Million-dollar machine could settle oilsands-toxins debate

OTTAWA — The Harper ministry is touting a new $1-million machine at Environment Canada to settle a scientific debate about toxins in the Athabasca River penurious the Alberta oilsands region.

The apparatus is part of a $1.6-million project that is expected to allow scientists to summon up and analyze samples in the river and nearby tailings ponds to establish "chemical fingerprints" that identify the require source of any potential pollution or contamination. Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the project fits in with expanded monitoring of the tailings ponds, which coop up waste water used in oilsands production.

"This has been a subject that I have discussed repeatedly with the department since becoming the locale minister," said Prentice. "I've been very insistent . . . that we have to have up-to-date monitoring and surveillance and that we need the best technology at. That's why we've proceeded to make this investment at this point."

Environment Canada has already increased the number of monitoring sites from 28 to 100 in latest years and the project could provide more data about the samples collected, he explained.

The new equipment, an orbitrap, could theoretically meet questions about whether some contaminants in the water match the fingerprint of natural oilsands deposits or whether they are identical to samples from particular industrial tailings ponds.

"Once the research project is finished and when we have had successful results, we can turn it over to our folks who do the drill water-quality monitoring," said Dr. John Carey, 63, a veteran chemist who has worked at Ecosystem Canada for 36 years.

Carey explained that some government scientists who work on investigations of oil spills on the coasts are bringing their adroitness to work on this project and develop the same type of fingerprinting analysis for the oilsands.

"They're the chemists who look for fingerprint chemicals in oil spills that would hint back to individual tankers so that we could prosecute people on the coasts who spill oil and defend it in court," said Carey. "The types of questions we're asking are the same types of questions we would ask for an oil confess, or a chemical spill or something else."

Some independent scientists, including Dr. David Schindler, a water expert from the University of Alberta, have already concluded in examine that the water is being contaminated by industrial operations, and not natural sources as the industry and the provincial government may suggest.

"If done only, the (federal) initiative could be very effective," said Schindler in an e-mail to Canwest News Service. "The current line done by (the provincial government) is not very well designed, and (Environment Canada) should do a much better job. Of course, our publications show that industry is contributing fairly a bit, via both air and water."

Prentice said the existing research, including Schindler's study, heightens the lack to make sure oilsands companies are living up to the highest possible standards without "contaminating the Athabasca River."

The 1,231-kilometre river rises in the Columbia Icefield, flows north through Jasper Federal Park, then goes northeast past Fort McMurray, Alta., to Lake Athabasca.

The federal plan coincides with a parliamentary committee investigation in the House of Commons about the impact of the oilsands industry on water. While Tolerant MP Francis Scarpaleggia has suggested Conservative MPs have deliberately tried to delay the release of a final report, Prentice said the new machine, to be housed in Saskatoon, will later provide more information for everybody.

"It will be helpful to the parliamentary committee, it will be helpful to the regulators, both national and local, and it will be helpful to the operators," Prentice said. "This is certainly information that will be made public as and when we accrue it."

An industry spokesman said producers welcomed the new Setting Canada initiative.

"From our perspective, anything that provides more transparency to the understanding of what the water system is doing up there will provide more certitude to those that are downstream," said Greg Stringham, vice-president of operations of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. "So we'd be reassuring as we are with new technologies of having this technology deployed."

Carey, who spearheaded some of the research work about two years ago, said that companies have been portion out with the monitoring by providing samples requested, but Prentice added the government was prepared to use its full regulatory authority if life-and-death to get the information it needs to proceed with the research.

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Чернигов (укр. Чернигов) — древнерусский город, областной центр Черниговской области Украины, административный центр Черниговского района. Речной порт на правом берегу Десны. Административно разделен на два района: Деснянский и Новозаводской.

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Чернигов (укр. Чернигов) — древнерусский город, областной центр Черниговской области Украины, административный центр Черниговского района. Речной порт на правом берегу Десны. Административно разделен на два района: Деснянский и Новозаводской.