This Sept. 19, 2011 aerial photo shows a tar sands tailings pond at a mine facility near Fort McMurray, Alta. An industry-funded program that offers high school teachers a six-day trip to Fort McMurray to 'experience Alberta's oilsands' is being expanded across the country.
More than three decades after Indigenous leaders in northern Alberta began asking for funding to better understand if pollution from the oilsands was making their people sick, the federal government is funding a study to do just that.The study, which will be funded with $12 million over the decade, will trace potential contaminants from oilsands operations to better understand the long-term health and environmental impacts.
Studies have previously shown higher rates of cancers in the communities along the shores of Lake Athabasca. Guilbeault said in a virtual news conference Tuesday evening that the study, which will be funded with $12 million over the decade, will trace potential contaminants from oilsands operations to better understand the long-term health and environmental impacts.
Guilbeault referred to news 18 months ago that the tailings ponds from Kearl's oilsands mine near Fort McMurray, Alta., had been seeping into the groundwater for months. Last October, Imperial spokeswoman Lisa Schmidt said in a statement that the company is working to "address the areas of shallow seepage from our operating lease area."Funding for the study "speaks volumes" about a commitment by the federal government to reconciliation, Kendrick Cardinal, president of the Fort Chipewyan Métis Nation said Tuesday.
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