A new study suggests oilsands plants are raising levels of toxic chemicals in the Athabasca River by as much as 50 times.
The study, led by University of Alberta water ecologist David Schindler, looked at levels of two pollutants in snow and water upstream and downstream of the oilsands activity on the Athabasca River. The study found that levels of one of the pollutants were 10 to 50 times greater downstream of the oilsands than they were upstream.
This contradicts past industry-backed studies that found the oilsands had had no noticeable effect on the river.
"The reports the industry has say that development is doing nothing to contaminant loads are not true," Schindler says. "What we've found isn't a coincidence. It indicates that there's a clear violation of the Fisheries Act."
An oil spill each year
Schindler says he set out to test the industry's claim that oilsands operations were not adding pollutants to the Athabasca River.
His team took water and snow samples at sites along the river and its tributaries over the course of a year, some of which were close to the Suncor and Syncrude oilsands operations. They tested for particulate matter — which can cause heart disease — and polycyclic aromatic compounds, or PACs — some of which cause cancer.
The team found significant amounts of both substances up to 50 kilometres away from oilsands operations, says Peter Hodson, a biologist at Queen's University involved with the study. "You could actually see the free oil floating on the water when you melted the snow. It was quite dramatic."
Particulate matter rose the closer you got to oilsands operations, the team found, while PAC levels in water were higher downstream of those operations than upstream. These changes could not be explained by nature alone.
The results suggest that oilsands developments are cranking out about five times more particulate matter than are actually reported and adding about 1,700 kilograms of PACs to local waterways each year — "equivalent to a major oil spill, repeated annually," the study says.
Industry may claim that these pollutant levels are small, Schindler says, as they're in the parts per trillion, "but there's also good evidence that they're toxic at parts per trillion."
Other studies have shown how fish like the ones in the Athabasca die or grow less when exposed to as little as 0.01 micrograms of PACs a litre, the study notes —some stretches of river had about 68 times that amount.
"We should see deformities, mortality and less productivity of young fish at any given time," Hodson says. The team did not look at human health effects.
Reform RAMP, says scientist
Schindler blasted the current industry-funded environmental monitoring program for the Athabasca River (the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program, or RAMP) as seriously defective, as it had repeatedly found that the oilsands had no serious impact on the PAC levels in the river.
Past studies by RAMP have found that PAC levels stayed at about the same level up or downstream of oilsands plants, says RAMP spokesperson Fred Kuzmic.
RAMP uses a different detection technique than the one used by this study, Kuzmic says, which could explain the different results. "Right now we're not seeing any change that can be attributed to industry operations in the region," Kuzmic says. That's on a regional scale, he adds — at least one sewage treatment plant has had noticeable local impacts.
Schindler called on the province to take back control of monitoring the oilsands. RAMP needs to be redesigned to better track pollution, he says, and needed an independent oversight panel to track its results.
The study is available in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
