What is tar sands “oil”?

The tar sands region in northern Alberta contains a form of fossil fuel that is not what most people would call “oil”. The tar sands contain a tar-like substance called bitumen mixed with dirt, sand and rock. This mixture can either be strip-mined, which requires the complete destruction of ancient boreal forests (clearcutting), or the bitumen can be melted underground using superheated steam generated by burning huge amounts of natural gas and then pumped out using many closely spaced wells. Either process requires an enormous amount of expensive energy and equipment–much more than traditional oil production.

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?

 Why haven’t tailings ponds been cleaned up?

To date, only one tailings pond out of 19 —which are equal in size to Washington, DC—has been cleaned up. As noted on the Alberta government’s website, “Operators are responsible for removal of all infrastructure, remediation and reclamation of a developed site following operations.” 

However, after fifty years, oil companies have set aside only one billion dollars toward clean-up, which would cost more than two hundred times that amount.  

The Auditor General of Alberta estimated in a 2015 report that the clean-up of oil sands would cost $20.8 billion (the cost of tailings clean-up comprises most of that number). However, this total cost was grossly under-estimated. On November 1, 2018, AER CEO Jim Ellis apologized for failing to report, "that cleaning up after the province's oil and gas industry would cost $260 billion." The next day he announced his retirement as CEO. 

Additionally, millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on tailings remediation technologies, but none of the green chemistry proposals, full containment designs, or other relevant alternatives to tailings release have been acceptable to industry.

What has happened instead?

In 2009, the Alberta government said it would clean up tailings ponds and put in place legislation, Directive 074, to do this. Four years later, every oil company had failed to meet Directive 074. Rather than enforcing penalties, Directive 074 was quietly scrapped and the government relied on industry to write their own clean-up plans.  

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.