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Big trucks, dead ducks put Alberta's oilsands under environmental scrutiny

Two things helped make Alberta's oilsands a top North American environmental concern — ducks and trucks.

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Two things helped make Alberta’s oilsands a top North American environmental concern — ducks and trucks.

Like most Canadian industrial developments, there was little oversight of the impact of bitumen mining on the land, water and air until the 1970s, when provincial and federal environment departments were established.

Accidents happened. In 1967, the new Great Canadian Oil Sands plant had a spill into neighbouring wetlands, and three years later a pipeline released more than 19,000 barrels of oil that created a slick visible 250 kilometres down the Athabasca River.

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But the region wasn’t catapulted on to the global environmental stage until the great duck disaster of 2008.

That was when about 1,600 waterfowl died after landing on a Syncrude tailings pond during a spring snow storm, an event that led to photos of oily, dying birds running in news outlets around the world.

A duck is cleaned of oil at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton on 127 St. near Ellerslie Rd. on April 30, 2008 after being transported from the Syncrude tailings pond at their tar sands site near Fort McMurray after being caught in the slick.
A duck is cleaned of oil at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton on 127 St. near Ellerslie Rd. on April 30, 2008 after being transported from the Syncrude tailings pond at their tar sands site near Fort McMurray after being caught in the slick. Postmedia Archive

“The ducks are what I think brought tailings to the public’s attention in Alberta (and) the international pressures on oilsands. I don’t know how much awareness there was internationally,” Pembina Institute policy analyst Jodi McNeill said.

“The overview of the disturbed land and the tailings ponds … buttressed the international arguments around dirty oil.”

Syncrude was ordered to pay $3 million in fines and penalties. The challenge of keeping birds away from ponds has come up in subsequent incidents, most recently on Sept. 19 when the Alberta Energy Regulator announced it was investigating the deaths of more than 120 birds at the new Fort Hills Energy project run by Suncor. 

But another event a few years earlier first made it clear to large American environmental groups that something big was going on in Wild Rose Country.

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That’s when Alberta parked a giant 180-tonne Caterpillar hauler, similar to the huge machines used to carry ore at oilsands mines, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., as part of Alberta’s exhibit at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in July 2006.

This giant hauler displayed in Washington, D.C., in 2006 demonstrated to Americans the magnitude of Alberta’s oilsands development. While the vehicle was intended to show off the province’s energy bounty, it also put the area squarely in the sights of industry opponents.

Photo of a giant cargo truck similar to those used in Alberta’s oil sands fields is parked on the National Mall in Washington, D.C on June 26, 2006.
Photo of a giant cargo truck similar to those used in Alberta’s oil sands fields is parked on the National Mall in Washington, D.C on June 26, 2006. Photo by Sheldon Alberts (CanWest) /Calgary Herald

“I think a lot of folks were looking at what an expansion in northern Alberta would mean for Aboriginal interests, environmental interests,” said Anthony Swift, director of the Canada project for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The big truck made people aware of the scale of the operations.”

His non-profit organization, which has about 500 employees and a $140-million US annual budget, has taken on oilsands expansion as a major endeavour for the approximately four staff members handling Canadian issues that also include forestry and climate change.

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The council is involved in fighting pipelines such as Keystone XL and other infrastructure it argues will allow further growth at what it calls the tarsands.

“We have played a role in changing the narrative and in some ways shifting the burden of proof to require companies to prove projects make sense in a global economy transitioning to cleaner fuels, but we haven’t done it alone. We have done it in the context of a broader movement.”

However, Ben Brunnen, vice-president of oilsands for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the international opinion of the country’s oil and gas industry is actually largely positive.

Ben Brunnen, Manager of Fiscal and Economic Policy with PSAC, Petroleum Services Association of Canada
Ben Brunnen, Manager of Fiscal and Economic Policy with PSAC, Petroleum Services Association of Canada Photo by Gavin Young /Calgary Herald

He describes the oilsands as an emerging, continually evolving technology play with a strong history of investing in environmental science.

For example, research has driven down the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oil produced at new facilities until they’re almost at the same level as conventional crude over the entire life cycle, which includes burning it in an engine, he said.

A 2010 report by the International Energy Agency indicates most greenhouse gas emissions from oil are created at the tailpipe, regardless of the fuel’s source.

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Total GHGs from oilsands’ output are typically five per cent to 15 per cent higher than the overall GHGs generated by conventional oil, the report said.

“The oilsands tend to be focused upon from an environmental perspective, but … (companies) have good relationships with Aboriginal communities and take seriously reducing environmental impact, whether it’s CO2 emissions or critical habitat for species at risk,” Brunnen said.

“I think the oilsands has one of the best track records for mitigating environmental impacts.”

Last year, Alberta’s NDP government brought in a 100 megatonne-a-year cap on emissions from the oilsands to fight climate change and win pipeline support.

Emissions were 66 megatonnes in 2014, and the area is expected to hit the cap around 2030. The oilsands account for about nine per cent of Canada’s total emissions.

The largest players in the industry formed Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA) in 2012 to co-ordinate research and speed up improvements in environmental performance.

So far, the firms have shared 936 technological advances and innovations that cost almost $1.3 billion to develop.

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COSIA is also a partner in the $20-million Carbon XPrize for teams looking at ways to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change, into a valuable product. The winners will be announced in 2020.

They’re expected to be the first tenants in the Alberta Carbon Conversion Technology Centre being built in Calgary by the federal and provincial governments as one of the few places in the world where carbon conversion technology can be tested at a commercial scale.

“People talk about capturing carbon and sequestering it … but increasingly we’re talking about capturing the carbon and actually doing something with it,” COSIA chief executive Dan Wicklum said.


Origins of the oilsands

Compiled by Norma Marr

Sources: Calgary Herald Archives; Postmedia Archives; Government of Alberta; Steward: 75 Years of Alberta Energy Regulation (Gordon Jaremko)


Syncrude, which has about 200 square kilometres of land that has been disturbed to create its two mines and other facilities, spent almost $600 million on research and development over the last five years, and more than half that money went to environmental work, spokesman Will Gibson says.

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The company’s annual sustainability report indicates it produced 11.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2015, the lowest in at least five years, although the number of tonnes per barrel of oil produced stayed virtually the same.

While Gibson admits the environment originally wasn’t a top concern at the oilsands, he says times have changed.

“If you went back 40 years ago, right around the time we started, that wasn’t a top-of-mind issue. It was ‘Is this commercially viable?’ That was the driving issue back then, but I think there has never been a commitment to do this in anything other than the right way.”

Syncrude is focused mainly on how stakeholders, staff and people in such nearby areas as Fort McKay and Fort Chipewyan feel about its operations, rather than on what’s put out by distant organizations, he said.

“We’re headquartered in (Fort) McMurray. Ninety per cent of our workforce is in McMurray. We’re going to focus on doing what we need to do to address concerns (of) Canadians, Albertans and the residents of Wood Buffalo,” Gibson said.

“I understand there’s opinions in New York and opinions in Washington, but I also know that Fort McKay is not that far from Mildred Lake. We will listen to what the people in Fort McKay have to say.”

gkent@postmedia.com

twitter.com/GKentYEG

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