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Running Head: THE ALBERTA TAR SANDS

Environmental Management of Alberta's Oil Sand
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Environmental Management of Alberta's Oil Sand
Introduction
Since the nineteenth century, the Alberta tar sands located in Canada's upper east have
been seen as a critical oil resource when the essential comprehensive audits were done. They
occupy about over 140,000 square kilometers of boreal woodlands and muskeg, generally in the
Athabasca River bowl. The contention over building up the tar sands sets two contending
rationales against ecological manageability versus capital aggregation. The oil sands industry got
one of the most challenging environmental policy in the region. In 2013, the provisional outflows
in Alberta added up to 267 megatons of CO2 equivalents. More than half of Alberta's emission
comes from the industries, electricity production used at home, construction and manufacturing
activities. The remaining portion is from forestry, homes, transportation, and also agriculture. As
of 2020, the study shows that Alberta's emission has risen by 15% since 2015.
Potential impacts
Oil is an unpleasant bitumen, a thick, tar-like substance mixed in with sand and soil.
Isolating bitumen and potent oils from the tar sands require pit mining or surface mining, taking
care of the metal with water, steam, consuming pop, and taking care of the hurtful results in
tailings lakes. Also, water for oil sands mining is siphoned from the Athabasca River, a
waterway that occasionally varies from year to year, and pulling out water during regular low
stream periods (which happen virtually in the colder time of year) can endanger aquatic life. This
water cannot be gotten back to the catchment areas since it gets harmful in the extraction cycle
and should be held in tailings lakes. The oil sands industry has been hazardous to the climate in
the area. It has significantly affect caribou, birds, buffalo, moose, fish, the water, the timberland.
It has made it difficult for these creatures to move from one place to another in search of food.
Most of them die. Environmental intellectuals of the tar sands mentioned that the pattern of
bitumen extraction requires enormous proportions of energy, land, and freshwater.
Simultaneously, making tremendous regular impacts such as ozone-draining substances, the
decline in air quality, the pummeling of peat swamps and wetlands, and unnecessary material
storage in lakes (Spady and Angus, 2020).
The Pembina Institute has been considering these worries and giving accurate data on the
ecological effects since its Oil Sands Fever report in 2005. The Pembina Institute's work was
intended to support policymakers. Others manage energy advancement with eyes fully open and

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away from the moves that should be defeated to improve Alberta oil sands' mindful
improvement. The oil sands lie beneath 140,800 square kilometers, equivalent to more than
20percent of Alberta's territory. Invigorated figures from the Department of Energy in Alberta
government show that this land base's mining fragment will be around 4,750 square kilometers.
That is over 90% of the mineable zone that has quite recently been leased.
Underlying causes
Oil sands and pipeline
Alberta's oil sands activity is the world's most significant modern task. Pipelines,
explicitly the structure of new pipelines inside both Canada and the U.S.A have been a
questionable point as of late. Many have raised concerns encompassing potential pipeline holes
or massive scope oil slicks, effectively affecting the climate. While Canada is endeavoring to
diminish its natural effect, the oil sands industry stays a conflict point and one of the most
rewarding public businesses. The oil business is a massive maker of carbon discharges. Hence,
carbon taxes and carbon-catching innovations have been set up inside the oil sands to decrease
high emanation rates. Rates of pollutants have dropped by 30% in the last fifteen years yet stay a
state of concern. As the nation's most excellent fare worker, freedoms have been taken to
guarantee the oil sands industry stays solid, notwithstanding its effect on the climate. Gigantic
waste lakes of stunning poisonousness lie toward the north, affecting the prompt zone, making a
danger close by untamed life, and adding corrosive downpour. The oil business is a wide margin
the most contrarily significant for the Canadian climate along these lines. Ideally, strategies, such
as carbon assessments and innovations for cleaner living, are being utilized; however, the effect
rate is unparalleled by the public and worldwide capacity to relieve adverse natural effects
(Gosselin et al.,2018)
Ecologyical activities
A great deal is in question here in Alberta. They face environmental change and the
corruption of our air quality, among endless other natural difficulties. Moreover, in an area
whose economy depends vigorously on energy creation, ecological activity has extra
obstructions. Notwithstanding, these issues will not just vanish all alone, which is why we should
know about our activities' outcomes. Maybe much more critically, we should perceive what steps
we can take to get educated about natural issues and utilize robust systems to convey them to
other people. In 2019, The Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI) directed an examination

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and delivered two reports on North American and imported unrefined oils' existence cycle
investigation. AERI closes its examination by expressing that innovative advances will
additionally dimi...