MERCURY ALERT IN OILSANDS
LEVELS ELEVATED, RESEARCH FINDS
Mercury wafting out of oilsands operations is affecting an area — or “bull’s eye” — that extends for about 19,000 square kilometres in northeast Alberta, according to federal scientists.
Levels of the potent neurotoxin found near the massive industrial operation have been found to be up to 16 times higher than “background” levels for the region, says Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk, who recently reported the findings at an international toxicology conference.
Mercury can bioaccumulate in living creatures and chronic exposure can cause brain damage. It is such a concern that Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed an international treaty in October pledging Canada will further reduce releases to the environment.
The federal scientists stress the mercury loadings around the oilsands are low compared to the contamination seen in many parts of North America including southern Ontario and southern Quebec.
But they say the mercury is “the No. 1 concern” when it comes to the metal toxins generated by oilsands operations.
It is also a major worry for aboriginal and environmental groups concerned about the oilsands’ impact on fishing, hunting and important wildlife staging areas downstream of the oilsands.
Environment Canada scientists are sampling everything from snow to lichens to bird eggs as part of the federal-provincial joint oilsands monitoring program.
Kirk, who will publish the findings in a scientific study in 2014, told the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry conference in Nashville, Tenn., in November that about 19,000 square kilometres are “currently impacted by airborne Hg (mercury) emissions originating from oilsands developments.”
The levels decrease with distance from the oilsands. “It’s a gradual thing like a bull’s-eye,” says coinvestigator Derek Muir, head of Environment Canada’s ecosystem contaminants dynamics section.
The highest mercury loadings were found in the “middle of the bull’s eye,” he says, and cover “probably 10 per cent” of the 19,000 square kilometres found to be affected.
Both Muir and Kirk stressed in an interview with Postmedia News that much higher levels of mercury pollution are seen in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, which are on the receiving end of toxins created by incinerators, combustion and coal-burning power plants.
The scientists say much research remains to be done on the mercury around the oilsands, but there are indications the toxin is building up in some of the region’s wildlife.
Environment Canada wildlife scientist Craig Hebert has been comparing eggs from water birds from northern and southern Alberta. He told the toxicology conference that mercury levels have been increasing in eggs of several bird species downstream of the oilsands.
Kirk’s team studies snow. The researchers visit close to 100 sites every March collecting cores of the snowpack near the oilsands and in forests and on frozen lakes in northeast Alberta. Back in the lab they measure the contaminants that have collected in the snow over the winter months and calculate how much contamination enters the ecosystem at spring melt.
The oilsands’ upgraders, open pit mines, exposed coke piles and tailings ponds have been associated in previous work with polycyclic aromatic compounds, which have been linked to cancer, and a long list of other chemicals.
Kirk’s team reports “springtime snowpack measurements demonstrate that aerial loadings of many of the inorganic contaminants examined increased with proximity to the major development area.”