Canada's Suncor says "negligible" impact from waste water spill

(Reuters) - The spillage of industrial waste water at Suncor Energy Inc's main oil sands project had a limited impact on the local river, Canada's No. 1 oil producer said.

Waste water from Suncor's oil sands operation north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, escaped on Monday morning when a pipe broke after freezing.

The Athabasca River is the main source of drinking water for aboriginal and other communities downstream and has been the subject of several controversial reports on its water quality.

"Based on modeling, preliminary volume calculations and the current flow rate of the river, the process affected water may have had a short term, negligible impact on the river," company spokeswoman Sneh Seetal said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.

An estimated 350 cubic meters of contaminated water was released into the river over a 10-hour period, the company said, adding that it did not contain tar-like bitumen.

Oil sands firms store contaminated water, a byproduct of stripping bitumen from the sands, in holding ponds.

Those ponds became the focus of environmental protests in 2008, when 1,600 ducks died after landing on a tailings pond operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd.

While new regulations introduced after the mass duck deaths aim to eliminate the toxic ponds, they remain controversial because of the risk of spills into the Athabasca River.

"This process affected water was mixed with treated water, prior to entering the river," Suncor said. "The ratio was approximately six parts treated water to one part process-affected water."

(Reporting by Ratul Ray Chaudhuri in Bangalore; Editing by Joseph Radford)

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Water escapes Suncor oil sands pond into Athabasca River

By Scott Haggett

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Contaminated water may have spilled into the Athabasca River from a broken pipe at Suncor Energy Inc's oil sands project in northern Alberta, sparking new fears about pollution of the river from the massive oil sands developments along its banks.

The Athabasca is the main source of drinking water for aboriginal and other communities downstream and has been the subject of several controversial reports on its water quality.

The province of Alberta's environment department said it does not yet know whether the water that spilled from a holding pond contained toxic materials. Samples from the pond are being sent for analysis and it will take at least a day before results are returned. Environment department staff have been at the project site north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, since early on Monday.

Wayne Wood, a spokesman for provincial Environment Minister Diana McQueen, said the volume of water sent into the river has not yet been determined.

"We're on the ground monitoring the situation," Wood said. "The pipe got turned off relatively fast."

Suncor, Canada's No. 1 oil producer, and other oil sands companies store contaminated water, a byproduct of stripping tar-like bitumen from the sands, in holding ponds. Those ponds became the focus of environmental protests in 2008, when 1,600 ducks died after landing on a tailings pond operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd.

While new regulations introduced after the mass deaths aim to eliminate the toxic ponds, they remain controversial because of the risk of spills into the Athabasca River.

"No one in Alberta should have to be worried about the safety of their drinking supply but that's exactly the situation we have," Mike Hudema, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Canada, said in a statement.

Suncor said the industrial waste water from its oil sands extraction and upgrading operations escaped on Monday morning after a four-inch pipe broke after freezing, spilling the water into a partially frozen outflow pond containing treated water.

However Sneh Seetal, a spokeswoman for the company, said Suncor is not yet certain that any of the water actually flowed into the Athabasca.

"We do not know if this process-affected water was released into the river," Seetal said. "We are analyzing samples of the pond and the river as part of the investigation."

Seetal said Suncor's oil sands project was operating normally despite the spill.

Suncor shares were up 9 Canadian cents at C$30.82 at midday on Tuesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

($1=$1.02 Canadian)

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Peter Galloway)

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