Neil Young’s Pollution fears are vindicated.
As our Zuman friend Pat indicated, Canada forgot to muzzle their scientists.
Elizabeth Willoughby at Look to the Stars World of Celebrity Giving wrote that a Canadian federal government report by scientists working with Environment Canada estimated last week that Alberta oil sands are polluting ground water and toxic chemicals are seeping into the Athabasca River at rates higher than previously suspected.
Oil companies in Alberta’s oil sands create lakes, called tailings ponds, to contain the processed water and chemicals used to separate the bitumen from the sand. Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation has been complaining for years that their fish have become deformed and inedible, that wildlife has disappeared and that cancer in the community has risen dramatically since the oil sands began production.
More news about the study is printed at:
The scientists took 20 groundwater samples from areas at least one kilometre upstream and downstream from development. They took another seven samples from within 200 metres of two of the tailings ponds. Samples were also taken from two different tailings ponds.
The analysis was focused on so-called acid-extractable organics, which include a family of chemicals called naphthenic acids. “Their enhanced water solubility makes them prime candidates for possible migration beyond containment structures via groundwater,” the report says.
Those toxins were found in groundwater both near and far from development. But their chemical composition was slightly different nearer the mines – closer to that found in the water from the ponds.
The reports can be read here:
https://www.ec.gc.ca/scitech/default.asp?lang=En&n=D0AF1423-1
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
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Baz on 
