For years, Indigenous communities living near Canada’s oil sands have worried about the health impacts of the cloud of air pollution rising from the vast industrial mining complex. A recent study shows the problem is far worse than previously thought, with air pollution levels from oil sands operations up to 64 times higher than that reported by industry. Canada’s oil sands are the fourth-largest oil deposit on Earth and among the most energy-intensive to access and process. Buried beneath the boreal forest of northern Alberta, bitumen is a thick, heavy tar-like form of petroleum that coats subsurface sand. It is extracted using both open-pit and in-situ mining, which involves pumping steam underground. Current production is 3.3 million barrels per day. Typically, companies operating in the oil sands calculate air pollution levels using a “bottom-up” approach as required by law — estimating emissions generated at each step of the petrochemical extraction process, including, for example, contaminants rising from smokestacks, heavy machinery and other sources, then adding those figures together to come up with the total emissions. But the 2024 study finds that those methods, while they may be legal, are woefully inaccurate. Using specialized aircraft-based sensors, researchers from Environment and Climate Change Canada (the federal department responsible for coordinating environmental policies and programs), and Yale University took real time measurements and determined that oil sand operations are emitting between 20 and 64 times more air pollution than previously reported. Oil refineries along the Athabasca River in Alberta’s oil sands. Air pollution…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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