Canadian Regulators Investigate Mysterious Tar Sands Spills

Government regulators in Canada are investigating a series of mysterious oil spills around tar sands operations in Alberta. Thick oil is gurgling up unexpectedly from the ground instead of flowing through the wells that were built to collect it.
The spills are raising questions about a technology that's rapidly
expanding to extract fossil fuels that could ultimately end up in thecontroversial Keystone XL pipeline.
The extent of the spills is small, compared with the huge open pits and slag pools that dot the tar sands area. But they come from a type of operation that is usually less damaging to the landscape.

The Suncor Energy Inc. plant is in the Athabasca Oil Sands area near Fort McMurray.

Brett Gundlock/Bloomberg via Getty Images

For the past 30 years, oil companies have been drilling wells to get at deeper tar sand deposits. Often they inject pressurized steam deep underground to loosen up the tar sands and extract thick oil called bitumen.
The bitumen is supposed to be pumped back up through the wells. But it doesn't always work that way.
"We've had incidents in the past where there's been an explosive blowout as a result of pressure building up and then moving up through the rock formations until it emerges at the surface," says , managing director of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank. The new situation "is a bit unusual in that when [the bitumen] reached the surface, it sort of oozed out as opposed to blowing out."
The first of these oozing incidents started in 2009. Government regulators spent several years trying to figure out what caused it. Cara Tobin, spokeswoman for the , says they still don't know "whether it has to do with technology, operating practices, mechanical issues, geology — that sort of thing."
And as that investigation stretches on, the regulators have three more of these oozing incidents to deal with. They are all occurring inside the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, an area that's off limits to casual visitors.
In total, these four seep sites have contaminated about 50 acres, Tobin says. The total volume of uncaptured bitumen is estimated at 950 cubic meters — which would be enough to fill a community swimming pool.
"It's all very slow-release, but they're all still ongoing," she says.
Tobin says the oil company has strung up absorbent boom and fences around the four spill areas in order to contain the damage.
Nikki Booth from Alberta's environment ministry, , considers this a "significant" event. She says her agency has personnel on the scene monitoring the damage.
"Unfortunately there have been some wildlife mortalities, including waterfowl, beavers, tadpoles, frogs, muskrats and shrews," Booth says. "But there are wildlife deterrents that are now in place and that should prevent any future wildlife mortalities from occurring."
Because the bitumen continues to ooze from the ground, there's no telling how long workers will have to manage the mess.