This article explores the less recognized costs of extracting oil in northern Alberta, from water pollution to increases in cancer and other diseases.
According to Petroleum Economist magazine, the world's tar sands reserves are huge. Although they occur in over 70 countries, Canada has the majority, around 85%, in four regions: Athabasca, Wabasva, Cold Lake and Peace River, in areas covering nearly 77 000 km. Alberta's tar sands are frequently praised as a geological miracle, and a much safer source of oil than the turbulent countries of the Middle East. But how do these benefits weigh against the environmental and health costs of extraction?
Water
Oil sands projects require two to six barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil. In a day, the oil extraction process uses enough water to supply the needs of three Alberta cities: Calgary (population 1 million), Lethbridge (79 000) and Red Deer (82 900). This is only expected to grow, so that by 2010 industry could be withdrawing more water from the Athabasa River, Alberta's main waterway, than the entire urban population of the province.
More alarming is where this water ultimately ends up; most is disposed as waste material, or "tailings." As William Marsden explains in his book, "Stupid to the Last Drop," this waste material "contains highly toxic hydrocarbons such as napthenic acids, which are deadly to marine life, plus a host of other chemicals, including arsenic." Although their safe containment and disposal has yet to be resolved, they are pumped into huge lakes contained by a system of dams that are now the largest bodies of water in the region.
Cancer
The pollution has had serious ramifications on the health of Native communities in northern Alberta. In 2003, a local doctor began to notice an alarming number of rare cancer cases and autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.
Autoimmune diseases can be caused by arsenic and benzene, and certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that include anthracene and chrysene, which are found in the oil sands. Benzene, PAHs and arsenic are all proven carcinogenic chemcials and can combine to disable the immune system. Arsenic, amongst other heavy metals, is a byproduct of the oil extraction process; digging and drilling activities brings it to the surface, where it is released into surface water. PAH levels have also increased, to the point where fish are showing signs of extreme toxic stress, even changing their sex and harming their reproductive capabilities.
Economic Folly
Polluted water and environmentally-caused diseases are just a few of the problems that the extraction of oil from the tar sands have brought to the region. Massive stretches of boreal forest have been razed, and entire ecosystems of peat bogs, fens, rivers and wetlands have been lost, aside their unique flora and fauna.
The underlying problem is that the benefits, the profits which oil companies reap, are deemed more valuable than the environmental costs. We can only hope for a paradigm shift, a new economics, in which the real costs of such development can be included alongside the conventional "bottom line."
Sources
1. Marsden, William. Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care). United States: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2007.
