Leaking tailings ponds in Alberta’s oil sands is the subject of a complaint against Canada submitted to an environmental watchdog set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The complaint, filed by Environmental Defense Canada, U.S-based Natural Resources Defense Council, and three private citizens charges that toxic tailings ponds are contaminating surface and groundwater by leaking into the Athabasca watershed.
The groups allege that the government is failing to enforce its own anti-pollution provisions under the federal Fisheries Act by allowing oil sands tailings ponds to leak contaminated materials.
“We have been asking the federal government for several months now to enforce the Fisheries Act and there’s no action forthcoming, so we thought we’d file this now to try to spark some movement,” says Matt Price, policy director with Environmental Defense Canada.
“There are already examples of this stuff getting into surface waters and that’s a violation of the Fisheries Act, which should be triggering prosecutions and it’s not.”
The lake-size tailings ponds, which span approximately 20 square miles, store wastes such as oil residues and heavy metals from oil sands processing.
“None of these ponds are lined so they’re all leaking 24/7 into the groundwater,” Price says.
The complaint is the latest in an ongoing international campaign by environmental groups to call attention to the impact of pollution from the oil sands.
The petroleum industry has countered with its own public relations campaigns, the latest of which was launched last week.
John Rigney, one of the private citizens behind the complaint, lives in Fort Chipewyan, a small settlement on the northeast shore of Lake Athabasca downstream from the massive oil sands.
Residents of Fort Chipewyan have blamed oil sands pollution for unusually high rates of cancers in the community of about 1,400, including a rare bile-duct cancer first noted by a doctor in 2006.
Although a study last year by Alberta health authorities found that the incidence of cancer was higher than expected in the community, there was no link made to water contamination from the oil sands.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice told reporters in Ottawa that there is no data showing that the tailings ponds are leaking into the Athabasca River, but added that the situation would be monitored.
In an op-ed published in the Edmonton Journal, David Collyer, president of the Calgary-based Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the ponds “are equipped with technology to monitor, intercept and return any seepage back into the pond.”
Collyer also noted that the Athabasca River “has always had traces of oil and related compounds in the water, because [tar-like] bitumen seeps into the river from oil sand exposed naturally in the river banks.”
The tailings ponds shot into the international spotlight in 2008 when 1,600 ducks died after landing in ponds owned by Syncrude Canada Ltd. Syncrude is currently defending itself in an Edmonton court against federal and provincial charges over the incident.
If the complaint is accepted by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), Price says the groups are hoping the commission will appoint a team to investigate.
A side-body of NAFTA, the CEC is headed by the environment ministers of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It is these three ministers, says Price, who will finally vote on the submission.
It could take months before it is known whether the commission will hear the complaint.
The complaint, filed by Environmental Defense Canada, U.S-based Natural Resources Defense Council, and three private citizens charges that toxic tailings ponds are contaminating surface and groundwater by leaking into the Athabasca watershed.
The groups allege that the government is failing to enforce its own anti-pollution provisions under the federal Fisheries Act by allowing oil sands tailings ponds to leak contaminated materials.
“We have been asking the federal government for several months now to enforce the Fisheries Act and there’s no action forthcoming, so we thought we’d file this now to try to spark some movement,” says Matt Price, policy director with Environmental Defense Canada.
“There are already examples of this stuff getting into surface waters and that’s a violation of the Fisheries Act, which should be triggering prosecutions and it’s not.”
The lake-size tailings ponds, which span approximately 20 square miles, store wastes such as oil residues and heavy metals from oil sands processing.
“None of these ponds are lined so they’re all leaking 24/7 into the groundwater,” Price says.
The complaint is the latest in an ongoing international campaign by environmental groups to call attention to the impact of pollution from the oil sands.
The petroleum industry has countered with its own public relations campaigns, the latest of which was launched last week.
John Rigney, one of the private citizens behind the complaint, lives in Fort Chipewyan, a small settlement on the northeast shore of Lake Athabasca downstream from the massive oil sands.
Residents of Fort Chipewyan have blamed oil sands pollution for unusually high rates of cancers in the community of about 1,400, including a rare bile-duct cancer first noted by a doctor in 2006.
Although a study last year by Alberta health authorities found that the incidence of cancer was higher than expected in the community, there was no link made to water contamination from the oil sands.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice told reporters in Ottawa that there is no data showing that the tailings ponds are leaking into the Athabasca River, but added that the situation would be monitored.
In an op-ed published in the Edmonton Journal, David Collyer, president of the Calgary-based Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the ponds “are equipped with technology to monitor, intercept and return any seepage back into the pond.”
Collyer also noted that the Athabasca River “has always had traces of oil and related compounds in the water, because [tar-like] bitumen seeps into the river from oil sand exposed naturally in the river banks.”
The tailings ponds shot into the international spotlight in 2008 when 1,600 ducks died after landing in ponds owned by Syncrude Canada Ltd. Syncrude is currently defending itself in an Edmonton court against federal and provincial charges over the incident.
If the complaint is accepted by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), Price says the groups are hoping the commission will appoint a team to investigate.
A side-body of NAFTA, the CEC is headed by the environment ministers of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It is these three ministers, says Price, who will finally vote on the submission.
It could take months before it is known whether the commission will hear the complaint.
