Erin Markham reports that in Alberta, Canada, the Athabasca River flows northwards into the Peace-Athabasca Delta and western Lake Athabasca, providing an ecologically important and sensitive habitat for millions of birds to nest and stage. In addition, Alberta is home to the 3rd largest known reserve of oil in the world. Primarily found in the Fort McMurray region, the oil sands have been harvested since 1967 and are known to produce around 1.6 million barrels of oil per day, providing more crude oil to the United States than any other country.
Metal processing, coal incineration, waste dumping, and mining are all sources of mercury to the environment. Once it is released into the air, mercury gets deposited onto land or in rivers, and washed into waterbodies, where it can be converted by microorganisms into methylmercury, which is the toxic form of mercury that can bioaccumulate up the food chain and eventually make its way into humans via pathways such as fish and shellfish consumption. The oil-sands industry has previously been linked to the regional availability of mercury in Alberta. In fact, the petroleum industry was the primary source of mercury emissions to the air in Alberta industrial sector during 2011, accounting for around 40 per cent of emissions. Aside from the local oil sands industry, forest fires and industry in Asia are two other potential sources of mercury to this region. Gaseous elemental mercury can actually undergo long-range atmospheric transport from Asia and be deposited over North America. The Richardson Back-Country Fire of 2011 was the biggest fire in Alberta in over 60 years and covered 700,000 hectares, which is the equivalent of almost 375,000 football fields, potentially increasing mercury levels locally.
Stable isotope of nitrogen from the eggs revealed that birds higher in the food-chain, such as Caspian terns and Common terns, appear to be accumulating mercury at a higher degree than they had in the past.
Original working URL: https://oceanbites.org/is-the-oil-sands-industry-in-canada-linked-to-mercury-levels-in-birds/
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