Pollution in the land of oil sands

Saturday, June 07, 2008

From a story by Jason Markusoff in the Edmonton Journal:

EDMONTON - A provincial advisory group has yanked from its website a pair of reports that reveal air pollutants are on the rise in the oilsands region, insisting they should have never been made public.

The Alberta Environment reports on chemical emissions and air quality show that peak concentrations of the toxic gas hydrogen sulphide in areas around the massive plants had jumped by 30 to 175 per cent since 1999, bucking a downward trend elsewhere the province.

This means the levels occasionally exceeded the province's air-quality guidelines, and one of the papers is forthright about what was happening.

"Increased activity in the oilsands is likely the cause of the increased levels seen in that area of the province," says the November 2007 paper on air-pollutant trends, prepared for the Clean Air Strategic Alliance (CASA).

A related paper shows that another pollutant, nitrous oxide gases, were on the rise because of the conventional oil and oilsands sectors. Oilsands operators had succeeded in reducing sulphur-oxide levels from 2000 to 2005, but the second report predicted they would rise as development expanded.

The findings came amid Premier Ed Stelmach and the government's repeated assertions that Alberta is a leader in environmental stewardship, and that the oilsands are clean-energy producers.

Enbridge Energy is building a pipeline through Wisconsin to carry the oil extracted from Alberta tar sands to Chicago-area refineries, and RENEW Wisconsin previously raised questions about the tar sands.