Toxic Wastewater From Tar Sands Operations Leaking From "Containment" Ponds Into Athabasca River

[hatrack]

Polluted water from large man-made lakes of oilsands mining waste is fouling the Athabasca River, says a new federal study.

The new report by the Joint Oil Sands Monitoring Program shows that waste from dams covering 176 square-kilometres of land (an area 1.5 times bigger than Vancouver) is leaking into groundwater.

The study, which found a better way to track and separate oilsands pollution from natural bitumen sources in the region, describes one dam seeping mining wastewater at a rate of 75 litres a second or 6.5 million litres of waste a day into groundwater feeding the Athabasca River.

It also describes a plume of tailings contaminants in groundwater that extends out at least 500 metres from another tailings pond. The dams contain a variety of chemical hazards including bitumen, naphthenic acids, cyanide, phenols and metals such as arsenic and cadmium.

EDIT

http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2014/02/21/Tailings-Waste-Athabasca/