User:Oceanflynn/sandbox/Oil sands emissions (Alberta)

Oil sands greenhouse gas emissions (Alberta) are the largest "anthropogenic secondary organic aerosols in North America". The Environment Canada researchers defined secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) as "gases and particles that interact with sunlight in complex ways and that are released by both the globe’s plant matter as well as fossil-burning machines and industries".

Overview
Scientists from Environment Canada and Queen's University published their research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal (PNAS) in which they used innovative methods to measure the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) in core samples from lakes including a remote lake, Namur Lake, which is situated 50 km from the sampling site, AR6, on the Athabasca River, and had a "high atmospheric PAH deposition. They found that the sedimentary profiles from the core samples revealed "striking PAH trajectories" that "reflect the decades-long impacts of oil sands development on lake ecosystems, including remote Namur Lake. This temporal PAH pattern was not recognized previously by industry-funded oil sands monitoring programs."

A May 25, 2016 article in The Verge said that Alberta's oil sands "emit high levels of air pollutants" based on a May 25, 2016 article entitled "Oil sands operations as a large source of secondary organic aerosols" in Nature in June 2016 by lead author John Liggio and a team of Environment Canada scientists. According to the article in La Verge, citing Environment Canada researchers, emissions from the oil sands "equal what's produced by the entire city of Toronto". The scientists from Environment Canada said that Alberta oil sands greenhouse gas emissions may be much higher than the four main mines were reporting. For example, Suncor’s mine was 13 per cent higher than it reported, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s Horizon and Jackpine mines were about 37 per cent more, and Syncrude's Mildred Lake mine emitted 2 1/4 times more than they reported to the federal pollutant registry.

Their "data from airborne measurements over the bitumen-producing region in August 2013 found that oilsands production generates at least 45 to 84 tonnes per day of the tiny particulate matter."

Water resource management
In 2003, then Minister of the Environment Lorne Taylor introduced an Government of Alberta action plan called "Water for Life" and commissioned nine international experts from the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy to review and make recommendations to strengthen the action plan. In the "Report of the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy to the Ministry of Environment, Province of Alberta (2007)" The 2007 "Report of the Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy" to the submitted to Alberta's Environment Department. and in 2008, Alberta Environment updated "Water for Life''. The Rosenberg report was updated in 2013.