Smoke stacks, mine dust and truck exhaust add to pollution load
Fort McMur r ay — For about three weeks last August, federal scientist Stewart Cober and crew piled into a turboprop aircraft and flew directly over the huge smokestacks on the Suncor oilsands site to capture the fumes. The plane then dipped down to get a reading on the black exhaust from the big trucks hauling bitumen in the openpit mine and banked low to fly over the tailings ponds to take a read on pollution escaping the oily surface.
The flights take about four hours and the scientists flew 20 times, gathering data on 300 chemicals in the air, from smelly hydrocarbons to dust from the gravel roads, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, particulate matter and mercury emissions.
Working with some of the country’s most sensitive equipment, the team of 60 experts is putting together the most complete picture of air pollution from oilsands projects to date, determining the various emissions from mines, upgraders, trucks, how far the pollution spreads and the impact on forest and lakes and human health.
The pollution travels as far east as the Manitoba border and north into the Northwest Territories, said Cober. The chemistry of the pollution can change in the air, so the team in the plane takes samples at three different altitudes.
“For the first time, we’ll know exactly what’s coming out and where it is going,” said Cober. “It’s a huge step forward and it’s the first big step to comprehensive monitoring.” The air pollution study is a major initiative of the new agency called JOSM — Joint Oilsands Monitoring — set up by the federal and provincial governments in 2012 to get baseline data on overall environmental impacts of all the oilsands mines and upgraders on land, water and air.
The team is “the NHL of air pollution expertise,” says Cober, who heads the federal air-quality process branch.
Scientist from the National Research Council, the federal environment department and from six Canadian universities, including the Universities of Alberta and Calgary, are involved in the two-year study.
The new data will help government and companies come up with ways to reduce air pollution, he says.
“There’s no doubt there’s a lot of pollution coming off the mines themselves and this will help the industry to give them certainty about what’s there.”
Since 1997, air pollution has been monitored by the Wood Buffalo Environment Association, a locally based, mostly industry-funded agency reporting to a board of regional stakeholders including industry representatives. Scientist Kevin Percy in Fort McMurray runs the agency with a $12-plus million budget and also works with scientists from universities in Canada and the U.S.
But in 2012, the federal and provincial governments were pressured to step in with the JOSM initiative after three independent scientific studies found evidence of airborne pollution many kilometres from the mines.
For decades before that, the provincial government maintained the oilsands industry was not a major source of pollution because bitumen is naturally occurring.
Air quality in the region is generally rated as good by the province. “Alberta’s Air Quality Index shows that air quality in the oilsands area rates as low risk at least 95 per cent of the time,” says the Alberta Environment website.
There are warning signs some pollutants could reach unhealthy levels as new oilsands projects add to the load.
In February 2012, Shell’s proposed Jackpine mine expansion raise dared flag about nitrogen dioxide (NO2), an air pollutant linked with human respiratory problems.
The company’s own environmental impact study, submitted to regulatory hearings, showed that NO2 emissions from the $12-billion project would cause pollution levels to hit two to three times the air pollution thresholds set out in the province’s Lower Athabasca Regional Plan.
The pollution limits in the Lower Athabasca plan, the government’s new planning document for the region, are legally binding. The environment department has the power to force companies to take measures to reduce pollution before more projects are approved. But the LAR P document is not yet finalized, so it’s unclear when those air pollution limits will be in force.
Environmentalists, including the Alberta-based Pembina Institute thinktank, asked that the Jackpine application be delayed until the Lower Athabasca plan is finalized. That request was rejected by the Alberta Energy Regulator. It approved Jackpine in July, despite noting in its final report that there are concerns about “irreversible environmental damage” from this project.
Pembina predicts there’s trouble ahead, especially with NO2 emissions, given oilsands production is expected to more than double in the next few years.
“According to air quality projections, unless serious action is taken now, NO2 levels will greatly exceed the legal limit for air quality in the region when all of the oilsands projects approved are in operation,” says Pembina in a January 2013 report, Beneath The Surface, a report on oilsands environmental issues.
“If regional air quality is to remain acceptable, serious action must be taken to reduce emissions from all projects already approved.”
Pembina also noted the growing number of incidents when emissions of four major pollutants exceed air pollution limits — 33 times more exceedances were recorded in 2009 compared to 2004 in the region. That includes nitrogen dioxides, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and ozone which are “getting close to the limit levels,” says the report.
Meanwhile, last winter the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association released its first major study identifying chemical pollutants and sources, noted Percy.
While the study found none of pollutants exceeded national standards, Percy said at the time that emissions in the future raise concerns.
“If they got much beyond the range now, I would be concerned,” he said when he released the report.
About one-quarter of airborn pollutants come from upgraders, 19 per cent come from sand on the edge of tailings ponds carried by the wind, 15 per cent from dust from mining operations and 15 per cent from the city of Fort McMurray.
The study found PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a byproduct of processing petroleum and potentially carcinogenic) in dust from mining operations as well as mercury emissions.
“This will help make informed decisions on where the controls need to be placed,” said Percy.
“The next project is looking at dust — how much is spread over the landscape and at what rate.”
While Percy’s locally based agency is supposed to work with the Joint Oilsand Monitoring agency, the relationship is still being worked out. There’s a concern about loss of local autonomy, who gets to control the budget and who defines research priorities.
“The plans can’t be disconnected from regional stakeholders,” said Percy, adding that his organization has spent years gaining the trust of the companies in the region.
The association also has some niche roles that JOSM doesn’t, he notes, such as using the traditional knowledge of First Nations and looking for new technology.
In one recent project, the Wood Buffalo association hired two scientists to test the exhaust fumes from the gigantic trucks used to haul the oilsand from the mines to the plants where the bitumen and sand are separated. Three companies at three different mines took part in the test, and heavy equipment supplier Caterpillar is “very interested” in the results, said Percy.
“The scientists drilled holes in the mufflers and attached them to a portable machine sitting in the cab of the trucks. The machine takes samples of exhaust and identifies emissions as drivers go through their daily cycle.”
In the city of Fort McMurray, Percy has hired a talented group of sniffers or “nasal rangers” to report on odour problems in the city to pin down urban air pollution.