Monitoring environmental effects in oil sands, results report 2013 to 2014
2. Environmental effects monitoring
Monitoring designed to track environmental effects, including cumulative effects of oil sands development, is intended to provide answers to specific ecologically relevant scientific questions. In answering these questions, information becomes integrated, and a picture of the environmental effects of oil sands development begins to emerge. The three-year Implementation Plan is just a beginning, and assembling, evaluating and reporting trends may take some time, particularly where trends and impacts may be subtle.
The primary substances of concern for the Implementation Plan in the oil sands region include acidifying compounds (NOX, SOX); and substances related to the extraction and combustion of bitumen including monocyclic aromatics (BTEX: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes), polycyclic aromatic compounds, naphthenic acids, metals and particulate matter. The quantity of these substances can be estimated from industry emissions reports of their operations (as required under regulations), direct measurements in air, water, groundwater, snow, sediments, soils and organisms, and from indirect measurements by remote sensing technologies.
Careful monitoring is required since emission concentrations and exposures can vary over time, substances can exist naturally in the environment, emissions may be transformed into other substances, may enter or leave the region, or may accumulate locally. At certain concentrations and exposures, some substances may impair the biological functioning of an ecosystem through changes on aquatic and terrestrial plants, fish, amphibians, mammals and/or birds. Monitoring and supporting activities identified in the Implementation Plan are designed to evaluate biological changes at local and regional scales and at different levels in the aquatic and terrestrial food webs. Regular monitoring of a range of indicators of biological species and communities will help identify any potential biological, ecological or toxicological changes.
Oil sands development also physically disturbs habitat (e.g., forests and wetlands) and impacts biodiversity. In the biodiversity component of the monitoring program, monitoring activities will survey a broad variety of mammals, birds, amphibians, invertebrates, and vascular and non-vascular plants, and lichens at hundreds of sites with a five-year rotational cycle. Changes to human footprint and habitats caused by disturbance will also be assessed. In addition, there are complementary surveys for rare, at risk and harvested species to improve the ability to detect trends and monitor the impacts of habitat disturbance. This information will provide an improved understanding of the status and trend of species in the oil sands region, and indicate the cumulative and individual effects of development on biodiversity, now and into the future.