Oilsands expansion sparks debate about future of environment

Alberta's oilsands are bringing immense wealth to the province, but some residents are raising questions about the long-term environmental impact.

They are questions those who are working in the oilsands are ready to answer.

The oil industry is planning to industrialize and dig up an area of northern Alberta more than 3,000 square kilometres in size over the next 10 to 15 years as part of extracting the second-largest deposit of oil in the world.

• INDEPTH: Alberta's oilsands

But the industry admits it will destroy a large section of boreal forest and it will take centuries before the land returns to a natural state. There is also no proof that plants will grow in the long term.

Longtime Fort McMurray resident Ann Dort-MacLean remembers when areas near the oilsands projects were covered by thick forests and wetlands.

Today much of the area just off a highway outside Fort McMurray looks more like a moonscape, dotted with steaming black lakes filled with waste water from a nearby oilsands plant.

Dort-MacLean thinks about the centuries it will take for the land to become the rich boreal forest she once hiked through.

"That's not even [in] my kids' or my grandchildren's time. That's way off into the future," she said.

Benefits worth the environmental costs

But Bruce Friesen, manager of reclamation for Syncrude, says the benefits from the oilsands projects are worth the environmental price.

"Yes, there is a cost in that there is a period of time that there is no forest here, [but] we think that for the economic benefit from the oilsands mining – taxes, royalties and employment – that is a reasonable trade off," he said.

Friesen says his company can do a satisfactory job of reclaiming the land right now, but he wants to do better.

Friesen points to several reclamation projects that he's proud of, including a grassland area on a former mine site that is home to a herd of bison.

"Part of that is confirmation that this land can support a healthy community of plants and animals," Friesen said. "So by paying close attention to the health of these bison we have an indicator of the health of other animals that would be using this land – and all the news is good."

But Friesen admits some areas will never look the way they were was found.

Dort-MacLean says Albertans are borrowing the land from future generations and have an obligation to learn how to put it back together before more is destroyed.