New Technology Magazine

Joint Canada/Alberta Implementation Plan For Oil Sands Monitoring Begins Summer Air Monitoring Project

FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. -- A comprehensive environmental field study to gather information on air contaminants in the Wood Buffalo region of northeast Alberta will occur from Aug. 12 to mid-September. The collaborative study between government, non-government, university and community partners will collect both airborne and ground-based measurements to determine how air pollutants are transformed and transported across the landscape.

The intensive study is part of the Joint Canada/Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM), announced in February 2012. The three-year plan is designed to strengthen environmental monitoring programs for air, water, land and biodiversity in the oilsands region by better understanding the state of the environment, cumulative effects and environmental change.

The six-week field study will involve a large suite of ground-based measurements taken at two locations, including the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association's (WBEA) Air Monitoring Station 13 - established in 2000, and located five kilometres south of Fort McKay. The other monitoring site which is provided by the Fort McKay First Nations is set up for the next three years to support this year's study as well as to also collect long-term measurements in the Fort McKay community.

Both monitoring sites included in the study are in close proximity to surface mining areas and allow for air pollutant mixtures from industry to the north and south to be studied separately. The ground portion of the study is designed to track air pollution levels as close as possible to mining, upgrading, and other industrial and transportation processes. This will help determine the concentration and type of chemical compounds deposited on the ground over a wide area.

In collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), the study also includes measurements which will be conducted in the atmosphere using the NRC Convair-580 aircraft. The aircraft, equipped with air quality measurement instruments, will be used for flights over and downwind of the oilsands source region.

Additionally, the aircraft will be flying at low-altitude to collect air quality data for evaluation and validation of emissions inventories and to test satellite monitoring of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Data collected through both the airborne and ground-based studies will be used to evaluate high resolution air quality models for use in the oilsands region. Once the quality control process on the collected data has been completed, it will be made available through the Canada-Alberta Oil Sands data portal.

JOSM partners in the Air Monitoring Summer Project: Environment Canada (EC), Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD), Fort McKay First Nations (FMFN), Wood Buffalo Environmental Association (WBEA) and National Research Council of Canada (NRC).

Academic institutions: Dalhousie University, Carleton University, York University, University of Toronto, University of Calgary, University of Alberta.

Airborne study objectives:

-- Obtain data to evaluate and validate the emission inventories of the primary Criteria Air Contaminants and other reported air pollutants in the oilsands region 

-- Validate satellite retrieval data products for nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide 

-- Evaluate high-resolution air quality models for use in the oilsands region

Ground-based study objectives:

-- Improve on ability to track air pollution levels as close as possible to the mining, upgrading, and other industrial and transportation processes

-- Determine concentrations and type of chemical compounds deposited on the ground over a wide area 

-- Evaluate high-resolution air quality models for use in the oilsands regions

Joint Canada/Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring:

-- Commitment by both, the governments of Canada and Alberta, to a comprehensive, integrated and transparent environmental monitoring program for the oilsands region that gives assurance that the critical global resource is being developed in an environmentally responsible way. 

-- Objectives under the joint plan, include:

 -- Ensuring transparency through accessible, comparable, and quality-assured data; 

 -- Enhancing science-based monitoring for improved characterization of the state of the environment and collect information necessary to understand cumulative effects; and 

-- Improving analysis of existing monitoring data to better understand historical trends.

For more information on the Joint Canada/Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring, visit http://www.jointoilsandsmonitoring.ca/.

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