Oilsands pollution study reveals new 'blind spot' in industry reporting

New research has found that a complex form of air pollution from Alberta's oilsands has gone largely unreported — and the impacts to downwind habitats are "entirely unknown."

The peer-reviewed study, led by researchers with Environment Canada and Yale University, investigated the fate of carbon pollution from the industry by measuring plumes of pollution pumped out from industrial sites in northern Alberta.

Alberta government officials say the research is part of their ongoing efforts to better understand gas-phase organic carbon, a volatile source of oilsands contamination.

Critics say the findings are another blot on Alberta's environmental record that demands immediate action from the provincial regulator.

The research, published this month in Science Advances, delves into the spread of organic carbon emissions through a process known as dry deposition.

The study, which relied on research flights over the oilpatch, sheds new light on how far and fast such pollution is spreading, and calls attention to blind spots in our understanding of the airborne contamination.

Carbon contamination from dry deposition is a "major unaccounted" source of pollution, researchers found. And the impact of these substances once they settle on surrounding habitats, particularly the region's fragile freshwater ecosystems, remains a question mark.

"The impact of ... dry deposition to these systems is entirely unknown," the study says.

The ultimate fate of these carbon pollutants and how they are interacting with forests, wetlands and communities downwind of the oilsands plumes needs to be explored, said John Liggio, a federal research scientist and the study's lead author.

"We don't really know what's going on in terms of the potential impact. And that's something that we need to be looking at," said Liggio.

"A lot of this pollution ends up back down on the surface."

Dry deposition is the process by which various types of air pollution are spread by weather conditions and shifting winds without precipitation. 

It's of particular concern in the oilsands, where air pollution from a vast landscape of open pit mines, tailings ponds and smokestacks can be transported hundreds of kilometres to neighbouring communities and thousands of freshwater lakes within the surrounding boreal forest.

The chemicals tracked in the study include a vast pool of volatile organic compounds that transform and oxidate as they move through the atmosphere. They include black carbon and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are dangerous to human health.