Legacy of a half century of Athabasca oil sands development

The attack on Canada's Oil Sands continues. :-(

need to bring back that Fort Chip elder that couldnt identify a rotting fish.

or is he idling no more?

When you're cleaning up Mother Nature's oil spill, it stands to reason the lakes would be getting cleaner.

I suppose the headline "Polluted Tarsands Death Lakes are Cleaner than Urban Lakes" wouldn't have the same PR value. As much as I hate assuming the worst, the bias of the scientists conducting the study cannot be ignored when they say things like "Now we have the smoking gun,” [the paper's lead author] Professor Smol said."(NYT) That sounds like "science" led by ideology and politics. I am sure this study will pop up again when the Pipeline Wars heat up again.

WRM had an equally good post about this.

"So: while levels of dangerous chemicals increased, the waters surrounding the oil sands areas were cleaner than most urban water sources in Canada and met water quality standards. If this is a “smoking gun”, we aren’t impressed."
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/01/08/greens-jump-the-gun-on-oil-sands-pollution/

I assume the level of hydrocarbons in a region that oozes hydrocarbons is probably 1/10,000th that in the Hudson River and New Yorkers think we have a problem.

Its the blatant lunacy of the greens, oil spills are bad, ban oil drilling.But you must not touch the biggest oil spill on earth.
In eco-speak: we canadians are cleaning up the biggest oil spill on earth and disposing of the waste product in an environmentally friendly manner.
Guess we had better divert the Peace and Athabasca rivers, because they erode the sandy banks carrying oil all the way to the Beaufort Sea.
The horror, if we don't clean up this oil spill it will continue to contaminate the biggest watershed in Canada and the pristine Arctic Ocean.
And all that poisonous Di-hydrogen Monoxide, carrying this oil north.

Deep in the comments at WUWT the data is presented on a linear scale; quite revealing.

CSM...kristian and science don't go together all that well me thinks, butt kristian and lefty sure does!!!!!

yes. the two jawed whitefish that called for 2 CBCpravda reporters, half a dozen "non-idled" elders , half a dozen gubmint scientists. a few panic reports , much consternation and a one minute report two weeks later saying , oh , the fish was rotten and the jaw fell apart.

Didn't the old Native oral history call that area (roughly translated)
"Don't go there, the fish taste funny, and will make you sick"
?
Just asking,rhetorically,

dwright

So much pollution, we'll have to start evacuating the cities.

Should we start with the Greenie Loonies in Vancouver or the Eco Nutters in Toronto?

Athabasca is Cree for "wipe the oil off before you eat the fish"...

Nowhere in these reports can I see where exactly these PAHs are. Are they in water or in lake sediment? As a rule, that makes about a thousandfold difference in concentration (PAHs are mostly more-or-less insoluble in water).

But missing that basic background information doesn't seem to stop the bozo press from jumping to conclusions about the numbers. Math may be hard, but science appears to be even harder.

Finally got a link to the paper to work. The PAHs are in the lake bottom sediments, not the water.

Absolutely correct. Oil spills are terrible, just like heavy metal poisoning. One day, those unsung heroes in Green Peace are going to sort the Chinese out:

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2009/August/25080902.asp

Victoria B.C dumps their poop straight into the sea.