Lower Athabasca River System

The Alberta tar sands has always been a hot political issue in Canada, and over the years citizens have not seen any change, except a progression in the development of the also-known Athabasca tar (oil) sands. Before taking a leap and stating my personal side on this issue, I will give an overview on the tar sands. Tar sands are made of clay, sand and crude oil known as bitumen. What the oil corporations are interested in is the oil coming from the tar sands that boosts the economy of the business, the community, and the country. The process of extracting oil from tar requires an abundance of heat and water. “For each barrel of tar-sands oil produced, between 2 and 4.5 barrels of water is required” (Thomas-Müller, Clayton, Canadian Dimension.

The oil production in Canada has several significant issues that depict the destruction nature of the industry. These issues can be categorized as environmental, political, economic, and social. The environmental issues lead the pack; in that the environmental destruction associated with the industry is extensive. The environmental problems are climatic, land, water and air related (Best & Hoberg, 2015). Under climatic effect, studies indicate that the development of the tar sides has resulted to three times more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than in production of conventional oil. These environmental issues are caused by the composition of the tar sands. Unlike the convention oil, tar sands are a mixture of bitumen and sand. The process of separating the two results triples GHGs emissions when compared to conventional oil production (Koring, 2013).

The Alberta Oil Sands have affected many stakeholder groups such as government, residents, researchers and employees. However, we will focus on how it affects the Alberta Government; specifically, Ed Stlemech of the Conservative Government. As my stake holder, Ed Stlemech does not live within the Alberta Oil Sands area as well as have any direct relevance to it, I will instead examine how it has affects the citizens of Alberta and more importantly, those who live in and near the Fort Chipewyan area. In this way, the environmental, the economical as well as the societal impacts will impact Albertan voters and therefore impact the Conservative Government in way of the Alberta General Election.

The Athabasca River originates from the Columbia Ice-field and flows in a north-easterly direction about 1500 km to the Athabasca Delta and Lake Athabasca. Throughout its course, the river flows through (or adjacent to) many communities, including Jasper, Hinton, Athabasca, Fort McMurray, and Fort MacKay (with a combined population of more than 155,000 people). Due to its rich natural resources, Athabasca river basin is host of many mining and forestry industries and agricultural activities along the river (MRBB 2004). Particularly, there is an ongoing oil sands development in the region adjacent to the lower reach of the Athabasca River, north of Fort McMurray. All of these activities, in conjunction with the natural watershed geology, effluents from wastewater treatment plants (point sources) and runoff from both natural and altered landscapes (non-point source), have the potential to affect water quality in the lower Athabasca River (Hebben 2009).

The objectives of this research of modeling the fate and transport of pollutants in surface waters are:

World needs energy and Alberta need the oil sands to strengthen the economy. When considering Canada, especially Alberta has been in the oil market, bringing heaps of economic benefits to the country. Besides, energy has turned out to be one of the essential and basic needs, mandatory for the economic progress of a nation. Depending on consumption of the main energy sources, oil is used in a percentage of around 38%, gas is around 21% and also, coal is around 28%. As the developing countries and developed world continue to grow rapidly, many obstacles arise from our dependence on these burnable energies. The availability and consumption of energy resources need to be related to the costs of the global economy and as well as to the ecological impacts. Mainly, the environmental risks associated with energy consumption are related to oil abstraction and their discharge related problems. In addition, these natural resources like coal, oil and gases generate difficulties in both ways, while extracting as well in their use. Besides, the other main problem is the supply of these fuels from other countries and they highly rely on transportation methods or pipe lines which could cause massive destruction to our nature. And at the same time, many arguments take place in regard to the damage cause by these oil sands. Yet, there are no primary energy origins which are free of economic or

II. The problem exists in northern Alberta, where large deposits of oil exist. The oil is costly to extract, but high prices have made this process viable in recent years. The environmental problems are created during the extraction process. The oil is removed from the sands by mixing it with hot water, skimming off the bitumen, and then centrifuging the bitumen (Oil Sands Centre, 2009). This process is energy-intensive, and byproducts end up in the atmosphere or in tailing ponds that threaten the local watershed. Sulfur dioxide in particular is a major pollutant that results from the process and causes acid rain. Nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds are also created in the

The Alberta tar sands, is currently the largest construction project taking place in the world, and as such is a very important development. The Alberta tar sands are a necessary evil, because the world is running out of conventional oil, and they are the last remnants of oil. All of the easy oil has been discovered, and exploited, and the tar sands is the crude oil that we are left with. As we all know oil is what makes the world go round, and without it we would be unable to produce enough food, or perform many other important processes. Therefore, the Alberta tar sands are very essential for keeping the world supplied with oil. However, there are many negative effects from the development, and refining of the oil from the tar sands, which has caused much environmental damage.

Canada’s oil reserves consist of oil contained in the oil sands deposits of Alberta and in other non-oil sands deposits. Most of Canada’s oil reserves – both oil sands and non-oil sands – are found in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, which underlies parts of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories (2)

1. According to this web article called "Canada's Top 10 Most Populated Cities”, here is a list of the top five populated cities in Canada.

In the Fraser River and Lena River I expect to see shallow subsurface and overland flow dominating the catchment runoff because of seasonal variations the river experiences (Hewlett, 1965). Hewlett, 1965 states that overland flow and shallow subsurface flow have similar explanations when referring to how the water transfers to the river (Hewlett, 1965). The peaks in discharge are the result of snow melting and rain being transported (Hewlett, 1965). In the Coquitlam River I expect to see all three flows dominating catchment runoff. Throughout the year the variations in the discharge suggest that the river receives water during the cold winter months (Figure 3) and because of Canadian climate I would assume it was via groundwater flow as the

In Phase 1 dredging of the Hudson River, the idea was to take the amount of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB’s) from the sediment in the river bottom, but do to the method that was being used, clamshell dredge buckets, the material transported downstream, which lead to Phase 2. For Phase 2 the EPA recommended the use of coffer damming, vacuum dredging

Abstract: The objective of this report was to analyze all of the components of the crude oil Albian Heavy Synthetic from the Athabasca Sands near Alberta Canada [2]. Recent articles about “exploding oil trains” [5] have prompted the reevaluation of transportation of crudes. In order to develop a safe way of transportation, assessment of Albian Synthetic Heavy’s chemical and physical properties must be completed. Physical and chemical properties are given were investigated through research of databases and mini-assays. The crude oil is a dark brown, viscous, highly

In North America, tar sands are available in Alberta, Canada which is their vast oil deposits and they are considered top crude oil supplier in the United States, Saudi Arabia is the second largest supplier. When the oil is squeezed out of the tar sand, becomes a very wasteful process with 2 to 4 tons of tar sand and 2 to 4 barrels of water to produce just a single barrel of oil. It is examined that in mining tar sands larger amount of carbon dioxide is released in the air to convert it into gasoline than typical oil production which is the greatest disadvantages of this oil producing system. Furthermore, the tar sand mining process takes place in the boreal forest which is considered as relatively untouched ecosystem well-known for its one of its own biodiversity. Tar oils represent around three trillion barrels of oil around the world but majority of sand bitumen is too deep under the ground that its recovery with today’s mining technology is very difficult (Cristen Conger, 2011, page 1).

Human activities like dam construction, dredging, and agricultures cause large amount of sediment transports in rivers, lakes, and estuaries. Erosion and sedimentation is a global issue that tends to be primarily associated with water quality. Pollution by sediment has two major types. For a physical dimension, erosion leads to excessive levels of turbidity in waters and the turbidity limits penetration of sunlight thereby prohibiting growth of algae and rooted aquatic plants. High levels of sedimentation lead to physical disruption of the hydraulic characteristics of the channel which have serious impacts on reduction in channel depth, and it can cause increased flooding. For a chemical dimension, the silt and clay fraction (<62mm) is a primary carrier of adsorbed chemicals originated from agricultures like phosphorus, chlorinated pesticides and most metals transported into the aquatic system. The use of numerical hydrologic, hydraulic, and sediment transport models has greatly expanded to predict and interpret behavior of erosion and sediment runoff for controlling sediment pollutant and keeping water resources safe. Unfortunately, predictions from such models always contain uncertainty, and the overall uncertainty is poorly quantified and deterministic predictions have been used in most applications. Because those predictions are often used in situations that involve the potential for economic losses, ecological impacts, and risks to human