Alberta’s oilsands are releasing potentially hazardous compounds into the atmosphere at rates dozens of times higher than official estimates, newly published research suggests.
The authors say the massive releases of volatile organic compounds, separate from the industry’s climate-change-causing emissions, raise concerns about what those hundreds of complex, highly reactive chemicals are doing in the environment.
“It’s difficult to know,” said John Liggio, an atmospheric scientist with Environment Canada who worked with a group from Yale University on the paper, which was published in the journal Science.