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(This article is a reminder that "peak oil" is not about the absolute
disappearance of fossil fuels but the increasing costs associated with
the search for new sources that lead inexorably to climate change,
carcinogens, and war.)
NY Times January 7, 2013
Oil Sands Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level
By IAN AUSTEN
OTTAWA — The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of
cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural
levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And
they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously
been believed.
For the study, financed by the Canadian government, the researchers set
out to develop a historical record of the contamination, analyzing
sediment dating back about 50 years from six small and shallow lakes
north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the center of the oil sands industry.
Layers of the sediment were tested for deposits of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons, or PAHs, groups of chemicals associated with oil that in
many cases have been found to cause cancer in humans after long-term
exposure.
“One of the biggest challenges is that we lacked long-term data,” said
John P. Smol, the paper’s lead author and a professor of biology at
Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “So some in industry have been
saying that the pollution in the tar sands is natural, it’s always been
there.”
The researchers found that to the contrary, the levels of those deposits
have been steadily rising since large-scale oil sands production began
in 1978.
Samples from one test site, the paper said, now show 2.5 to 23 times
more PAHs in current sediment than in layers dating back to around 1960.
“We’re not saying these are poisonous ponds,” Professor Smol said. “But
it’s going to get worse. It’s not too late but the trend is not looking
good.” He said that the wilderness lakes studied by the group were now
contaminated as much as lakes in urban centers.
The study is likely to provide further ammunition to critics of the
industry, who already contend that oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands
poses environmental hazards like toxic sludge ponds, greenhouse gas
emissions and the destruction of boreal forests.
Battles are also under way over the proposed construction of the
Keystone XL pipeline, which would move the oil down through the western
United States and down to refineries along the Gulf Coast, or an
alternative pipeline that would transport the oil from landlocked
Alberta to British Columbia for export to Asia.
The researchers, who included scientists at Environment Canada’s aquatic
contaminants research division, chose to test for PAHs because they had
been the subject of earlier studies, including one published in 2009
that analyzed the distribution of the chemicals in snowfall north of
Fort McMurray. That research drew criticism from the government of
Alberta and others for failing to provide a historical baseline.
“Now we have the smoking gun,” Professor Smol said.
He said he was not surprised that the analysis found a rise in PAH
deposits after the industrial development of the oil sands, “but we
needed the data.” He said he had not entirely expected, however, to
observe the effect at the most remote test site, a lake that is about 50
miles to the north.
Asked about the study, Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Peter Kent, Canada’s
environment minister, emphasized in an e-mail that with the exception of
one lake very close to the oil sands, the levels of contaminants
measured by the researchers “did not exceed Canadian guidelines and were
low compared to urban areas.”
He added that an environmental monitoring program for the region
announced last February 2012 was put into effect “to address the very
concerns raised by such studies” and to “provide an improved
understanding of the long-term cumulative effects of oil sands development.”
Earlier research has suggested several different ways that the chemicals
could spread. Most oil sand production involve large-scale open-bit
mining. The chemicals may become wind-borne when giant excavators dig
them up and then deposit them into 400-ton dump trucks.
Upgraders at some oil sands projects that separate the oil bitumen from
its surrounding sand are believed to emit PAHs. And some scientists
believe that vast ponds holding wastewater from that upgrading and from
other oil sand processes may be leaking PAHs and other chemicals into
downstream bodies of water.
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