Guest Entry: Assessing the Environmental Impacts of the Tar Sands

By: Trevor Shah

Please note that I will not focus on the economic benefits of the Tar Sands as these are already widely known. Rather, I focus on the detrimental environmental impacts as these far outweigh the short-term economic benefits.

Land Use
In March 2008, Syncrude Canada became the first oil company to receive a reclamation certificate from the Alberta government for restoring 104 hectares of land. Syncrude claims to have restored 22 percent of their disturbed land to date; however the Alberta government has not given Syncrude a reclamation certificate for this restored land (apart from the 104 hectares).

The Alberta government has been criticized by the Alberta Auditor General for its poor record in tracking land reclamation of Tar Sands operators. According to the Government of Alberta, only 0.16 percent of the total land disturbed by Tar Sands extraction has been reclaimed. This 0.16 percent represents the 104 hectares of land that was reclaimed by Syncrude in March 2008.
The 11 companies operating in the oil sands claim to have collectively restored 11 percent of total disturbed land; however, there is no government certification to support this claim.

This is highlighted very clearly in Figure 2 (of my report) which shows the gap between the disturbance of land and its reclamation rates. Further, it is important to note that the blue line represents the land that has been reclaimed by industry, not the land that has been certified by the government.

Water
Tar Sands mining operators have been licensed to extract 359 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca River. This is double the amount of water consumed by the City of Calgary annually. What’s more, 92 percent of this water ends up in contaminated tailing ponds and the Government of Alberta does not have any reclamation standards for the 840 million cubic metres of tailing lakes. Few technologies exist to remediate tailing lakes and those that do exist, are extremely costly: it is estimated that the cost of remediating one tonne of tailings is between $13.09 and $16.40.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The Alberta Tar Sands are the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Furthermore, Tar Sands companies do not have to pay to neutralize their carbon emissions. By 2015, Fort McMurray will emit more greenhouse gas emissions than all of Denmark, a country with 5.5 million citizens. Further, it is estimated that Tar Sands oil produces at least three times more emissions per barrel than conventional crude oil.

Sand Waste
By 2010, the Tar Sands industry will have generated eight billion tonnes of sand waste which contains naphthenic acid and paraffin: chemicals which can have adverse health effects on mammals leading to liver problems and brain haemorrhaging.

Earth and Soil Waste
According to the Government of Alberta (2007), open pit mining entails “clearing trees and brush from a site and removing the overburden - the topsoil, muskeg, sand, clay and gravel - that sits atop the Tar Sands deposit”. This overburden is often 75 metres deep and is taken offsite by large trucks. In the end, it is estimated that four tonnes of earth must be removed for every barrel of oil produced.

The Government of Alberta must set stricter environmental legislation that will ensure the price of oil is reflective of the aforementioned negative externalities it produces. Further, the Alberta government must impose deadlines for land and tailing ponds to be reclaimed by, and eliminate all government subsidies to Tar Sands companies. These strategies will increase the price of Tar Sands oil causing companies to invest in more efficient technologies, or leave the market due to reduced profitability.

To read the full report, see here [scribd].

Trevor Shah is a third-year commerce student at Queen’s University. He wrote a comprehensive report on the environmental impacts of the Tar Sands for his Sustainable Strategies Class.