Friday, June 05 - 2009 - 5:26 — tangent
If you have been following the news in Alberta it’s most likely that you have heard about the new regulations from the Energy Resource Conservation Board that requires Alberta oil-sands companies to reclaim their tailings ponds. Some of the tailings ponds go back as far as four decades. This is not a small job, and with time lines enforcing this clean-up, there is a solution that is available right here in Alberta!
Tangent Environmental Technologies has designed a portable waste water filtration system called the Cascade Waste Water System that recovers hydrocarbons (gives the oil back to the company and cleans the water to be reused), removes NORMS, detergents, salt, sand and many other toxic contaminants that are found in tailing ponds. So the question now is: If this waste water filtration system is being used world-wide, it’s made in Alberta, it has the ability to be moved around from one tailings pond to the next and it will allow the reclaiming of the tailing ponds to happen sooner than later (the structure is the size of a 20 ft trailer with no need to build a treatment centre, it does it on site), why aren’t oil-sands companies in Alberta using it?
Here is the CTV Calgary story that provides a more illustrative look at the negativeimpact that tailing ponds have had on our environment and where these regulations have stemmed from:
“A CTV News investigation has discovered that bird deaths in tailings ponds are higher than the public is led to believe. “The reports we have are the duck incident is not an isolated one. Ducks and other life are constantly being taken by these tailings ponds, even other animals are reported in the area, drinking from these lakes,” says Mike Hudema, a spokesperson for Greenpeace.
Last spring, about 500 ducks died after they landed on a tailings pond owned by Syncrude. The company said it was a one-time occurrence but documents obtained by CTV News, under access to information laws, show birds have been dying there for decades.
In an email exchange with colleagues after last spring’s incident, an Alberta Environment employee says, “Typically, at the Aurora site, between 2-23 birds are oiled each year (self-reported by the company) In the 1980’s and 1990’s between 50-70 birds a year were reported being oiled.”
The ongoing harm to wildlife has prompted Ecojustice to take Syncrude to court. The non-profit organization is using an obscure provision of the criminal code that allows private prosecution. “Three months from now, birds will be migrating back into the Fort McMurray area and nothing has changed…it’s time this government moved forward in a timely matter,” says Barry Robinson from Ecojustice.
On Tuesday, the government did release new guidelines for tailings ponds which the Energy Resource Conservation Board says will give them more power to enforce the rules.”