Suncor ordered to test Athabasca
Oilsands giant discharged too much grease and oil into river Tuesday
By CAROL CHRISTIAN
McMurray Today staff
Suncor Energy is testing the quality of the Athabasca River after it discharged more grease and oil than allowed into the river Tuesday.
Describing the incident as a “very rare” occurrence, Shawn Davis, Suncor spokeswoman said “obviously we recognize that water quality is something of the utmost importance to the community, and we’re doing whatever we can to make sure that there are no negative impacts on the water quality from this incident.”
Regulated daily testing on Tuesday morning revealed the elevated levels of oil and grease surpassing Suncor’s discharge approval limit of five parts per million — similar to five drops in 50 litres.
The excessive amounts came from Pond E, the final pond in a series of five cooling water retention ponds. It’s in these ponds where rain run-off and water used for cooling and heating in the extraction and upgrading operations are treated before regulated release into the Athabasca River, explained Davis this morning.
When the exceedance was discovered, work immediately began to stop the flow into the river, said Davis, and Suncor increased the water quality sampling frequency of the affected pond.
A public notice dated Feb. 3 about the incident was distributed Tuesday and Wednesday.
If Suncor is found to be at fault for the discharge, the company would be charged under the Environmental Protection Act. Whether it would receive an operational or financial pentalty depends on the outcome of the investigation.
“We were notified appropriately by Suncor of the exceedance,” said Kim Capstick, Alberta Environment spokeswoman this morning. She emphasized it was cooling water, not tailings, therefore didn’t contain any waste sludge from mining operations.
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However, Alberta Environment has set standards because the water does contain grease and oil.
The government agency requires companies like Suncor to sample the water daily at the final pond before discharge into the Athabasca River.
“And we have a series of standards of how clean that water needs to be,” said Capstick. “When they did the sample on Tuesday, it was high in grease and oil.
“It is a daily sample, so we don’t know when in the 24-hour period that the quality changed so we don’t know how much would have been released into the water with this higher level. That’s why we have the company testing the river to ensure there wasn’t an impact.”
Davis confirmed a consultant has been retained to collect samples from the river downstream of the Pond E discharge
The investigation will also look at why there were problems shutting off the one isolation valve. Full isolation of the pond was not initially possible as one of five isolation valve couldn’t be fully closed. However, it was closed later that same day.
“We’re investigating what the cause was (of the exceedance), what the challenge was with the valve being closed,”` added Davis.
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