Dear Editor:
In 2010, tar sands tailing ponds covered an area of more than 175 square kilometers (67 square miles). At the current rate of expansion, it has been estimated that this will grow to 250 square kilometres (96.5 square miles) by 2020.
The tar sands industry website Oilsands Today describes the content of tailings ponds as follows:
The bottom layer, a mixture of clay and water called fine tailings, takes a long time to settle and solidify. Even after many years it will still have the consistency of yogurt, and it can take up to 30 years to separate and dry out.
The remaining water, because it has come into contact with oil during the extraction process, contains concentrations of natural chemicals that are toxic to fish.
The small amount of residual oil that floats to the surface of the pond poses a risk to waterfowl.
Near Fort McMurray is a 220-hectare rise in the landscape that has been renamed Wapisiw Lookout.
For 30 years it was a Suncor tailings depository known as Pond 1. It has been drained of polluted water, filled with 65,000 truckloads of soil, and planted with 600,000 trees and shrubs. At the end of 20 years it will be eligible to be certified as a successful reclamation.
It is somewhat misleading to call tailing sites ponds; they are in fact larger than many lakes.
And, as much as tar sands industry and their government supporters would prefer the public to think otherwise (or even not think of it at all), they are lakes of toxic pollution and therefore present a risk to life, land and water.
Some would argue the risk is minimal, but as all of us now know, dams and dikes are not impervious to the passage of time or indifferent to human error. They can fail.
By the end of this decade there should be the equivalent of 110 tailings lakes the size of Wapisiw Lookout scattered across the tar sands area. If one represents a minimal risk, what do 110 add up to?
Bill Brassington, Burnaby
