Research as reconciliation: Oil sands and health

(Press-News.org) Canada’s government and health science sectors should commit to researching the health effects of oil sands tailings, as previous research suggests that air, water, and land contaminations negatively affect local people’s health, authors urge in a CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) commentaryhttps://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.240643.

The Alberta oil sands occupy a large area of land, and Indigenous Peoples as well as others have expressed concern about the health impacts of oil sands and tailings ponds. A community-led study showed elevated levels of contaminants in some animal food sources, such as duck and moose, as well as a higher rate of rare cancers in the local population. 

The authors call for rigorous studies looking at the health impacts of these environmental contaminants on human health.

“The first thing to understand is that water flows northwards up past the oil sands through one of the world’s most epic waterways — all the way to the Arctic Ocean,” says Dr. Courtney Howard, clinical associate professor, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. “When I moved to the Northwest Territories (NWT) 14 years ago to work at the territorial hospital, one of the first questions the Elders asked me was whether the oil sands were harming health in downstream communities. We still haven’t done a decent study to answer that question. Tailings ponds are now twice the size of the city of Vancouver, in close proximity to the river system.  We don’t even know the health impacts of the situation we’re in, let alone understand what could happen if that toxic material does not stay in situ.”

Coauthor Dr. Nicole Redvers, who is based at Western University, notes that her First Nations community in the NWT is fed by waterways that go through the oil sands. She remarks that “for years, we have been sharing our concerns about the health of the water, and the impacts that the oil sands operation is having on downstream communities’ health and wellbeing. We are long overdue for a comprehensive community-led health study that meets First Nation calls for action, and addresses the substantial gaps in the evidence for cumulative exposures from the overt to the micro effects, covering direct pathology to more quiet hormonal and epigenetic impacts that often get ignored. The time for reconciliation is now.”

Dr. Howard and coauthors note in the article that “the health sector in Canada must fulfill its commitments to implement calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to protect the environment and the health of Indigenous Peoples. These TRC commitments therefore naturally extend to oil-sands-affected communities and require rigorous, comprehensive, and adequately funded studies.”

“As external threats to Canadian sovereignty mount, our priceless clean water is becoming of ever-greater value in a hotter world. We must prevent the tragedy of irreversibly polluting a globally significant waterway in the sunset of the Age of Oil,” they conclude.

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