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, but here sits across the Athabasca River from the highway that connects the mining town with the oil mines to the north, just down the road from the new multi-million dollar recreation center. The machines, like the electronic nose or the laser-wielding robot that measures atmospheric ozone 10 kilometers up known as the sun photometer, constantly monitor air quality from 17 different sites. Data about acid-rain-forming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides levels feeds into a website updated every five minutes . Overseeing all this technology is Kelly Baragar, an air monitoring specialist for more than two decades with time spent in the deserts of the Middle East and jungles of Indonesia before arriving here in the cold, boreal forest that is undergoing a transformation into a working landscape of oil extraction. [More] ...