The Alberta government has ordered four oil sands giants to reduce the amount of water they use from the Athabasca River.
Alberta Environment says water flow levels in the river have dropped into the “yellow” warning zone and withdrawals may increase stress on the ecosystem.
The companies affected are Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc., Syncrude Canada Ltd. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Albian Sands.
All of the projects are located downstream of Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta.
The province says the low water levels are naturally occurring, but noted it's the first time the government has ordered the companies to reduce the amount of river water they use.
Environmental, conservation and aboriginal groups have been critical of the amount of water that oil sands projects use.
If you care to study a map, you'll see that the Athabasca River originates in the Rocky Mountains, its headwaters being the Columbia Icefields. It flows past Jasper, Hinton, Whitecourt, Athabasca and finally Fort McMurray before it empties into Lake Athabasca to the north.
Pop quiz: What phenomenon is causing glaciers the world over to do what?
Pop answer: Climate change is causing them to shrink.
On top of that, oilsands extraction consumes huge quantities of water, meaning water drawn from the Athabasca isn't returned to the waterway.
This isn't new. Observe this May 4, 2006 blog posting: Oil sands development may be sucking the Athabasca River dry.
A month before that, I had this post: Alarming story of the week, about the declining flows of Prairie rivers.
The night before, I'd been at a Canadian Journalism Foundation event on Alberta, referenced in the 'alarming story' post, in which I raised the issue of declining water supplies. Observe this reaction:
A fellow named Rick Spence wrote about the CJF event for Alberta Venture magazine. I got a mention!:
The mood changed when news writer Bill Doskoch, an Albertan by birth, asked about the prospect of oil sinking back to $20 a barrel and the implications of recent studies suggesting that the Prairie water resources are diminishing - and perhaps unable to serve millions of newcomers and all the new oilsands projects.
Taras shrugged off suggestions of $20 oil. Nobody talked about water. But after these two questions, the locals felt a little better. They may not have oil, but they've got that big lake.
So it hasn't sank to US$20 per barrel. It did get down to the low $30 per barrel level before rebounding somewhat, but it's been enough to delay many oilsands projects. That price will eventually come back.
I really wonder about the security of the water supply for the oilsands. It would be especially ironic, given that oilsands oil is such a dirty fuel to produce in terms of GHG emissions, if a changing climate meant substantially less water with which to extract the oil.
If I were an Albertan, I'd be worried about that. But I now live within a 15-minute walk of a big lake.