What Are Tar Sands>

Image for the Narwhal by Alex MacLean

What is tar sands “oil”?

The tar sands region in northern Alberta contains a type of fossil fuel that is not what most people would call oil. The ground there holds bitumen, a thick tar-like substance mixed with sand, clay, and rock. To extract it, companies either strip mine the land, which destroys large areas of ancient boreal forest and wetlands, or they heat the bitumen underground using steam made from burning natural gas and then pump it out through wells.

Both methods require massive amounts of clean freshwater, taken from nearby rivers and lakes. The water is used to create steam and to separate bitumen from sand, but once it is used, it becomes contaminated and cannot safely return to the environment. It is stored in huge tailings ponds filled with toxic waste.

This process uses far more energy, water, and equipment than traditional oil production and causes lasting harm to the land, air, and water that surrounding communities depend on.

The above video is not Keepers of the Water content but overall it is a good summary of the tar sands process and how it creates the large tailings ponds. Within this video content we would like to point out the following issues to consider at the following specific times:

0:15 - the video says the tar sand is made up of sand, clay, water and bitumen. It is also important to mention that the tars sands or oil sands also contain minerals, metals and complex acids as well.

0:52 - the video shows that in the extraction step the tar sands are mixed with hot water. What’s not mentioned is that sodium hydroxide is also added at this extraction step. this is important to know because sodium hydroxide is the main cause of the massive amount of the tailings waste by-product, which resists separation or treatment.

1:27 - Add here: upgrading is a very energy-intensive process that produces a few types of pollution, mainly large volumes of SO2 emissions which create acid rain.

2:00 - Big problems with the oil sand industry not mentioned include:

Massive volumes of air pollution of several types, including; SO2 (sulphur dioxide) NOx (nitrogen oxides) PM (particulate matter which are small particles that get into our lungs and brain and cause various health issues)

Land disturbances negatively impact about 70 different species of mammals and dozens of bird species as a consequence of clearcutting, toxins and air pollution.

Social impacts: In the North, we are losing the potential for a traditional land-based economy that needs a healthy forest and clean rivers full of healthy fish. The tar sands industry is temporarily producing oil in exchange for a dying and irreplaceable boreal ecosystem.

What are tailings ponds?

Tailing ponds are actually the toxic wastewater left over from oil sands production. Companies store the waste in enormous lakes, or ‘tailings ponds.’ The tailings leak about 11 million litres a day into the groundwater and surrounding environment. Of that, Environment Canada found 6.5 million litres a day leak into the Athabasca River - a source of drinking water for several Indigenous communities and internationally recognized for its ecological value.

Tailings ponds contain a significant number of toxic chemicals, including half of the World Health Organization’s “ten chemicals of major public concern.” These constituent materials include dangerous levels of mercury, arsenic, cyanide, benzene and naphthenic acids, which are entirely unique to the oil sands. This toxic contamination has been linked to severe health effects, including rare cancers, with an overall 30 percent higher rate in Indigenous communities downstream from oil sands operations.

 Why haven’t tailings ponds been cleaned up?

Industry often points to Suncor Energy’s former Pond 1, now called Wapisiw Lookout, as having been “reclaimed” in 2010: the industrial basin was refilled with sand and topped with vegetation so that it now resembles a forest-ed landform. Aeroplan+2Canadian Energy Centre+2

However, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has stated that no tailings pond has ever been fully certified as reclaimed under the province’s own rules, and Independent groups confirm this: “No tailings ponds are officially reclaimed.” Environmental Defence+1

In other words: yes, the surface was modified at Wapisiw Lookout, but the underlying toxic tailings weren’t fully addressed or officially certified as reclaimed; the waste was moved or contained, not eliminated. Meanwhile, the oil sands region still hosts many large tailings-ponds that continue to grow. NRDC+1

What happened instead? In 2009, Alberta brought in Directive 074, which was supposed to make oil companies clean up and reduce their tailings waste. But in 2015, the Alberta Energy Regulator stopped enforcing it. It was replaced by Directive 085, which gave companies more time and more freedom to manage tailings their own way. Oil Sands Magazine+1

Image Source: https://www.fossilfuelconnections.org/alberta-tar-sands

Then, when 1600 ducks died after landing on Syncrude tailings ponds, the Alberta government, facing international pressure, promised tailings would be cleaned up once and for all. Alison Redford publicly stated in 2013 that, “turbid tailings ponds containing the byproducts of bitumen production will soon be a thing of the past.”

Nothing has improved. Tailings ponds have continued to grow. In 2009, there were 720 million cubic meters of tailings. As of 2013, there were over one billion cubic meters covering 220 km2 and in 2018 that number reached 234 km2. Meanwhile, The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has rubber-stamped oil companies’ clean-up plans, which have heavily relied on an unproven method called water capping, also referred to as end pit lakes, to turn the tailings ponds into clean lakes. This is something renowned Alberta scientist David Schlinder has called promotional fantasy. 


Despite evidence that tailings were leaking into groundwater, the federal government under Stephen Harper pulled environmental inspectors from the oil sands. In 2017, environmental groups filed a submission with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) accusing the federal government of failing to enforce the federal Fisheries Act by not prosecuting oil sands producers over the "alleged leaking of deleterious substances." In September 2020, the CEC’s factual record confirmed the allegations: that tailings chemicals were leaching into groundwater and surface water, and that the federal government had taken no legal action against oil sands companies. 

A Tailings Risk Assessment has yet to be carried out as part of the Wood Buffalo National Park Action Plan in order to meet UNESCO standards. 

This year, Alberta temporarily suspended much of its environmental monitoring, including monitoring tailings ponds.

What must happen now?

The Federal government must develop new regulations for tailings treatment that require the safest standard so that tailings can be recycled and reused in the extraction process used by oil companies. This way, less water will be extracted from the Athabasca and toxic tailings will not be released back into the river.

  • Tailings are a waste byproduct from the oil sands extraction processes used in mining operations.

  • Tailings are toxic.

  • According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the National Toxicology Program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have been classified as definite, probable or possible cancer-causing agents.

  • Tailings are stored indefinitely in open lakes that cover an area larger than the city of Vancouver. (1)

  • Tailings lakes increase in volume at a rate that would fill 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools each day.(2)

  • Tailings lakes leak. The exact amount of leakage is either not known or has not been made public. (3)

  • Modelled estimates suggest that as much as 4 billion litres of tailings leak from tailings ponds each year. (4)

One of the major concerns associated with tailings ponds is the migration of pollutants through the groundwater system, which can in turn leak into surrounding soil and surface water. (5) There is currently a lack of publicly available information on the rate and volume of seepage from oil sands tailings ponds, despite known incidents involving tailings seepage. (6)
The Athabasca-Peace River delta is one of the world’s most productive areas for 215 species of songbirds, waterfowl, and other birds. This vital habitat is being destroyed and turned into the grim landscape of tar sands development, a vast area of clear-cut forest, open-pit excavations, roads, electric grids, lake-sized reservoirs of liquid toxic waste called tailings ponds, and the huge upgrading facilities that are required to turn gritty, sludgy tar sands material into useable petroleum.

In 2008, more than 1,600 waterfowl died after landing in a tailings pond they had mistaken for a natural water body. Birds from 43 species have died in similar incidents. The mines are creeping ever further into the boreal forest and wetlands that migratory birds and other wildlife depend upon as vital breeding grounds. In the Athabasca River, part of the nesting grounds for migratory birds, toxic pollutants from oil sands development such as mercury and lead have contaminated the water extensively. Source

Alberta physician, Dr. John O’Connor, has called for further investigation of cancer incidences after noting the presence of at least three cases of cholangiocarcinoma in Fort Chipewyan small town within the past decade. Cholangiocarcinoma is cancer that typically strikes only 1 in every 100,000 to 200,000 individuals. Source

Oil and gas development in Canada has repeatedly violated the rights of Indigenous Peoples and other frontline communities. Source: Bennett, D. (2014) Study links oil sands pollution to higher cancer rates. Toronto Star

Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to their own report: https://changingclimate.ca/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2020/06/CCCR_FULLREPORT-EN-FINAL.pdf

1 The City of Vancouver is 114.7 square kilometres in area (NationMaster - Encyclopedia - Vancouver, British Columbia).

2 An Olympic-sized swimming pool holds roughly 2,500 cubic meters of water.

3 M. Price, 11 Million Litres a Day: The Tar Sands’ Leaking Legacy (Toronto, ON: Environmental Defence, 2008),

4 M. Price, 11 Million Litres a Day: The Tar Sands’ Leaking Legacy (Toronto, ON: Environmental Defence, 2008)

5 National Energy Board, Canada’s Oil Sands: Opportunities and Challenges to 2015, (an Energy Market Assessment)

6 Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, Application by Suncor Inc. Oil Sands Group for Amendment of Approval No.7632 for Proposed Steepbank Mine Development, Decision No. 97-1, Application No. 960439, Calgary, 1997.