FOURNIER: This just in! Oilsands emissions make trees grow

Fifteen years ago, I was fresh out of graduate studies from the University of Calgary and had but a year under my belt working on environmental impact assessments for an engineering consultancy company based out of Calgary, when I was laid off as soon as the great recession hit in October 2008.Within a month, I had an interview for a position with Suncor Energy as an environmental research specialist and by January 2009, I was relocated to Fort McMurray as part of Suncor’s massive investment in two large tailing pond reclamation projects.Note that I grew up in northern Saskatchewan, Yukon and central British Columbia, so I was more than familiar with living dabb-smack in the middle of the Canadian Boreal Forest.Come spring, the first observations that I made were the constant fine dust precipitation that required me to wash my truck weekly and the lush dense green forests that surrounded Fort McMurray.The source of the dust was obvious. Fort McMurray is located less than 30 km south of the Suncor and Syncrude mining operations.Keep in mind that common heavy-haulers in the oil sands are over 1 million pounds fully loaded and travel in excess of 40 miles per hour on dirt roads. Suncor alone moves well over a million tonnes of ore and overburden every day and there are a total of four large open pit mines along the Athabasca River valley where bitumen containing ore deposits are covered by a thin layer of overburden and soil.What also caught my attention in the summer of 2009 was the frequent sightings of sow black bears with triples and quadruplet cubs in tow, or cow moose with twins and triplets that I noticed within the region.Having grown up in a family with extensive experience in ranching, big game outfitting and trapping, I knew that this could mean only one thing.High quality forage was in abundance. As a junior scientist, I was totally enthralled. The burning question I had was what was causing this high productivity?My eureka moment came one day while enjoying a coffee break at work, standing on a second storey balcony of my ATCO trailer office complex overlooking the heavy-hauler route on the opposite side of the Athabasca River that connects Suncor’s Millennium mining operation, to its ore processing and bitumen extraction plants.While I was over 3 km away, I was still close enough to observe the large dust plume following the convoy of some 200 heavy-haulers that would often extend well over 1 km into the atmosphere before being displaced horizontally by higher speed winds and moving off into the distance as far as the eye could see.At that moment, I realised that nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from mining equipment and other combustion sources within the region must be reacting with mining-dust emissions and sunlight to form nitrate fertilizer, that was then depositing all over the regional landscape.Bear in mind, NOx emissions from mining operations in Canada are heavily regulated in terms of emissions control, verification and reporting. However, the shear number of combustion sources within the region results in NOx emissions that are on par with large metropolitan cities like Toronto or Vancouver.When I went to my boss with my exciting hypothesis, I was immediately reminded that this was not why I was hired and that I should focus on my tailing pond reclamation pilot project.This hardly deterred me.After some fancy salesmanship, I convinced my Management Team and Legal Affairs to approve and fund a site-wide baseline environmental sampling campaign for an altogether unrelated project that had been handed over for me to manage.I knew that the data I obtained would inadvertently provide me with the evidence required to test my fertilization hypothesis.Six years later, I had my confirmation and somehow convinced Suncor Corporate Communications to allow me to present my findings at the Air & Waste Management Association conference in Long Beach, California in 2014.What we found was that the calcium carbonate used in the construction of heavy-hauler roads was functioning as the key ingredient in this regional fertilization effect.Furthermore, we found that rainfall within the oil sands region was slightly alkaline. This was surprising given rainfall is naturally slightly acidic, which commonly becomes even more acid when elevated NOx emissions are present.But, when we looked at regional rainfall water chemistry, we found that alkalinity, nitrate and calcium were the highest near oil sands mining operations and these parameters dissipated as a function of distance from the source of the dust and NOx emissions.Thus, we had established the basis to claim that calcium carbonate (a weakly basic mineral) dust was neutralizing the acidifying potential of NOx emissions and that the reaction by-product was calcium nitrate fertilizer.Note that our work confirmed the research of Dale Vitt et al who demonstrated that elevated nitrogen deposition rates were causing dominant peat forming plant species to grow 3 times faster near the Steepbank River, that runs through Suncor’s mine site than at remote locations.In other words, the Athabasca Boreal Forest is sequestering carbon at a rate proportional to NOx emissions. What Dale didn’t consider was that these elevated nitrogen deposition rates are not accompanied by acidified rainfall.So while open-pit oil sands mining operations may look like Mordor in the short term, these operations are also positively impacting the biological productivity of the surrounding ecosystems, extending many kilometers outside of the temporarily impacted mine sites..This is what the Western Standard is up againstThe Trudeau government is funding lies and propaganda by directly subsidizing the mainstream media. They do this to entrench the powerful Eastern, woke and corrupt interests that dominate the political, social and economic institutions in Canada. Federal authorities are constantly trying to censor us and stop us from publishing the stories that they don’t want you to read. Ottawa may weaponize our taxes and police against us, but we’ve got a powerful ally on our side.You. Free men, and free women. We need you to stand with us and become a member of the Western Standard. Here’s what you will get for your membership:Unlimited access to all articles from the Western Standard, Alberta Report, West Coast Standard, and Saskatchewan Standard, with no paywall. Our daily newsletter delivered to your inbox. .Access to exclusive Member-only WS events.Keep the West’s leading independent media voice strong and free.If you can, please support us with a monthly or annual membership. It takes just a moment to set up, and you will be making a big impact on keeping one the last independent media outlets in Canada free from Ottawa’s corrupting influence.

FOURNIER: This just in! Oilsands emissions make trees grow

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