A new report Reality Check - Water & the Tarsands counters industry claims of some benign usage volumes, also point to toxic tailings as by-products. Quote: "Tar sands companies used approximately 170 million cubic meters of water in 2011 to extract bitumen—that’s the same as the residential water usage of 1.7 million Canadians. And 95 percent of the water used in tar sands mining is so polluted it has to be stored in toxic sludge pits. The tailings lakes are so big they can be seen from space." Those toxic tailings ponds prevent further threats beyond hydrological ground water leakages, if an early spring break-up coupled to heavy rains driven by warm fronts caused rapid snow melt, excessive flooding + breaching of tailing ponds embankments + berms around their circumferences. ecowatch/2013/setting-the-record-straight-on-tar-sands-and-water-use/
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 02:23:34 +0000
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