Front Burner - Oilsands pollution 'vastly underestimated': study

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

According to a new study published in Science, operations in Alberta’s oilsands are pumping out as much as 64 times more air pollutants than officially reported. How could industry estimates be missing these huge amounts of chemicals? What could the health and environmental consequences be? How does this study add to other concerns that don't we truly understand the impact of the oil sands? Drew Anderson is the Prairies reporter for The Narwhal, whose team of investigative journalists report on the natural world. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. A new study's come out that says there's way more air pollution coming from oil sands operations than we previously thought. And I don't mean just like double or triple the amount, but between 20 and 64 times more. That would mean the air pollution from oil sands is on par with estimates for the entire rest of Canada, or say a megacity like Los Angeles.

Scientists from Yale University and Environment and Climate Change Canada published the study in the journal Science on Thursday. And while the chemicals they're talking about aren't greenhouse gases, they do have an impact on air quality, and they can have an impact on our health. So what exactly did the study find? What are some of the potential consequences? And how does this study add to broader concerns that we could be underestimating the impact of the oil sands? I'm joined by Drew Anderson. He's the Prairie's reporter for the Narwhal, and he's going to break the study down for us. Hey, Drew, thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me. So I want to understand how the study found these really quite eye-popping levels of pollution, but I first want to understand where we get our usual estimates from. So what exactly are the kind of particles we're talking about here and measuring and how do we usually measure them? So I think right off the bat, it's important to sort of, you know, distinguish between this and greenhouse gas emissions. So, you know, people will hear emissions from the oil sands or the oil and gas sector, and they'll immediately think about, you know, carbon dioxide, methane, you know, climate change emissions. And that is specifically not what this was looking at.

This was looking at air pollutants that are emitted from these facilities. So, you know, volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, things that at a certain temperature are turned into gas, released into the atmosphere, and then, you know, sort of mix and mingle in this atmospheric soup to become more harmful air pollution particles that can have an impact on human and environmental health. And currently, those sorts of things, at least on one level, are self-reported by industry. So they measure them right at the facility level. They measure them from the stacks that are emitting this pollution. They measure it from within the facility. They do this sort of air monitoring. And they report based on what the federal and provincial governments ask them to measure. What this

study did was take that further. And it looked at a longer list of all these chemicals in a more detailed fashion, things that aren't typically gathered by industry or government, and sort of broke it down for a bigger picture of sort of what kind of pollution is being released. Okay. And so with the study that was released last week, researchers from Yale and also from Environment and Climate Change Canada, they had a different approach. Can you take me through that? Yeah. So this is a much more sophisticated monitoring and measurement technique that they used. Even in the study, they say, you know, this is impractical as a regular everyday

sort of thing. I spoke to one of the co-authors. He's like, you know, this is impractical as a regular everyday sort of thing. I spoke to one of the co-authors. He's like, you're not going to put a million dollar plane up in the air every day and fly with this sophisticated equipment over the oil sands. So they really did. They had the system in place that measures, you know, a full range of these chemical compounds that are being emitted by the oil sands facilities. And they flew back and forth over top of them, sampling those sort of air qualities. They did some lab tests as well to sort of get a better sense of some of the other things that were contributing to it. And so you mentioned, so they literally flew an airplane with sort of sophisticated collection

tools or device. What sites did they fly over? They flew over 17 different facilities in the oil sands. So we're talking everything from, you know, the Sinkrud and Suncor mines. So those sort of open pit mines that you see just on the outskirts of Fort McMurray here in Alberta, you know, what people imagine when they think of the oil sands, but also over smaller installations. So not the open pit mines, but what we call in situ. So they're injecting steam into the ground to sort of liquefy the bitumen and then pump

it up in a well. And so they flew over 17 different facilities in the oil sands region over 30 different flights back in 2018. So tell me about that data. Where did they find? Well, they found a shocking level of underreporting about the air pollution that's coming off of these sites. You know, if you're looking at sort of the headline numbers, it's 1900 to 6300% higher than what we have previously

known. Put a little bit simpler, it's a 20 to 64 times greater than what industry is self-reporting and that what the governments are collecting as part of their official inventory of pollutants. You mentioned in situ operations. So this is where we're heating up water, kind of forcing the bitumen to loosen up with that heated water and then extracting it. up with that heated water and then extracting it. That's one of the methods that some of these oil and gas companies have touted as a cleaner form of extraction. But I guess, is this study, which has found a lot more pollutants than we thought were there, is this kind of calling into question some of these, quote unquote, cleaner practices? Well, yeah, in one aspect, for sure. If you look at an open pit mine and sort of going back to what we were talking about earlier, that's what people imagine when they think of the oil sands. They're enormous, almost impossible to describe the scale of these places. In situ, much smaller footprint. So in that respect, they are a little bit gentler. that respect, they are a little bit gentler. But what this study found is that when it comes to these air pollutants, there is almost no difference or it's a very small difference between them.

And that was a surprising finding because you would think that, you know, when everything is sort of contained underground and then injected up into a well, it would have less air impacts than these giant pit mines. but that's not the case. There's also one of the issues that we've covered before on the show is our tailing pond. So that's after a mining operation, the water that's used in these extraction processes laid out in these reservoirs, essentially, they measured pollution from that as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. They found that these subsistence are definitely off-gassing, off the tailings.

But perhaps more significantly, they found that one of the ways in which companies are trying to treat these tailings, which is de dewatering them, you know, getting them down to a state where they are dry. Think of it like a powder, not quite rocks, but, you know, they dry these things out and they store them on site or they dispose of them and even use them in construction projects like building roads and dikes. like building roads and dikes. So this is one technique that they've used to sort of like try and deal with, you know, over 1 trillion liters of tailings that have accumulated on the land. But this study showed that not only are the tailing ponds a problem, but when you dry them out, they're releasing significant amounts of this gas. So even that sort of solution which has been attempted is now shown to be a significant

contributor of air pollution. So in this study, we're talking about collecting and quantifying all these particles through these measurements. But I guess I'm curious how those measurements from this study align with the experience of folks living around these oil sands projects. So what have nearby communities said about how much air pollution they're experiencing? Well, you know, there's been a lot of complaints over the years. I mean, this is not a new issue. And some people certainly looking at the study say, you know, we've known that this is a problem. It's about time that we had some more of this data to sort of back up what we sort of understand. Certainly in the case of Fort Mackay, which is,

you know, almost an island in the middle of these oil sands mines. So we're talking about the open pit mines. It's surrounded and it's surrounded by the tailings. And residents there have long complained about odor, feeling heavy in their chest, about their noses burning, about, you know, having to close the windows in the summertime because you can't really breathe properly. And so there's been a lot of this anecdotal evidence. There's even been some evidence about the air pollution on a higher level, the stuff that is monitored. But I think that this is going to be a sort of moment for these communities to sort of feel vindicated. The Alberta Energy Regular back in 2015 took a look at some of the complaints

of that community in particular, and there was elevated levels of these pollutants. You know, these things were exceeding sort of healthy limits. And, you know, when we're talking about the people that are impacted by it, we're talking about Indigenous communities a lot of the time.

North of the oil sands up in Fort Chippewan, the Mikasukri and the Athabasca Chippewan First Nations have been trying to get a longitudinal health study. They first asked for it in 2009. Again, in 2017, they still don't have it. And, you know, documents that we've received through freedom of information requests show that the federal government is still assessing the level of interest in conducting that study and citing jurisdictional problems with getting it going. So that's going on nine years now. What do we know about the correlation between these particles, this form of pollution and health? That's a difficult question. And it's certainly difficult to track these sorts of things to

sources. But we do know that these substances can be carcinogenic. They can cause birth defects. They can cause neurological impacts. And for people that are living in it, this can cause asthma, breathing problems, you know, and short term impacts like dizziness, nausea. I mean, these are not things that you want to be regularly exposed to. And so I think getting a real handle on the level of pollution that's coming out, how those are interacting in the atmosphere and what that means on that particular level, and the impacts on human health, I think this study is sort of going to point people in a new direction in terms of understanding exactly what's going

on here and those impacts. I should mention too, before we go on, the Pathways Alliance, which represents the biggest oil sands producers, made a statement on the study. Their spokesperson said that the oil and gas industry measures emissions based on standards set by Environment and Climate Change Canada and that, quote, we look forward to working together to explore opportunities to further enhance our measurement In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here.

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In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So we've been obviously focusing on the oil sands, but it seems like there might be a decent chance that they're not the only offender here. So I understand you spoke with one of the authors of the study about air pollution more generally. So if he were to take this airplane capture method to other places, other industrial sites

and even cities, what did he tell you about what he'd suspect he'd find? Well, it's kind of interesting. I mean, he is, John Legio is very much a scientist, right? So he knows what he knows, and he won't comment on what he doesn't. They have not taken an airplane over, say, LA. One thing he does say is that the oil sands in particular, just through the nature of the product and the way that they get at it, this is going to be a lot more significant likely in the oil sands, right? We're talking about these volatile organic compounds and semi-volatile organic compounds. It's not going to be the same in other sectors and processes. But what we do know is that we're not sure what those emissions in other places, other sectors, other industries will look like because we do not measure this way. So you could extrapolate from that and say, okay, we don't really have a good handle on these sort

of air pollutant emissions. More broadly, will it be as bad as what this study has shown? Likely not, but it could still be an eye-opening thing. But that's something that hasn't been done and something that would have to do if we wanted to gain that sort of knowledge. Okay. So we've been talking about these polluting particles that largely escape our reporting. I guess I'm wondering if there's broader concern about underreporting greenhouse gases too. We've been talking about particulate matter that's essentially air pollution, but when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, is there this concern that we're underreporting those as well? Yeah, absolutely. And there have been studies and the same set of researchers that did this study

have looked at the greenhouse gas emissions in earlier studies and found significant underreporting there. Again, flying over the oil sands in a plane, they found that CO2 emission intensities from oil sands facilities are 13 to 123% larger than those estimated using publicly available data. So again, you know, they are doing this more detailed testing and they're finding that our emissions reporting, not only in gases like we've been talking about today, but in greenhouse gases, are significantly higher. Other researchers, a study out of Carleton University, found methane was almost 50% higher than what was reported by industry. So all of this taken together really points to a significant discrepancy between what we think we know and what might actually be happening in the oil sands. I mean, you've been talking about the scientific evidence,

but this is your beat too. You and your colleagues at the Narwhal reporting this. So have you guys found evidence that carbon emissions are being underreported to? Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I've got a colleague, Carl Meyer, who is our national greenhouse and climate change reporter, does some great investigative work. And he's, you know, he's looked at a whole bunch of this stuff. I mean, there's multiple studies that look at underestimation of methane, for example. And he was looking at, you know, heavy oil sites on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan and how they almost don't record these things from off gassing of heavy oil storage tanks. I mean,

there's massive amounts of methane going in there. Even just walking around the World Petroleum Congress that was here in Calgary last year, talking to people that sniff out methane. And they do this for oil companies. They drive around, they look for sort of unknown leaks. They find it everywhere. So this is not an isolated problem. This is not isolated to this research. This is something that is happening on a regular basis. You know, let's turn to the issue of regulating emissions because, you know, the federal liberals have announced a coming cap on oil and gas emissions, but those regulations are based on an estimate of what we're emitting, right? You know, if we're drastically underestimating what we're releasing to our atmosphere, are

you concerned about how effective these kind of regulations are? Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think we're getting into, you know, once we start getting into those sort of policy discussions, we're into political science rather than science science. And I don't think, you know, the federal government is going to take a look at this study and completely revamp its cap on emissions based on this. And they're going to face tremendous pressure. They already do. You know, we've seen TC Energy is already putting pressure on the government to try and not have methane emissions from LNG

facilities included in that cap. Lobbying efforts from this industry are relentless and effective. We've seen rollbacks in regulations through the pandemic. We've seen pressure constantly to sort of chip away at what we are actually including in these sorts of things. And that doesn't necessarily follow the science that follows, you know, carefully calibrated politics that mingles with that science. So, you know, if you want to get poetic about it, the same way we don't understand how these gases mix and mingle in the atmosphere, we don't really understand how these sort of policy discussions mix and mingle

and what the policy is going to look like on the other side. But I would be surprised if the government took studies like this and then really dropped the hammer on an oil and gas industry, because that would have significant impacts too. Let's not get too lost here and forget that this is a significant employer in Alberta. I go to a family dinner and there's people sitting around my dinner table that would, you know, lose their jobs if the industry shut down overnight. It's significant. We need to approach these things carefully and thoughtfully. The hopeful side of me says that that will happen through these kind of discussions. And the cynical side of me says, we're not going to look at the science and we're going to make those decisions based on political expediency.

Okay, but getting back to the science, I guess kind of the last question I have for you is you've covered this a lot. When you see a study like this, what kind of questions does it raise for you generally about how much we actually know about the effects of oil production? You know, I come across this all the time in my work, and it's not just about emissions. It's not just about air pollution. I mean, it's even just basic things like how much will it cost to clean up oil and gas infrastructure in this province. And you run into these walls where we just don't know. A lot of what we do know is self-reported by industry. A lot of what we should know is not released through the Alberta Energy Regulator, which oversees these things in the province. You know, we have estimates from the regulator through leaked

documents that show the oil sands alone will cost $130 billion to clean up. And we have about, you know, a billion on hand to do it. We have estimates for well cleanup. We just saw a recent one from the Alberta Energy Regulator at $33.3 billion, which some people say is at least half of what it will actually cost, you know, about $60 billion, but possibly up to $88 billion, according to, again, internal documents looking through freedom of information. And so we don't know what's really happening. And we don't know what that's going to look like in the future. And we don't know how we're going to clean up things like the oil sands and their tailings ponds.

So I think this is just another indication of an information vacuum on a very serious issue that we need to get on top of. Drew, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate the time. Thank you. All right, that's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow.