From: Canada
by Margaret Munro
by Margaret Munro
Photo: Grant Black/ Calgary Herald Files |
Leading federal and academic scientists have uncovered “compelling”
evidence that Alberta’s oilsands operations have been sending toxins
into the atmosphere for decades.
The team has found “striking” increases in contaminants known as
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) at the bottom of six lakes up to
90 kilometres from the massive oilsands operations in northeastern
Alberta.
“Industry’s role as a decades-long contributor of PAHs to oilsands
lake ecosystems is now clearly evident,” the team reports in a study
published Monday in the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences.
PAHs, which have been linked to cancer, “increased significantly” in
the lake sediments after oilsands development began, says the study by a
team from Environment Canada and Queen’s University. PAHs are a group
of over 100 different chemicals formed during the incomplete burning of
coal, oil and gas, garbage, or other organic substances and are one of
the top 10 hazardous substances on the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances
and Disease Registry.
Co-author Derek Muir,
who heads a priority contaminants team at Environment Canada, gave a
preview of the findings at a conference in November. Monday’s study
lays out the details.
It says PAHs began to climb in the lake sediments in the 1970s and
are now up to 23 times higher than 1960 levels. It says the increased
PAHs coincided with oilsands development and the compounds have a
distinct “petrogenic” fingerprint different from PAHs generated by
natural phenomenon like fire. MORE
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