Oil Sands Tailings Preliminary Ecological Risk Assessment

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Golder Associates Ltd.

• This report outlines a conceptual and analytical framework for quantifying risks to terrestrial wildlife that might be exposed to solid-phase materials potentially associated with oil sands reclamation. The initial phase of the assessment involved screening the soil-tailings against published criteria to produce a short list of 10 constituents (8 organic and 2 inorganic) that pose a potential risk to terrestrial biota. After the 10 constituents were identified, a probabilistic model was developed that: (1) simulated exposure doses to three representative terrestrial wildlife receptors (deer mouse, white-tailed deer, American kestrel), (2) computed the probability of exceeding a chemical exposure limit for each of the receptors, and (3) summarized the relative contribution of the different exposure pathways (i.e., water and food ingestion, incidental soil ingestion, inhalation) to the total exposure dose. Due to the paucity of data, a number of conservative assumptions were applied to this study that precluded firm conclusions with respect to potential risks associated with each of the soil tailings mixtures. Nonetheless, the findings of this study provide useful information for directing future ecological risk assessments to assist in reclamation planning for the oil sands sites.

• Date created

  1994

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Soils
  • RRTAC OF-7
  • Tailings
  • Oil Sands
  • Tar Sands
  • Wildlife
  • Tar sands
  • Oil sands
  • Alberta
  • RRTAC
  • Canada, Alberta, Fort McMurray

• Type of Item

  Report

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R35M6276R

• License

  This material is provided under educational reproduction permissions included in Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development's Copyright and Disclosure Statement, see terms at http://www.environment.alberta.ca/copyright.html. This Statement requires the following identification: \"The source of the materials is Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development http://www.environment.gov.ab.ca/. The use of these materials by the end user is done without any affiliation with or endorsement by the Government of Alberta. Reliance upon the end user's use of these materials is at the risk of the end user.