meet The Alberta government maintains the Athabasca River’s water is safe to drink, and the Aspen Regional Water Services Commission has begun drawing water from the river again, but a local watershed group is still concerned.
“This is a big nightmare for a lot of us,” said Harvey Scott, director of the Keepers of the Athabasca Watershed Society, of both the spill and the speed at which government has provided information to the public.
A holding pond at the Obed Mountain coal mine near Hinton gave way on Oct. 31, releasing a 150-kilometre long plume of what Alberta Environment initially characterized as sediment-laden water.
However, data released last week showed many contaminants laced the nearly 700 million litres of coal slurry. The contaminants range from mercury, lead and arsenic to cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
“I am confident that at no time was there a risk to the public’s drinking water,” said Dr. James Talbot, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, in a press release last week. “While there was a temporary increase in some contaminants, those levels are returning to normal.”
The latest, 700 million-litre figure used by Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resources, while still enough slurry to fill 280 Olympic-size swimming pools, is lower than the billion litres initially estimated.
The Alberta Energy Regulator, which is investigating the cause of the spill, will not yet confirm any volume estimates.
Both raw data and a preliminary report analyzing the water quality test results were released by Alberta Environment last Tuesday.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Scott of data being released — something the Keepers of Athabasca have been calling on the government to do.
Still, he said, “It took them three weeks to get them out. I think that’s unforgiveable.
“I guess the big issue is the denial,” he said. “Why is it that not only industry, but the government … for the last three weeks, until Tuesday afternoon, they would not admit there was anything in the tailings pond other than coal finds and clay?”
Scott pointed out that the data released only includes water test results up until Nov. 5.
This means results of contaminant tests when the plume was passing Athabasca are not included in the report.
“The sampling that we’ve done to date has been quite comprehensive, and it’s going to continue until we have a clearer understanding and a greater amount of data to work with,” said Jessica Potter, a spokesperson for Alberta Environment.
Scott said there should have been more sampling spots.
“They don’t sample very much downstream very close to the spill. That’s the problem. If they had had more sampling sites, we would have seen a much clearer picture of what’s happening,” he said.
Alberta Environment acknowledged in its report that levels of some contaminants exceeded water quality guidelines as far as 40 kilometres downstream from the Obed Mountain Mine. The report noted as the plume moves further downstream, contaminant levels are dropping.
That, however, doesn’t mean the contaminants are disappearing.
“This decreasing trend likely results from sediments being deposited along the riverbed as the plume travels downstream,” said the report.
That spells trouble come the spring, said Scott.
“The real ugly stuff — the real concentration of mercuries and arsenics and leads and selenium and aluminum and so on … will be stored in the sediment,” he said. “We get a big spring surge, what’ll happen is those heavy deposits will move down the river. They’ll continue to move down the river over time.”
The upside of contaminants being affixed to sediment, according to the report, is that, “the removal of sediment in normal water treatment practices will very likely remove the majority of contaminants related to this spill and minimize risks to human health.”
Scott took issue with the government’s interpretation of the data.
“It continues the same party line in government. They got Dr. Talbot to revise his statement. Last week, he was raising the alarm about mercury. Now, he’s saying, well, there’s really no problem to human health as long as the municipal water intakes don’t take any water from the plume.”
The government is still advising communities along the river not to draw water while the plume is near. The Aspen Regional Water Services Commission, which serves the Town of Athabasca, Village of Boyle and parts of Athabasca County, shut off its river intake Nov. 10; the plume arrived at the Town of Athabasca between Nov. 10 and 11.
The commission re-opened intake to the river at approximately 12:30 p.m. last Wednesday, after being advised by the province on Nov. 19 that it was safe to do so.
Alberta Environment has indicated the Town of Athabasca will be a site for ongoing monitoring of the river. Potter could not say when test results pertinent to the town would be published, though she noted how time-consuming the test process is.
“We would like to release more data as it becomes available,” she said.
The plume was expected to reach Fort McKay yesterday.
EPO issued
In addition to releasing its own preliminary water test results last Tuesday, Alberta Environment issued an environmental protection order to Sherritt International Corporation (the owner of the Obed Mountain Mine) and Coal Valley Resources Inc. (the company in charge of reclaiming the decommissioned mine). The order includes directives to develop a comprehensive sampling and monitoring plan and to ensure no more wastewater solids enter the Athabasca River from two creeks near the mine.
“We appreciate there’s a protection order now in place,” said Scott. “We’re not sure how strong it is.”
He said the time of year will make effective cleanup difficult, as the water is freezing over.
Potter said the order is comprehensive in ensuring the companies deal with the contaminated sediment.
The order states the companies must recover the mine wastewater solids in Plante Creek where it meets the Athabasca River and ensure no more sediments enter the river. It also states deposited solids must be recovered from all affected areas
There is no indication in the order that the companies must make the results of their monitoring public.
“What we’ve released up to date has been our (test results) taken from the river, in conjunction with analyses done by Alberta Health Services,” said Potter. “As far as the company’s data, it’s not something I can clearly say what it is that we would do with it at this point in time in terms of releasing it publicly or not.”
“Until this day, we have not had any results from Sherritt,” said Scott. “We have not seen any data. They keep issuing these general statements and platitudes.”
Scott is particularly concerned about the effects the spill will have not only on the animals that immediately spring to mind — fish that live in the river and mammals that drink from it — but also on small, bottom-dwelling invertebrates.
“This stuff is in the sediment, and so all the little mussels and all the little creatures that are in the bottom of the food chain that provide food for fish and everything else, they will be in this stuff and absorbing it. They’ll gradually be taken on by higher and higher predators in the food chain.
“All that stuff eventually gets to us.”
