Something stinks up in the oilsands region near Fort McKay and local residents plan to find out what it is using bags and buckets.
Peace River and Fort McKay residents met at the Alberta Legislature this week to talk about air pollution in the Alberta oilsands region. Fed up with what they call lax regulation, they've started a bucket brigade to take their own air samples.
Bucket brigades are community groups that use simple gear to track air pollution, said Denny Larson, executive director of the U.S.-based Global Community Monitor, an environmental justice group that promotes the concept. "We put the monitors in the hands of people who are being exposed themselves."
Larson and his team trained about 40 area residents to take air samples using a vacuum-sealed bag and a bucket whenever they think the air is bad. The samples are collected and tested according to strict scientific guidelines to ensure accuracy.
Bucket tests can help people detect spikes in pollution that regular monitoring stations miss, Larson said, and trace them to their source. Unlike the metal vacuum canisters used by government for spot tests, the buckets are cheap and re-useable. Groups in 27 nations now use the buckets, with parts of Ohio taking advantage of them to help regulators track down polluters.
This should be a great source of independent, mobile testing, said Carmen Langer, a farmer near Three Creeks and one of the trainees. "The Alberta government should be using these buckets."
Suspicious smells
Langer said his family has farmed near Three Creeks since 1928 and has a long history of working with the oil industry. "Now, the industry we worked on is harming us at a large rate."
The trouble started a few years ago when the number of oil companies in the region jumped to five from one, he said. Now, his cows are getting bloody noses and record numbers of stillbirths, and his home sometimes smells like an oil vessel. "You can write on the windows if you don't clean them every two weeks."
The industry is recognizing these problems and acting on them, Langer said. "It's the government. We have very poor regulations in Alberta, if any," he said, noting the province permits much higher benzene levels in the air than other parts of the world. Benzene is a carcinogen and can be smelled in gasoline.
"We have to get these emissions under control," he said. "We don't have a lot of time here."
Legitimate concerns
Alberta Environment has been monitoring the air around Three Creeks for several months, and issued a report on it in July, said spokesperson Jessica Potter. "It shows that everything is within guidelines, however we still recognize that odours are affecting quality of life."
Staff have built a monitoring station in the area and given residents test canisters to sample the air. A local Shell in-situ oilsands facility has also been ordered to virtually eliminate its sulphur dioxide pollution by the end of the year.
Air quality is generally improving in Fort McKay, she continued, with ozone, sulphur dioxide and other pollutant levels all on the decline and the air qualifying as "good" overall 99 per cent of the time last year.
Air pollution in the oilsands region usually isn't bad enough to harm people, but it has caused respiratory problems during spikes, said David Spink, a St. Albert air quality consultant who has done extensive study of Fort McKay. "Is industry significantly and adversely impacting air quality in Fort McKay? Absolutely."
Odours are a big problem, he said. "Almost every time I've been up there, there's a smell in the air," he said, and those odours make people worry about their health. "Stink doesn't translate to health effects. It translates to a bloody nuisance."
It all comes down to lax standards, he said. Provincial rules on nitrogen dioxide pollution from boilers are twice as high as American ones for example, allowing industry to pollute twice as much. "We're letting them get away with less than best practices."
Alberta's air quality standards are among the highest in North America, Potter said, and undergo regular revision.
The brigade's air tests start this month, said Melina Laboucan-Massimo of Greenpeace, and the first results are expected by January.
