New Monitoring System For Oil Sands Introduced

On February 3, 2012, the Federal and Alberta governments introduced the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring, a three-year implementation plan to enhance environmental monitoring of air, water, land, and biodiversity in the oil sands.

Due to be completed in 2015, the implementation plan includes expansion of the current number and locations of monitoring sites, increased sampling frequency and parameters, and implementation of new sensing tools and methods.  Monitoring will focus on collecting data from the following components:  air quality, water quantity and quality, levels of acidity in sensitive lakes, aquatic ecosystem health, wildlife toxicology, and terrestrial biodiversity and habitat disturbance.