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.
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Your time has expired.
We're going to move right along to Monsieur Bigras, s'il vous plaît.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming and taking part in our study.
If I retain one thing from the statements, reports and briefs read or heard over the course of the past few days and weeks, it is that in order to clearly understand the state of the aquifer and groundwater contamination—
9:30 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Hold on, please. I'm having a little difficulty with translation.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
In order to properly understand the state of the aquifer and groundwater contamination, two things must be understood. First, we need to know the source of the water and then the condition of the geological layers involved.
Do you have a good relationship with the Geological Survey of Canada, which provides financial contributions for some works? Is information being easily passed back and forth between you and the survey? Is it moving well? Is this allowing you to get your work done properly?
9:35 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I think that's yours, Jim.
9:35 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
It's a good question. I know that you've had presentations from and discussions with the federal and provincial people. The geology is a critical part of the hydrogeology, and the Geological Survey and the Alberta Geological Survey and Alberta Environment do all those things together. You're quite right that they have to be combined in a useful manner.
Most of my work is on lease, and the companies then have a large amount of information on lease. The geology and the hydrogeology is reasonably well understood on lease. The broader picture, which I think you were addressing, is clearly less understood. The mapping in the area, as I'm sure you've heard, is really just ramping up geologically and hydrogeologically. I believe that Alberta Environment has commissioned a study of the groundwater resources as they sit now. And the Alberta Geological Survey, I presume with the aid of the federal Geological Survey, is working on mapping these areas. Where they have mapped south of Fort McMurray, the maps are very useful, and it's a job well done. I'm not sure what percentage of the critical area is mapped, but it's certainly not 25%. So that's an ongoing activity.
The information on lease is quite good. Off lease is far less good and is very localized.
9:35 a.m.
Bloc
9:35 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes, I actually don't have a lot of activity associated with the geological services, because I don't tend to do much work in terms of groundwater activity. On surface water activity, the available information on flows in the different areas of the watershed and that type of thing is more readily available.
9:35 a.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Mr. Barker, you say—and others have told us the same thing—that the mapping is really just starting up and that an increase from three to five barrels of oil from the oil sands is expected over the next few years. Since mapping is just ramping up and there is some uncertainty about the additional pressure that will be put on the resource as a result of production, how can we be forward-looking and ensure that quality, the environment and health will be protected?
Since things are just ramping up and we know that there will be significant pressure, how can we guarantee the public that we will be able to ensure a healthy environment and water quality that respects various standards over the next 15 to 20 years? Is there not some danger here? Should the precautionary principle not, at the very least, push us into action at some point?
I think that scientists need to maintain a certain level of independence. In my opinion, one of the elements of governance for scientists has to be independence. Scientists need to be as independent as possible. I'm convinced that you are independent, you probably work with companies in the oil sector, and I don't doubt your independence.
As a scientist, should you not be taking into consideration the precautionary principle in making your recommendations?
9:35 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I think that's a good point philosophically. Oil sands mining is a human operation. Humans always undertake operations without knowing the full consequences of them. That's simply a fact of human nature. What we've relied on so far, I would say, is the operations aspects. Presumably Alberta Environment and the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board can tell you if the current operations are causing or not causing an unacceptable environmental impact. I think when you move into reclamation, because there's been little actual reclamation--the end-pit lake concept is not yet proven--there are large uncertainties going forward.
9:40 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
It's financed by a number of sources. For instance, most of our projects at the moment are financed by the Canadian Water Network—which is a federal centre of excellence—and by oil sands companies. In my case it's also financed by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust, and by NSERC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Since I operate mainly on lease, my concern is with process-affected water. It's on lease. You can't undertake that research without the participation of the companies.
9:40 a.m.
Bloc
Bernard Bigras Bloc Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
To what extent does the company fund your research? Is 50 per cent, 40 per cent or 30 per cent of your funding from the private sector? I would like to have some idea.
9:40 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I would say it approaches 50%.
9:40 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Perhaps I can make a comment with respect to that as well.
One of the issues associated with the financing of anything you do in the oil sands, or anywhere else, is that the groups that have the resources are in the industry. But in order to maintain one's independence from the industry, the strategy that I've always taken is to take a certain amount of money from industry and then match that with money through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in what are called the collaborative research and development programs. This makes the actual application that is put forward subject to peer review at the time the work is done.
The second stopgap I have.... If you look at the brief that I presented, all the papers in there are theses that are peer-reviewed through a university department, and the vast majority are published in the peer-review literature, which is a second check associated with that.
The other thing you have to realize is that when I'm looking at the top 60 of things like naphthenic acids, and these alkyl PAHs and dibenzyl thiophenes, you cannot purchase these from a chemical supply company. The only source of these compounds in the form that we're dealing with in the Alberta environment is through access to the waste materials of a company. You de facto can't do the work unless you get access to those waste materials through a collaborative relationship with the company. But I'll be perfectly frank. I've spent most of my career trying to maintain my independence associated with this, and frankly I've been very successful to date.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thanks Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I appreciated your presentation, and I very much appreciated your “brief” brief.
9:40 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I didn't want to make it too long, since I knew very well that no one would read it.
9:40 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
You can always count on me to read it. It was worth reading.
You discussed the baseline information. We've had operations in the tar sands now for 30 or 40 years. Does it not lessen the scientific value of a baseline if the information on the baseline is being collected 40 years after the operation has already occurred?
9:40 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Perhaps I'll take a start at that. The Athabasca watershed is a relatively large area. In terms of baseline, there are two types of baselines that you're looking at. One of them is what I'll call lakes and rivers that are naturally occurring in the environment and are not underlain by oil sands. They're out there, but there are no oil sands in the deposit sitting underneath those lakes or rivers.
The second type of baseline you're looking at is naturally occurring systems where there are oil sands that are underlying the resource. The levels of naphthenic acids and PAHs will occur naturally; they're present in all of these systems. They're lower in the ones that are not underlain by oil sands. They're higher in the ones that are underlain by oil sands, and then when you get into the leases, where there's direct influence of process water, then they're very high.
To be perfectly honest, part of your question is the reason I've been trying to get—and have gotten hold of—old RAMP data to try to look at what's there. But we can still get that information by going sufficiently far away from the areas that are associated with oil sands activity, from either a groundwater or surface water area, and we can go in a wind direction that probably wouldn't be subject to atmospheric transport and deposition.
The ideal situation would be to have started 40 years ago with baseline activity. Most of my work is in what I call the impacts of base metal mining—copper, lead, cadmium, and zinc. I got into the oil sands business after I'd done quite a bit of research in this other area. In 30-odd years of working in that and in litigations on environmental activity and research, I have never had what I would call sufficient baseline data. So if you're looking to find it, it's almost never there.
I'll settle for four years of data—four consecutive years of data.
9:45 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
It does present a bit of a dilemma for sound researchers who are trying to start with the baseline and go from there.
9:45 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
It's a very difficult situation.
9:45 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
In terms of the groundwater component, groundwater moves relatively slowly. For us, 40 years isn't a long time. The record, as it exists now, in many areas is not much different than it was 40 years ago, as long as we're away from the active operations.
9:45 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
But that's a presumption. In theory, that's the way groundwater works.
I don't know if you had a chance to look at the testimony of the NRCan officials who appeared before us. As you testified, now, after 40 years of working the tar sands, the Alberta government and the federal government are starting to do some studies on what the situation is for groundwater and the interface. As I recall, they had three key issues they were exploring.
One is the sustained safe yield for groundwater in that whole northern Alberta region. The other is the transfer mechanism between aquifers, and they say they have no idea--including between Alberta and Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan. The third issue is scale of time. They don't really know yet how fast it moves or what's under there. The surface-to-groundwater connection is not known, particularly the issue about the importance of the groundwater in recharging the river.
I'm presuming by your testimony that as scientists you think it's very important that we expedite that work, which would help your research.
9:45 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes, and I think it's recognized, as I understand it, by the province and the federal authorities that this baseline needs to be upgraded quickly. My sense is that it's much more critical in the in situ operations for hydrogeologists, because they are in the hydrogeological environment. I think that's where it's most critical to develop the baseline quickly. My sense was that they're moving ahead quite well on those fronts now.