The federal government’s latest National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) data highlighted how oil sands tailing ponds contain a wide variety of potentially harmful substances, notably heavy metals such as lead, mercury, chromium, and vanadium.*
In this OSQAR edition, we provide additional detail about oil sands tailings ponds to help put the NPRI data in context.
The quantity of the substances in tailings ponds is large because the heavy metals are naturally present in oil sands (and indeed, in conventional crude oil and coal too) so the amount recovered is directly proportional to the level of oil sands production. There has been an increase in heavy metals over the last four years because with higher production, there are more tailings.
Ensuring tailings ponds won’t fail or leak is therefore absolutely critical. It’s been standard practice in the oil sands mining industry to keep the tailings out of the ecosystem by containing tailings ponds within engineered earthen dykes. Suncor includes systems to capture and return any seepage which might escape into groundwater or waterways backed by comprehensive and rigorous monitoring of pond integrity and nearby river water quality.
But we know tailings ponds can be only a part of dealing with oil sands residues. As well as being hazardous for birds, and needing special wildlife protection systems, they are unsightly and wasteful of land. In the short term, the industry is making determined efforts to reduce the impact of tailing ponds. Suncor, for example, has developed the TROTM (Tailings Reduction Operations) process, which we expect will reduce both the size and the number of tailings ponds on our site.
Longer term, the only acceptable solution is to reclaim the surface as closely as possible to a condition similar to the surrounding landscape. There are tough, new provincial regulations to force the industry to speed up this process.
We believe Suncor is making significant strides in meeting the tailings challenge. And, we’re on track to complete the reclamation of our first tailings pond to a solid surface later this year, with contouring and replanting of native plant species.
In the years ahead, we are confident that anyone who flies over our production site will likely see less water than today, more reclaimed areas and progressive ongoing reclamation. Which means a great deal of substances identified in the NPRI will become part of the geological formation from which they came.
The quantity of the substances in tailings ponds is large because the heavy metals are naturally present in oil sands (and indeed, in conventional crude oil and coal too) so the amount recovered is directly proportional to the level of oil sands production. There has been an increase in heavy metals over the last four years because with higher production, there are more tailings.
Ensuring tailings ponds won’t fail or leak is therefore absolutely critical. It’s been standard practice in the oil sands mining industry to keep the tailings out of the ecosystem by containing tailings ponds within engineered earthen dykes. Suncor includes systems to capture and return any seepage which might escape into groundwater or waterways backed by comprehensive and rigorous monitoring of pond integrity and nearby river water quality.
But we know tailings ponds can be only a part of dealing with oil sands residues. As well as being hazardous for birds, and needing special wildlife protection systems, they are unsightly and wasteful of land. In the short term, the industry is making determined efforts to reduce the impact of tailing ponds. Suncor, for example, has developed the TROTM (Tailings Reduction Operations) process, which we expect will reduce both the size and the number of tailings ponds on our site.
Longer term, the only acceptable solution is to reclaim the surface as closely as possible to a condition similar to the surrounding landscape. There are tough, new provincial regulations to force the industry to speed up this process.
We believe Suncor is making significant strides in meeting the tailings challenge. And, we’re on track to complete the reclamation of our first tailings pond to a solid surface later this year, with contouring and replanting of native plant species.
In the years ahead, we are confident that anyone who flies over our production site will likely see less water than today, more reclaimed areas and progressive ongoing reclamation. Which means a great deal of substances identified in the NPRI will become part of the geological formation from which they came.
