Investigation: Are the Alberta Oil Sands Killing First Nations? (Part 1)

By Jake Cardinal, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” Gin Rummy.

There will be blood

Fort Chipewyan is a small community in Northern Alberta located on the southwest shore of Lake Athabasca. The town is only accessible by plane, boat or ice-road travel. A 2021 Canadian census recorded 847 permanent residents, though the population is estimated to be closer to 1,000.

While Fort Chipewyan was established as a trading post in 1788, making it the oldest European settlement in Alberta, the majority of residents are Mikisew Cree, Athabasca-Chipewyan Cree and/or Metis. Approximately 250 kilometres North of Fort McMurray, the land is considered by many as the Chipewyan Cree’s traditional territory.

The previously mentioned Athabascan-Chipewyan Cree (ACFN) has a designated land base (or reserve) located 25 kilometres south of Fort Chipewyan and boasts a population of 1,200, though many of their members are diaspora living in Fort Chipewyan, Fort McMurray, Fort McKay, Fort Smith, N.W.T., and other areas around the world.

As self-described stewards, the Nation is known to rely on/practice the cultural traditions of hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering to sustain their way of life – which in this context, simply refers to their basic survival.

However, the ACFN is also (and perhaps primarily) known for some of the highest rates of (rare) cancers in the entire country.

When medical practitioner Dr. John O’Connor expressed concerns over the community’s high rates of (rare) cancers in 2006, the Alberta government conducted an investigation that  confirmed “cancer cases observed in Fort Chipewyan [were] higher than expected for all cancers combined and for specific types of cancer, such as biliary cancer and cancers in the blood and lymphatic system.” However, the study did not/was unable to determine the cause(s)

In 2025, it is still unknown.

The First Nations have been adamant that the cause(s) of their members’ health issues are oil sands operations and other industry activity. They also claim that government/private companies actively cover-up toxic waste incidents in the area, as well as knowingly put the lives of their Nation at risk.

However, to determine whether or not oil sands operations in Alberta are engaging in environmental racism against the Chipewyan Cree, we must first understand the basic processes of the province’s crude oil refinement.

Black gold

At approximately 10% of global reserves, Alberta is home to one of the largest crude oil deposits in the world – known most commonly as the tar/oil sands.

It’s estimated that the oil sands contain 2.5 trillion barrels of oil in total. However, only 7.2% of it (180 billion) has been deemed economically recoverable. At current market pricing ($58.39/barrel), this equates to a little over $1 trillion in total attainable value.

Found in the regions of Peace River, Cold Lake and Athabasca, the oil sands were first recorded in 1717 by James Knight of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Over-a-century’s worth of research later, the first commercial hot-water separation plant in the province was created by Robert Fitzsimmons in 1930. 300 barrels of bitumen were produced in the summer of that year with just a seven-man crew, though the operation would later be closed by the provincial government.

It would be another thirty years or so before the Great Canadian Oil Sands consortium (now Suncor Inc.) would begin production at their base plant in 1967.

From there, extractive activities in the oil sands would only increase, with companies like Shell Canada Limited, Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL), Petro-Canada Oil and Gas, and many more currently conducting operations in the region.

The largest deposits are in Athasbasca, with major mining facilities located near Fort McMurray and Fort Chipewyan.

Bitumen

The primary product of the Athabascan oil sands is bitumen.

The crude oil is used as a binder in construction settings, with the majority of all bitumen being used for roads, runways, parking lots, and sidewalks.

Like other petroleum products, it is widely agreed that the bitumen was created from ancient organic matter being covered and crushed into petroleum by tons of layers of sediment over the course of millions of years. However, bitumen differs from other petroleum products in that the ore is mixed in with water, quartz sand and clays.

Therefore, bitumen refinement in Alberta extracted through traditional mining techniques relies on froth treatment.

The extraction of bitumen requires the ore to be prepped into a pumpable product, or a slurry – a mixture of mined materials, water and chemical – before it can be processed by a plant. This was initially accomplished with large rotating drums, but improved technologies allow the slurry to form as it travels through a pipeline directly to the plant. This process is known as hydrotransportation.

Because of the transportation technology and the properties of bitumen, the resource will attach itself to any available air bubbles within the slurry. By the time it reaches the plant, the bitumen becomes aerated and lighter than water.

The slurry is then fed into a large tank known as a gravity separation cell and the process of gravity separation begins, wherein the bitumen floats to the top of the liquid and creates a froth where it can then be extracted.

Everything else becomes waste materials, otherwise known as tailings.

Tailings

Tailings are a toxic by-product of most metal and coal mining operations.

Every one cubic metre of oil produced through froth treatment generates nine cubic metres of tailings. In other terms, for every 1,000 litres of usable oil processed from the sands, there are 9,000 litres of toxic waste generated.

According to the Oil Sands Magazine (OSM) – an “independent digital platform” – tailings made during the extraction of bitumen are made up of “mostly silica sand (up to 60%), fine solids (less than 30%) and no more than 5% water.”

The waste materials are then diverted into large storage facilities, known as tailings ponds, where the solids within the mixture settle over time.

However, the OSM fails to mention that the tailings mixture contains dangerous amounts of complex chemicals, such as “mercury, arsenic, lead, ammonia, benzene and naphthenic acids,” according to Environmental Defence.

Some, though not all, proven and possible symptoms of exposure to these materials include: kidney failure, gastrointestinal damage, diarrhea, constipation, muscle/joint pain, fatigue, loss of sex drive, esophageal burns, heart palpitations, tremors, and death.

While much can be said about the general composition of tailings, our focus right now lies upon one particular set of compounds.

Naphthenic acids

Naphthenic acids (NAs) are organic carboxylic acids released during the bitumen extraction process. In a report by the University of Alberta, it states that NAs “occur naturally in petroleum,” and are made up of a “complex mixture of alkyl-substituted acyclic and cycloaliphatic carboxylic acids.”

While much research still needs to be done on the topic of NAs in general, the corrosive compounds have been evidenced as causing a toxic response in “microorganisms, aquatic algae, aquatic organisms such as fish, invertebrates and vegetations, birds, and mammals.”

However, NAs found in the oil sands are considered more complex than other commercial mixtures.

For one, due to the pKa range of NAs, an estimated 99% of it remains in the aqueous phase, which means that the compounds dissolve in water, “resulting in their concentration at the water surface in tailings ponds.” NAs are also present in the surface/ground waters that make contact with the oil sands deposits, meaning they are naturally found in the surrounding waters.

Currently, there is no way to distinguish naturally occurring NAs from those created during the extraction process.

To make matters worse, there is no absolute and/or uniform analytical method used to measure or monitor NA levels because “there is no procedure that can separate each NA compound.” Furthermore, “a majority of the organic compounds in oil sands process affected water (OSPW) do not fit the strict formula for NAs,” and additional studies indicate that NAs are not the only compound responsible in the toxicity of OSPW.

Thus, while NAs have been evidenced as causing a toxic response in organic materials, the specific effects and symptoms of exposure to Alberta’s tailings ponds are somewhat unknown. This is due to the mixture of complex chemical compounds and their reactions to one another within the extraction/settling process.

There are approximately 100 confirmed components present in tailings.