Water Depletion
Oil sands plants typically use two to four barrels of water to extract a barrel of oil from the tar sands, but some extraction methods can use as much as 7 barrels of water. The amount of water needed for the tar sands is seriously lowering the water levels of the Athabasca River, the Mackenzie Valley watershed and other related water sources in the region.
The amount of water which can be recycled back into the watershed is still very low, and contaminated water must be stored in tailings ponds, vast holding tanks the size of lakes, some as large as 15 square kilometres, containing hydrocarbons and other chemical by products from tar sands production. Additionally, toxic water spewing from tar sands production has infected fish and wildlife, causing sickness among Aboriginal peoples downstream.
The amount of water available in Northern Alberta isn't sufficient to accommodate both the needs of burgeoning oil sands development and preserve the Athabasca River, shows a study done in part by Dr. David Schindler, a University of Alberta biologist considered Canada's top water expert. The study suggests that the choke point for the province's oil sands expansion may not be the huge carbon dioxide emissions arising from mining and processing the sticky, bitumen containing tar sands, as is widely assumed, but a lack of water.
