Digging Deeper: The Hidden Environmental Cost of Alberta's Oil Sands

By Neiland. O and Kennedy. S

The economic potential of Athabasca’s oil sands in northern Alberta, Canada, is a driving factor of widespread environmental harm to the boreal forests of northern Alberta. Indigenous communities - notably the Métis population - are indirectly and unjustly affected by environmental harm.

Alberta’s expansive boreal forests are a significant ecological resource, providing important ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and climate regulation; it is estimated that 208 billion metric tons of carbon is stored in the soil and peat layers of Canada’s boreal forests (The Nature Conservancy, 2021). These boreal forests are additionally an important resource for habitats, and thus for providing supporting ecosystem services such as biological diversity maintenance; cultural services of the forests are also prevalent, and the forests provide important ancestral and spiritual meaning to Indigenous tribes - this is a particularly significant factor in Alberta, which has the third biggest proportion of indigenous population for Canadian provinces (Government of Alberta, 2021).

However, despite the largely important ecosystem services and ancestral value of northern Alberta forests, the economic potential of Athabasca’s oil sands (nationally, ~$1 trillion (Yu, 2024)) heavily outweighs them through the myopic eyes of the government. The oil sands of northern Alberta have been intensively developed for their economic benefit; Alberta’s oil sands industry produced 1,184,000 barrels per day (Giesy, Anderson and Wiseman, 2010 pg951). As a result, widespread environmental damage is prevalent and directly attached to the practices of oil sand mining. Oil sands extraction, processing, and transportation release heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) into the surrounding environment such as the atmosphere and groundwater, harming ecosystems (Timoney and Lee 2009; Schindler 2014); groundwater, especially, has significant issues surrounding the removal of toxicants, so has worse long-term implications for environmental damage. Moreover, aquatic populations have been severely affected due to the leaching and leaking of tailing ponds, which contain highly toxic leftovers from the oil sands processes (Finkel, 2018), into local water bodies (Timoney and Lee 2009; Schindler 2014). Aside from harming the biodiversity of Alberta’s forests, the role of the forests in climate regulation is also disrupted; deforestation, required to clear space for oil sands mining infrastructure, reduces the forests’ carbon storage whilst increasing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, which would have otherwise remained sequestered.

References
Giesy, J.P., Anderson, J.C. and Wiseman, S.B. (2010) pg951 paragraph 3. Alberta oil sands development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [online] 107(3), pp.951–952. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0912880107

The Nature Conservancy. (2021). Canada’s Boreal Forest. [online] Available at: https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/boreal-forest/#:~:text=Our%20Role-,The%20boreal%20forest%20is%20the%20Earth's%20largest%20terrestrial%20carbon%20sink,of%20the%20most%20intact%20areas. [Accessed 30 Oct. 2024].

Giesy, J.P., Anderson, J.C. and Wiseman, S.B. (2010) pg951 paragraph 4. Alberta oil sands development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [online] 107(3), pp.951–952. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0912880107

Government of Alberta, 2021, 2021 Census of Canada - Indigenous People [online] Available from: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/487a7294-06ac-481e-80b7-5566692a6b11/resource/257af6d4-902c-4761-8fee-3971a4480678/download/tbf-2021-census-of-canada-indigenous-people.pdf

Finkel, M.L. (2018) What does the evidence show?. The impact of oil sands on the environment and health. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, [online] 3, pp.52–55. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2018.05.002.

Timoney, K.P. and Lee, P. 2009. Does the Alberta Tar Sands Industry Pollute? The Scientific Evidence. The Open Conservation Biology Journal. 3(1), pp.65–81.

Yu, C. n.d. Alberta Oil Sand Pollution Impacts on Local Indigenous Communities and Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples [Online]. [Accessed 29 October 2024]. Available from: https://lfs-mlws-2020.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2024/09/yucorrine_125061_34320602_report-3.pdf