Tarsands waste lakes competition announced by UCP: Is the $50M from industry or more theft by UCP from Albertans to give more corporate welfare to $billion profiting polluters? Whatever, I think this new game is to con the public; in 2019, industry and AER already said they want to dump the deadly waste into the Athabasca watershed.

Media are complicit in the tarsands companies’ crimes against life. Imagine calling toxic industrial waste leftover water? As if was half a glass of water left at the dinner table. As vile as media reporting on the toxic lakes as “ponds.”

Video at link is only worth it to hear Cathy Ryan’s statements.

Alberta announces new challenge aimed at transforming tailings ponds by Melissa Gilligan and Stephanie Thomas, June 17, 2025, CTV News

Tailings ponds have been an oiltarsands byproduct since drilling began in Alberta. Now, the province is launching a challenge for industry to find solutions.Companies committed to cleaning up when they got their approvals to destroy so much land and water. This is a fucking circle jerk – again. They were required to mitigate their deadly waste as they profit raped, not afterwards or when their toxic lakes started overflowing and or leaking into the Athabasca watershed or when the companies have raped out enough billions and walk, leaving their toxic lakes for ordinary Albertans to clean up. In my view of corrupt Alberta AER and govts (yes, NDP included), there is no bitumen company or oil and gas company intending to clean anything up after they’ve raped out the profits, polluted the water, air and land. They don’t give a shit, they’re retiring anywhere but in SK, MB, AB.

Alberta has announced $50 million in funding to help entice companies to come up with new and improved technologies to reduce oil tar sands mine water and reclaim tailings ponds.

The province announced the Tailings Technology Challenge at a news conference in Calgary on Tuesday.

“We look forward to seeing the innovative solutions that come out of this funding challenge,” said Rebecca Schulz, minister of environment and protected areas.

“We need to shift this work into overdrive. We need more advanced technologies to help reduce, treat and manage mined water,” the minister added.Ya, like decades ago you douche fucker Schultz and your feeble lying predecessors.

Oil Tarsands processing creates leftover water called tailings that need to be properly managed. In the oil tarsands, tailings are a mixture of water, sand, clay and residual bitumen that are the byproduct of the oil extraction process.

“Tailings and mine water management remains among the most significant challenges facing Alberta’s energy sector,” said Justin Riemer, Emissions Reduction Alberta CEO.

Schulz said Alberta has an estimated 1.4 billion cubic metres of fluid tailings and 390 million cubic metres of water.

That’s comparable to 560,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

“Innovation has always played an instrumental role in the oil tarsands and continues to be an area of focus,” said Kendall Dilling, Pathways Alliance president.

Dilling later added, “We’re in that stage of accumulating a lot of tailings and fluids that will in due course be reclaimed. Some of the very original ponds have now been reclaimed and returned to a workable landscape.”

However, an environmental geology professor says there isn’t evidence any of Alberta’s tailings ponds have been fully restored.

“We haven’t figured out how to get the water out of the fine sands so they can be restored. Basically, no tailings pond has been restored that I’m aware of in Alberta,” said Cathy Ryan, from the earth, energy and environment department at the University of Calgary.

She says technological improvements are necessary as current methods to clean them up are very slow.

“Maybe there’s technologies being applied in other industries elsewhere in the world that we’re not even aware of, things that we can bring to bear to speed up that process,” said Dilling.

The Tailings Technology Challenge is open to oil tarsands operators and technology providers until Sept. 24.

Eligible technologies include both engineered and natural solutions.Ah, “natural’ solution! When the oil, gas, and bitumen industry pollutes our drinking water, companies, our corrupt govts and the cowardly crime enabling regulators always blame nature. Now, after decades of raping billions of dollars out of the tarsands, I believe this scam will be to award the company that has the most imaginative way to “invent” the “natural solution” of dumping the waste lakes into the watershed. Bingo, brilliant natural solution worthy of $50M dizzying the people.

“Innovation has always played an instrumental role in the oil sands and continues to be an area of focus,” said Kendall Dilling, Pathways Alliance president.

“Oil Tarsands companies are collaborating and investing to advance environmental technologies, including many focused on mine water and tailings management.”

“We’re excited to see this initiative, as announced today, seeking to explore technology development in an area that’s important to all Albertans.”

The money for the challenge is from the industry-funded Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation (TIER) fund.

Refer also to:

Greedy cry baby CNRL (net earnings 2024: $7.4B) appeals puny $278,000 fine by AER for major law violation, murdering wildlife and endangering canids near its Horizon tarsands mine. How many $billions of the public’s money have the feds given this gross polluting destroyer of the environment? Now it wants to eat more public money by taking up time in court (paid for by the public) to get the fine reduced by more than 80 per cent? Fuckers.

Dear Aqua Solutions Inc., No. No. No. No. No. No! Tarsands companies are required to remediate their massive waste lakes appropriately. Injecting billions of barrels of their toxic bitumen mining waste water underground is not remediation, will contaminate drinking water aquifers and permanently remove too much water from the hydrogeological cycle, and cause endless earthquakes. No! If companies are too greedy to deal with their waste, shut the fucking tarsands down.

Imperial Oil to be in Alberta Court of Justice, Fort McMurray, for 9 charges by AER for toxic tarsands waste spill (intentional dump?) two years ago (while AER pumps out approvals for massive water-contaminating fracs in less than a day). Is AER trying to cover for traitorous Big Oil Dildo Danielle Smith humping favour with USA’s orange lunatic betraying Canada and all non MAGA cult Canadians? Or responding to truth exposed by Dr. Kevin Timoney? Wanna bet judges let Imperial lawyers delay the hearing again and again and again, until AER drops the charges or the judge stays them using ex Justices Russ Brown and Bev McLachlin’s Jordan ruling or some other fancy judicial protect polluters escape?

Canada’s massive toxic tarsands: New study on (AER says 514; records show 989) bitumen tailings spills; Dr. Kevin Timoney concludes Alberta’s Energy Regulator lies, vastly underreports spill sizes, only inspected 3.2% of spills, fails to monitor and manage impacts. AER’s claim that spills haven’t caused any environmental damage is a “red flag, because that’s not physically possible in the real world.”

Alberta’s charter violating AER, oil & gas protector, liar extraordinaire, kisses Imperial Oil with $50,000 fine for contaminating groundwater and dumping 5.3Million litres toxic waste from Kearl Tarsands mine, keeping it secret. Execs ought to be sent to jail and fined millions. Encana/Ovintiv illegally injected 18Million litres frac fluid into Rosebud’s drinking water aquifers contaminating them, kept it secret too (so did AER and Alberta Environment), rec’d no punishment, just more approvals to frac more hell into fresh water. Fuckers, one and all.

Finally! After decades of lies and delays, and $billions raped out in profits, Alberta’s tarsands industry presents its toxic waste lakes clean up plan: Raise them 30 metres, make them bigger, to assure catastrophic failures emptying the toxic contents into the Athabasca watershed. Bingo! Companies save tens of $billions in mandatory clean-up costs they (and Kochs et al) want to keep for their rich pockets (thus why the deadly lakes have not yet been cleaned up and never will be)

Time to smell the bitumen; Alberta collected less than $1 over 13 years from $Billion profit-raping tarsands companies for clean-up. Obviously, gov’t and AER don’t plan to make industry clean up or seal their climate chaos causing leaking wells. Companies only care about money and $billions in subsidies from ordinary Canadians (struggling to feed their kids), lots of lies, secrets, toxic cover-ups, refusing to pay taxes, and propagandizing you and your kids.

AER: Enabler of water rapists. In 2022, 200 billion litres water used by tarsands companies. How much injected by frac’ers and permanently lost to the hydrogeological cycle?

A+++! Markham Hislop interviews law prof Martin Olszynski on Deloitte’s report about AER’s failed response to Imperial’s massive toxic tarsands waste spill/leak (intentional dump?) at Kearl: “The AER is indeed hiding something.” Never forget: In Ernst vs AER, Alberta courts ruled the regulator owes us and our groundwater “No Duty of Care” and is above Canada’s highest law, our Charter.

Another damning paper by Dominic DiGiulio et al: Chevron oilfield waste “ponds” contaminating groundwater in California. DiGiulio warns the ponds constitute “a potential wide-scale legacy groundwater contamination issue.” Think of Alberta’s toxic tarsands waste lakes, industry’s largest unlined waste “ponds” on earth, leaking into the Athabasca River and groundwater, with AER doing little but deregulate.

Jason Kenney gives multi-billion dollar profiting companies a taxpayer-funded war room to abuse citizens concerned about industry’s rampant life-threatening pollution: Suncor tarsands revenue up from $11.2 to $12 billion between 2017 and 2018 when companies whined about how hard it was to operate in Canada; CNRL boosted its revenue from $7.1 to $11.5 billion

2019: Writing on Alberta’s Polluting Deregulating Walls: Pilot project to dump toxic tarsands waste directly into Athabasca River, followed by more deregulating to enable oil, gas, frac waste dumped directly into watersheds across Canada?