you are obviously balancing the various sources of funding that come to you and you're maintaining scientific independence. I'm going to ask you directly if the oil sands companies or anybody like that ever tried to influence the direction of your research as part of their funding arrangements.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Dr. Schindler was very clear in his testimony before the committee when we were in Edmonton that he did not want to take any funding from the oil sands companies, which implies that anybody who's doing science at the behest of the oil companies doesn't have that independence. Would you care to comment on his comment?