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.
June 16th, 2009 / 9 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Order, please.
I want to change the agenda a little bit. We have a notice of motion from Mr. Warawa.
Mr. Warawa, perhaps you will read it into the record.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I'm moving that the committee on environment and sustainable development call Mr. Bruce Hyer, MP, who introduced Bill C-311, An Act to ensure Canada assumes its responsibilities on preventing dangerous climate change, into the House, to appear as a witness to speak to the bill.
It's to provide direction to the committee. The clerk would then be able to invite Mr. Hyer. We start in two days, so we need to find out who our first witness is. We haven't agreed on a group of witnesses, which we need to do, and maybe follow up at the beginning of the fall, when we come back. Anyway, to get us started, I'd like to see Bruce invited.
That's the motion.
9 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Yes, of course, we agree with this motion. My only concern is that we're devoting two hours to one witness.
Is it possible to have Mr. Hyer appear for one hour? We can then use the second hour to discuss some future business items, including potential witnesses for Bill C-311, but also to maybe give some very broad drafting instructions to our researchers for the summer, for the water and oil sands report, and also to discuss, perhaps, witnesses for SARA when we get back in the fall.
9 a.m.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you.
I think that's a good suggestion, for us to have a first, second, and possibly a third round, so that Ms. Duncan would have a second chance to question Mr. Hyer.
I'd suggest, then, we hear from him, have our three rounds, and then break into a meeting for future business. I'm foreseeing that as maybe an hour and a half with Bruce and then a half hour with your suggestion.
9 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I agree with Mr. Scarpaleggia. I think an hour is sufficient, simply to introduce the bill. This is the second round, same bill, and we've already debated it, so I think Mr. Hyer is looking forward to coming in and presenting.
I concur that it's useful to spend some time talking about what we're going to do with the two reviews that we've done. I understand we're going to be having further witnesses on SARA, but my understanding is that on oil sands and water, after today, it's over. But I would hope we're going to have a little more discussion than 20 minutes on providing direction or advice on where we want to go on the report. I hope we would have an hour simply dedicated to that.
I would also encourage the members to come forward with the beginning of a suggested list for Bill C-311 and any ideas on amendments, so we can expedite that process. We could then proceed immediately into completing Bill C-311, which would be appropriate because we will be starting that on Thursday and it should be the first order when we come back in September.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Yes, we're making the assumption that we're not meeting next Tuesday.
I think there's understanding that we'll have Mr. Hyer here, we'll go through at least two rounds with him, and then we'll move into future business, if that's okay with you, Mr. Warawa. That should give us an hour and an hour.
Is there any other discussion?
Seeing none, I'll call the question.
(Motion agreed to)
We'll move on to the rest of our meeting.
Joining us at the table is Dr. George Dixon, vice-president, university research, and professor of biology, University of Waterloo, and Dr. James Barker, professor of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, also at the University of Waterloo.
I welcome both of you and look forward to your presentation as we conclude our discussion on Canada's oil sands and the water resources surrounding them.
I'd ask that you make opening comments. If you can keep them under 10 minutes each, I'd appreciate that very much.
9:05 a.m.
Dr. D. George Dixon Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Good morning, and thank you very kindly.
It's a great pleasure to have the opportunity to meet with the committee this morning. I'm going to give you just a very brief background, and then I have made four recommendations in here based on my work in the oil sands for about 15 years, where I saw issues that needed to be addressed going forward.
My understanding is that I have something in the order of eight minutes, and I hope I won't take anywhere near that time to address some of these issues. Jim Barker and I are actually going to give a brief summary and then present ourselves for questioning. We have seen that you have been through a lot of testimony, and we expect you might have some points of clarification you feel we could assist you with.
I and a number of my colleagues have been working on the oil sands since about 1983. We have effectively worked in two areas of research, one that I'll call on-lease activity, that is, research done on the leases of the oil sands companies—predominantly Syncrude and Suncor, because those were the only two active companies out there when I started doing this type of work--and the other area of activity that we've undertaken is what I'll call off-lease activity, the activity of trying to look for effects in the environment in the Athabasca River.
The work we've been doing on the leases has really been directed toward two end-points. One of them is the environmental toxicology of the chemicals that are associated with the water used to extract bitumen from the oil sands. These are principally naphthenic acids, which I suspect you've heard about before, and alkylated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a class of compounds associated with all oils. We have also looked at issues around salinity, both sodium salinity and sulphate salinity, that occur when you effectively expose the oil sands to water and the salts leach out and end up in the processed water that's associated with extraction.
We've been doing this work on the leases for two reasons. One of them is basic toxicology, to try to determine the threshold concentrations of these chemicals that would be expected to cause an effect in aquatic organisms. Once you have that body of toxicology information, you can effectively start to set water quality standards, or PWQOs, provincial water quality standards in Alberta; or federal water quality guidelines, through CCME, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. For naphthenates, there are no standards of that nature because the basic toxicology was never done.
So we're looking at understanding the toxicology of those compounds, should there ever be a requirement to effectively set standards for the release of waters into the Athabasca drainage.
The other reason we're trying to understand these compounds' toxicity has to do with the so-called end-pit lake strategy, where you effectively put tailings of some form into a mined out area, cap them with water, and hope that through time this will develop into a natural lake system. When I say “hope”, I mean there have been a number of scale-up demonstrations associated with this, but the only full-scale first attempt at an end-pit lake has yet to be initiated. It is going to be done by Syncrude Canada with their Base Mine Lake tailings pond. My understanding is that Suncor is in the planning stages to initiate their first end-pit lake within the next, I think, probably two to three years. Those are, technically speaking, demonstration activities.
The other area we have been looking at has to do with off-lease activity. We have been looking for impacts associated with oil sands-type materials in the Athabasca watershed. I had some references included in the work we've done looking at impacts on larval fish and impacts on reproductive activity in free-living fish in the Athabasca drainage area. We did most of that work prior to 2003. Really, what we're looking at there is whether we can demonstrate effects in the Athabasca watershed of oil sands-like materials. They may come from natural erosion of oil sands deposits in the area, or they may come from activity—although at the present time, I expect the majority of the effects we're seeing in the receiving environment may in fact be the result of naturally occurring oil sands. But no one has really looked at that to any great extent.
So those are the two areas of activity.
There are key concerns to be addressed. I had four issues that I think we need to be conscious of as a society as we move forward in looking at exploitation of these oil sands resources. As I stated above in my brief, there are chemical inputs into the river that occur naturally and there are inputs that can occur from industrial activity. We don't know what the relative contributions from each are. We don't know whether or not the system can accept any further loading of oil sands-type materials beyond what is naturally occurring. We really have no standards of how we would effectively allow any kind of a release from the system, should it occur. In some ways we really are not fully cognizant of what the potential cumulative impacts are of the various oil sands industries or the other municipal and industrial and agricultural uses of water in that watershed.
By the way, when I'm talking about impact in the system, I'm really talking at the present time about defining whether there are effects we can observe in the system now. That's one question. The second one, after you've established whether or not there are effects, is what's causing those effects. They may be naturally occurring. They may be as a result of anthropogenic activity. The first step is to take a look in the environment to a greater extent than we have done now.
The other area that I don't really think we have a fully integrated, sustainable management strategy for is water in the Athabasca drainage, in terms of surface water and groundwater and interaction. I'm going to let Jim speak to that to a greater extent.
At the present time we have not spent a lot of effort as a society looking at what I would call ecosystem and human health impacts of potential contaminants that are transported off the oil sands leases into the Athabasca drainage. There is no permitted surface water, effectively emissions, into that system at the present time. There are very likely a couple of groundwater inputs to the Athabasca River. We know very little about what I would call atmospheric transport and deposition associated with the potential contaminants. What we really need to be looking at are the potential impacts of that. Can we quantify them? Can ecosystem benchmarks and standards be developed that would allow us to look at the potential impacts that are there at the present time?
Remember, I want to get back to this first question. I'm not particularly worried at the present time about attributing blame in terms of who is responsible for what in terms of the impacts. Let's find out if there are effects first and then worry later about where they're coming from in terms of a risk analysis and division mechanism that would allow us to identify where they are coming from.
The last comment I will make has to do more with information availability and assimilation activity around all the data that's available in the oil sands. Integration of activity is a very large issue. Up until about five or six years ago, a relatively limited number of players were doing research in this arena. As the number of oil sands companies has increased, as the number of different monitoring programs has increased, at the present time the total impact of the work fails from an inability to integrate all that information and pull it together to be able to make a decision framework type of exercise. You have the northern river basins study that provided data. The Panel on Energy Research and Development, PERD, produces this information and funds research. CEMA produces research. RAMP produces research. CONRAD produces research. There is a certain degree of overlap among the activities they undertake, but often information is available to one group that would be of very great use to the others. But the mechanisms for moving that forward and trying to integrate that are at the present time relatively difficult.
I've been working there for 15 years with a number of different partners and I have difficulty pulling data together from some of these different areas when I actually know what data I'm looking for. If you're in a situation where you don't have that body of experience and you literally don't know the one person to call who has that information, it becomes a much more difficult exercise.
I'm going to stop at this point and then pass it on to Jim Barker, who will talk a bit about oil sands and then some further issues around disintegration. I don't know whether you'd like both of us to speak and then go to questions or....
9:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I certainly don't mean to intervene on your territory, Mr. Chair.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
No, no. I'll run the show.
Dr. Barker, if you'd please bring us your opening comments....
9:15 a.m.
Dr. James Barker Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be able to address you.
As Dr. Dixon said, I'm a professor in earth and environmental sciences at Waterloo. My research has really been focused on groundwater issues in the oil sands and in the mining area of the oil sands. I have a number of collaborations at Waterloo, the University of Alberta, and the University of British Columbia. I'm also a member of Suncor's oil sands mine development and reclamation review board; however, I don't represent Suncor or that review board in this presentation. It does give me some additional exposure to the problems that Suncor faces with water, however.
I'm really focusing on the groundwater issues in the oil sands mining area. I recognize that groundwater is perhaps even a more important aspect of the in situ operations, but I don't have any personal research experience in that area.
The major concern in the oil sands mining areas, as Dr. Dixon said, is seepage of process-affected water into aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. My research is really focused on those issues, looking at groundwater as a potential pathway to these receptors. My research has been within the operational phases of the oil sands facilities and really is not being done in the context of the ultimate reclamation. However, the research that we provide I think gives us insight that we can see starting to be incorporated into planning and reclamation.
So in terms of seepage from tailings structures, you've heard testimony about it. My research has examined the migration and fate of contaminants in process-affected water as it moves in the subsurface. The source of this water has been the tailings facilities. Our research, for example, demonstrates that a small fraction of the seepage can escape the current collection systems we have. That information is relayed back to the operators, and it should lead to improved dike seepage collection and maintenance, which seem to be the main issues in allowing some uncontrolled seepage.
You have seen Suncor's Tar Island dike and Pond 1. It's always nice to get a tour of that area. It's a large area. Suncor's Tar Island dike contains Pond 1, the oldest pond in the industry. We've just had accepted a research paper that provides a hydro-geological analysis of the seepage from this pond and dike system, and our findings are consistent with findings of Suncor's consultants over the years. So I don't think we provided much new information to the company. Seepage of process-affected water is occurring from Tar Island dike into the sediments of the Athabasca River, so in a sense I'm delivering a problem to Dr. Dixon now.
The interesting part for us is that the numerical modelling that tries to tie together all the available data suggests the bulk of the seepage water is from the dike, not from the pond. It's a bit of a moot point because the dike in fact was constructed with process-affected water, so the leakage from the dike is chemically very similar to the leakage from ponds. However, since the dikes are dewatering naturally, the impact will be less over time. If it were leaking just from the pond, and if the pond were never reclaimed, you could imagine the leakage continuing over time.
Many of you have seen, I think, Suncor's initial efforts to reclaim Pond 1. I was up there last week, and I think they're on schedule for completion of the removal of the fine tailings this year, and they've actually started placing reclamation material on that pond. So that's some very timely progress.
Waterloo graduate students, technicians, and faculty have also investigated other areas where process-affected water is seeping into groundwater. Again, our research is trying to assess the fate of these chemicals as they move through groundwater. Naphthenic acids have been our focus. We build upon laboratory research at Alberta and Waterloo and in the National Water Research Institute in Saskatoon.
The bottom line so far is that the major toxicants in naphthenic acids don't undergo any significant attenuation in the groundwater system. They're just diluted by the normal weak dispersive processes that occur there.
An interesting aspect of that research has been an attempt to identify whether or not these plumes of process-affected water are leaching toxic metals from the aquifer. The view would be that if the plume was causing the leaching of natural metals, the owner of the plume would be the owner of the metals issue. To date, while iron and manganese have been mobilized, the toxic trace metals, including things like arsenic, show no indication of being mobilized. That research continues, but so far we haven't seen a significant problem in that context.
Seepage, I think, is certainly going to be a continuing problem in the operational phases of these plants. Newer oil sands tailings operations are forced, really by geography, to be located closer to or on top of sandy aquifers, so the potential for water to move into those aquifers and to move away is enhanced. Understanding the hydrogeology relationship between the pond, the dike, the groundwater, and the surface waters nearby will be critical to managing those seepages and minimizing them.
We now recognize that the risk of at least local groundwater contamination is fairly high, so in response researchers are also looking at evaluating potential ways to remediate those situations. One approach is to pump the water out of the ground and treat it on surface. That is consistent with what the oil companies are doing in terms of research to potentially treat their process-affected water in ponds.
Being hydrogeologists, we like to keep our heads in the sand as much as possible, so we're looking at in situ remediation methods. The research is at a very early stage, but what we're looking to do is see if there are any beneficial aspects of adding nutrients or other chemicals to the subsurface to enhance the natural rate of degradation.
What you really want to do is present the companies, the operators, with a number of options for remediating these situations should they occur. We'd rather have those options ready beforehand as opposed to too late.
I think Dr. Dixon has captured our concerns from a research perspective, and I'd like to really just focus on the last issue he brought up, which is this idea of what I would call a catalogue of what's gone on and who's done it. From my perspective as a member of the Canadian Water Network, which project Dr. Dixon leads, and through CONRAD and other venues in talking to colleagues, I'm continually amazed at how much research is actually going on related to water and the oil sands.
Like Dr. Dixon, I have a problem remembering who's doing what or even finding out who's doing what. For instance, we had a presentation a couple of weeks ago. The person from the Alberta Research Council was telling us about three projects that they've been undertaking in the last year, only one of which I was aware of, and those are our colleagues within the Canadian Water Network. Finding out what's going on is difficult for us.
As a researcher, I actually value different approaches. I don't think we want an organization telling us what to do and who's supposed to do what. For example, the different stakeholders have different needs that won't be served by all for one. What I'm really calling for is a way to try to pull the information together to get communication going among the researchers. That will make our work more efficient.
I guess my second concern stems from that. Is there a forum, then, for the research to be discussed? There are numbers of forums. Dr. Dixon often organizes a session within a larger meeting on toxicology. CONRAD organizes a meeting. Special sessions are often organized by various agencies and organizations, but these almost always tend to be well focused and with limited attendance.
What we think would be interesting, but almost impossible to do, is to offer some sort of venue where the research can be discussed and stakeholders can participate. As a member of the Canadian Water Network, I would put it forward as one of the vehicles that could help organize that sort of approach.
So my concerns really are cataloguing what's going on and finding a forum in which to have that discussed openly and freely.
Thank you very much for your time. I'll turn it back to you.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Dr. Barker.
Mr. Scarpaleggia, could you kick us off with a seven-minute round, please?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here this morning.
Dr. Dixon, the impression I got at the very beginning of your presentation was that there's still a lot of research to do surrounding water and the oil sands before we can really put our finger on what's going on there. Yet I get another message--and I don't know if it's from Dr. Barker or from you--that the research has been done; it's just that we haven't been able to pull it together or integrate it. There's that contradiction in my mind. How would you address that? How would you clarify that for me?
9:25 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I think both perceptions are correct. We have come quite a way in enlarging the body of information on the toxicity of the individual compounds. I'm going to talk about “on the lease”. The major issue that seems to be in everyone's mind is the viability of what is called the “end-pit lakes strategy”. We now have an understanding of this through a number of test ponds that were constructed on Syncrude's lease. They moved to a demonstration pond, and they're now moving to the first full-scale demonstration of the approach. We've undertaken a lot of research in the toxicity of the individual chemicals. We know what the effects are at different levels of biota. We know what percentage of a lake should be relatively shallow water that will support vegetation around the edges. We know how much should be deep. We know something about the viability of the breakdown of the naphthenates and materials that will be in the system.
The next step, as you move that up operationally, is to build a 50-hectare lake in which you have tailings material in the bottom. You look over a ten-year period to see how this develops, and you determine, based on the modelling that you've done, whether it actually will work. Have we done the preliminary stuff so that we can move to the demonstration stage? Yes. Have we done the demonstration stage? No.
In the wider environment, people have done a lot of monitoring of the potential impacts on the Athabasca watershed. This is what RAMP has been doing for fifteen years. This is baseline-level monitoring. It is not research activity. It doesn't consider the aerial transport of contaminants from leases and the potential deposition in the environment. We've never actually looked at an integrated survey of the sediments in the Athabasca River to see if there is transportive material, how much of it is natural, and how long it's been occurring according to core drilling. There's lots of information, questions that still need to be answered.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Don't you think it's odd that most of the research seems to have been done with the interests of the oil sands producers in mind? They study the issue of end-pit lakes. Yet the broader, more important question is to find out what's happening in the Athabasca River, to find out if the heavy metals in the sediments are coming from the tailings ponds or if they're naturally occurring. Dr. Bruce said there were heavy metals in the sediments around Fort McMurray.
It seems to me that those are the big questions, and I'm wondering what RAMP has been doing all this time if it hasn't even come close to answering these questions. How do we make RAMP more effective? It's been heavily criticized for its methodology. How do we make it more effective and integrate the information that we have at the moment? You said there was a great inability to integrate information. Perhaps you could give us one concrete example of a difficulty in integrating information, so that those of us who are not scientists can grasp it a bit better.
9:30 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I want to make one comment on the integration of data. We need more information, but we have difficulty in getting all the available information that would allow us to make decisions on what further research needs to be undertaken.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
No, I've never had difficulty getting hold of companies. It's a relatively complex issue. Take the RAMP data. It is available to Environment Canada, DFO, and the companies. They'll provide you with a summary of the data. But if you want to get the raw data and look at it, a lot of it isn't in electronic format. This means you have to spend six months putting it into an electronic format before you can look at it. A lot has to do with getting the data in a timely fashion in a form you can use. That's part of it.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Is there a solution to that problem, or is it just an annoyance?
9:30 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
There have been two or three attempts to set up what I'd call larger data clearing-house activities, but most of them have failed as a result of a lack of human resources and financial resources.
I want to make a comment about RAMP. RAMP has been a program that has gone on for, I don't know, at least 15 to 20 years. It started out, I think, as a federal government monitoring program. It then was undertaken by the province. The province, I think, still manages it, but it's effectively supported largely by financial resources from the industry, and it's done by consultants. I don't take that as a problem. It's just a matter of being a statement of fact.
They respond to a need for information on sites where there could potentially be an impact. So they will go out and look at that. They might look at it for two or three years, and then they'll move to another site. They keep changing the actual sites they're looking at. They also change the parameters they're looking at based on individual demand. They change the reference sites they look at through time. So if you're trying to make some kind of decision on a 10-year basis of what's really going on, you'll have a three-year data set here and then switch to a four-year data set on another site. They keep changing the methods of chemical analysis, too. So it becomes a difficult entity to pull together.
You have to remember that when they started, there were two companies and a relatively small number of areas where you might expect an impact. Now we have six or seven leases that are active. They've broadened it, and they've kept moving stuff around because of resource issues. It's just poorly designed, I would suggest. That's the main problem. It's being done in good faith, but it's like trying to hit a moving target.