Oil Sands Minining Almost as Bad as Urban Dwelling

A scare article from the New Your Times, that eventually gets to the heart of the matter:

“Now we have the smoking gun,” Professor Smol said.

He said he was not surprised that the analysis found a rise in PAH deposits after the industrial development of the oil sands, “but we needed the data.” He said he had not entirely expected, however, to observe the effect at the most remote test site, a lake that is about 50 miles to the north.

Asked about the study, Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, emphasized in an e-mail that with the exception of one lake very close to the oil sands, the levels of contaminants measured by the researchers “did not exceed Canadian guidelines and were low compared to urban areas.”

So there you have it, living at an oil sands mining area is cleaner than living in the city, not that I'd want to do that.

I have been involved in several studies measuring PAHs in the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.  They're loaded.