Alberta's Oil Sands Tailings
Tailings Ponds - Oil Sands Today
Oilsands 101: Tailings | Oilsands | Pembina Institute
Tailings are a waste byproduct from the oilsands extraction processes used in mining operations.Tailings consist of a mix of water, sand, silt, clay, contaminants and unrecovered hydrocarbons and are toxic.
Syncrude's Tailings Dam near Fort McMurray, Alberta is one of the largest dam in the world.
Duck Deaths
There have been at least 2,150 deaths of ducks related to tailings ponds in Alberta.
Bird deaths reported on Alberta oil sands tailing ponds
There are currently more than 170 square kilometres of tailings ponds in Alberta. Even when tailings ponds covered 50 square kilometers they were big enough to be seen from space.
Tailings management remains one of the most difficult environmental challenges for the oil sands mining sector.
Tailings are stored indefinitely in open lakes that cover an area approximately 50 per cent larger than the city of Vancouver.
Tailings lakes increase in volume at a rate that would fill the Toronto Skydome on a daily basis.
Tailings lakes seep. The exact amount of seepage is either not known or has not been made public.
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