The Wildlife Professional - Spring 2010 2009

Will Oil Trump Nature in Canada?
How oil SanDS DevelopmenT affeCTS alBerTa’S wilDlife

By Simon Dyer and Terra Simieritsch

Simon Dyer is
a Wildlife Biologist
with the Pembina
Institute, a sustainable-
energy think tank
based in Calgary,
Alberta.
Credit: David Dodge

In the spring of 2008 a reported 1,600 waterfowl died in the oily tailings waste of an oil sands mine in Alberta, Canada. The incident drew international attention to the burgeoning oil sands industry—and to its potential lethal impacts on wildlife and habitats. Though the death of the birds provoked a global outcry, it represented only a small fraction of the environmental damage of this industry.

Open pit mining, which strips away the boreal forests and wetlands, is used to extract bitumen that is less than about 300 feet deep. The dominant form of extraction to date, open pit mining has already disturbed 230 square miles of forests since 1967, when the first oil sands mine opened.

Canada’s oil sands are the second largest oil reserve in the world after Saudi Arabia. In Alberta they underlie an area of roughly 54,000 square miles— about the size of Florida—and hold an estimated 175 billion barrels of recoverable bitumen, a tar-like substance that can be refined into synthetic crude oil (Energy Resources Conservation Board 2009). These reserves are gaining significance as conventional oil sources dwindle. Current oil sands production is about 1. 4 million barrels per day, and production is projected to more than triple over the next 20 years (McColl 2009).

This extraction method produces tailings “ponds,” which now cover 50 square miles in northern Alberta and contain 190 billion gallons of the toxic liquid by-products of the oil sands mining process (Alberta Environment 2009). Contaminants include acids, ammonia, mercury, and other compounds and trace metals (Nix and Martin 1992) that are toxic to aquatic organisms and mammals (MacKinnon and Boerger 1986; EPA 1984).

Terra Simieritsch is a Policy Analyst with the Pembina Institute in Calgary, Alberta. Credit: David Dodge

Getting at the Oil

Oil sands deposits are a mixture of sand, silt, clay, water, and about 10 to 12 percent bitumen. Extracting oil from this sticky mass occurs in two ways.

The vast majority of oil reserves lie deeper than 300 feet below the surface and therefore require in situ (or in place) extraction techniques, which involve injecting steam underground to melt the bitumen and bring it to the surface. In situ development requires a dense network of roads, well pads, water, and above-ground pipelines. The by-products of this process are injected into deep aquifers once the bitumen has been extracted.

a tailings pond like this one near an oil sands mine in alberta became a lethal wetland in 2008 when some 1,600 waterfowl died after landing in it and becoming coated in oily waste (inset). according to a 2008 report by the natural resources Defense Council, bird mortality from alberta’s existing tailings ponds could far exceed 8,000 birds per year.