Oil Sands Raise Levels of Cancer-Causing Compounds in Regional Waters

FORT MCMURRAY--Air monitoring equipment litters northern Alberta. From Fort Chipewyan south towards Edmonton there are 17 sites measuring air quality, but here the monitoring outpost sits across the Athabasca River from the highway that connects the mining town with the oil mines to the north, and just down the road from the new multi-million dollar recreation center. Machines, such as the electronic nose or the laser-wielding robot that measures atmospheric ozone 10 kilometers up known as the sun photometer, constantly monitor the concentrations of pollution in the air. Data about acid rain-forming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides levels feeds into a Web site updated every five minutes . Overseeing all this technology is Kelly Baragar, an air monitoring specialist for more than two decades who has worked in Middle Eastern deserts and Indonesian jungles before arriving here in the cold, boreal forest that is undergoing a rapid transformation into a working landscape of oil extraction . [More]




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