• Toxic Lakes May Emerge From Alberta’s Tar-Sand Projects - Businessweek
    http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-11-22/toxic-lakes-from-tar-sand-projects-planned-for-alberta

    Canada is blessed with 3 million lakes, more than any country on Earth — and it may soon start manufacturing new ones. They’re just not the kind that will attract anglers or tourists.

    The oil sands industry is in the throes of a major expansion, powered by C$20 billion ($19 billion) a year in investments. Companies including Syncrude Canada Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. affiliate Imperial Oil Ltd. are running out of room to store the contaminated water that is a byproduct of the process used to turn bitumen — a highly viscous form of petroleum — into diesel and other fuels.

    By 2022 they will be producing so much of the stuff that a month’s output of wastewater could turn an area the size of New York’s Central Park into a toxic reservoir 11 feet (3.4 meters) deep, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit in Calgary that promotes sustainable energy.

    (...)

    One need not look far to see what could go wrong with this containment strategy. Some 400 miles south of Calgary lies the Berkeley Pit, a 900-foot-deep lake in Montana that began forming after copper mining ceased in 1982 and groundwater began filling the gaping hole.

    The water, loaded with heavy metals and as acidic as lemon juice, now threatens to spill over into local river basins, according to the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology.

    #sables_bitumineux #pollution #eau