(Adds water had twice the approved level of suspended solids in
first paragraph and creek feeds into main river in paragraph 6)
By Nia Williams
April 18 (Reuters) - Canada's Suncor Energy has
reported the release of 5,900 cubic metres (208,400 cubic feet)
of water with more than twice the approved level of suspended
solids from a sedimentation pond at its Fort Hills oil sands
project in northern Alberta.
The release on April 16 was reported to the Alberta Energy
Regulator (AER) because the total suspended solids, in this case
mud, in the water exceeded the approved limits, Suncor said.
The water came from a sedimentation pond, which collects and
discharges surface run-off from the oil sands site, and not a
tailings pond, Suncor spokesperson Erin Rees said in an email.
Oil sands companies are under scrutiny for how they manage
water on their sites, after Imperial Oil said in
February that tailings ponds at its Kearl site had been seeping
for months and another spill released 5,300 cubic metres of
process water in late January. Tailings are a toxic mixture of
water and waste products from bitumen mining.
"This is not a tailings pond, but a water run-off pond that
collects and discharges run off into Fort Creek ... in line with
regulatory approvals," Rees said.
The water discharges into Fort Creek roughly 800 metres
upstream of the Athabasca River, the main waterway running
through the oil sands region.
The AER said Suncor is working to understand why the release
into the Athabasca exceeded the approved regulatory limit for
total suspended solids, and has taken water quality samples for
analysis.
"Suncor have contacted indigenous communities in the area
and we have followed-up with our own communication," the AER
said in an email.
(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by
Richard Chang, David Gregorio and Chris Reese)
Messaging: nia.williams.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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