By Nia Williams
(Reuters) – Canada’s Suncor Energy has reported a spill of 5,900 cubic metres of muddy water from a sedimentation pond at Suncor Energy’s Fort Hills oil sands mining project in northern Alberta.
The spill on April 16 was reported to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) because the total suspended solids in water exceeded the approved limits, Suncor said.
The news comes as oil sands companies face intense scrutiny into how they manage their tailings ponds, which hold a toxic mixture of mining waste products and water. Imperial Oil said in February that ponds at its Kearl site had been seeping for months and another spill released 5,300 cubic metres of process water in late January.
“This is not a tailings pond, but a water run off pond that collects and discharges run off into Fort Creek (not directly to the Athabasca), in line with regulatory approvals,” Suncor spokeswoman Erin Rees said in an email.
The AER said samples have been collected for analysis.
(Reporting by Nia Williams in British Columbia; Editing by Richard Chang)
