A tailings pond is a wet storage area for tailings that allows them to be continuously submerged. (Some tailings can also be stored under “dry covers” such as soil.) The technical name for a tailings pond or other storage site is a “tailings impoundment area.”

All mines generate waste, one type of which is known as “tailings”. Often these solid wastes are stored at or near the mine site itself. Mine site rehabilitation can be expensive, and often the burden falls on the taxpayer rather than the mining company.

The contaminated tailings ponds attract and kill migrating birds. They emit methane and other greenhouse gases. Despite years of public promises from officials that the tailings ponds would shrink and go away, they are growing.

Tailings ponds are engineered dam and dyke facilities used for storage of tailings materials. Tailing ponds are also used to enable water to separate from the tailings. Water from the tailings ponds is recycled back into the extraction process, reducing the use of fresh water from the Athabasca River and other sources.

Suncor claimed the mature fines tailings process would reduce the number of tailing ponds and shorten the time to reclaim a tailing pond from 40 years at present to 7–10 years, with land rehabilitation continuously following 7 to 10 years behind the mining operations.

Toxic tailing ponds, which are by-products of tar sands extraction, are a serious environmental problem. These poisonous ponds continue to grow and grow. The Alberta government has allowed the environmental cost and economic liability of the oil sands industry’s tailings ponds to grow for nearly fifty years.

Tailings ponds are an integral component of oil sands surface mining operations, but they are not required for in-situ extraction. Tailings are a leftover mixture of fine clay, sand, water, and residual bitumen after the bitumen is recovered from the oil sands in the extraction process.

Tailings ponds are lined with compacted sand and a layer of fine clay. The clay has a low permeability rate which helps prevent tailings water from seeping into the groundwater. Vertical pumping wells are installed around the perimeter of the tailings dyke (or dam).

Oil sands operations have site-specific wildlife mitigation and monitoring plans in place that require regulatory authorization and reporting of results. These plans typically include footprint reduction initiatives, wildlife deterrents, habitat enhancement, on lease reclamation, off lease restoration, and monitoring.

The negative impacts from the tar sands include: The loss of habitat land, pollutants released into the air and water, loss of water from nearby waterways, decrease in wildlife populations, more tailings ponds, higher cancer rates among indigenous people, and oil spills through the distribution of these refined oils.

Destroying these forests accelerates the release of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, an important component of climate warming. Further, it is estimated that the mining of oil sands creates more carbon pollution than conventional crude oil extraction, contributing to climate warming [10].

Oil destroys the insulating ability of fur-bearing mammals, such as sea otters, and the water repellency of a bird’s feathers, thus exposing these creatures to the harsh elements. Without the ability to repel water and insulate from the cold water, birds and mammals will die from hypothermia.

Oil and gas drilling has serious consequences for our wildlands and communities. Drilling projects operate around the clock, disrupting wildlife, water sources, human health, recreation and other aspects of public lands that were set aside and held in trust for the American people.

Exploring and drilling for oil may disturb land and marine ecosystems. Seismic techniques used to explore for oil under the ocean floor may harm fish and marine mammals. Drilling an oil well on land often requires clearing an area of vegetation.

The main alternatives to oil and gas energy include nuclear power, solar power, ethanol, and wind power.

By most estimates, there’s enough natural gas to produce about 1.6 trillion barrels of oil. Still, the figure offers a hint at the extent of the world’s reserves: more than all the petroleum ever consumed — roughly 830 billion barrels — and enough to fuel the world for some 60 years at current rates of consumption.

Proponents of the abiogenic theory often claim that the supply of oil from the earth is effectively limitless. However, it is possible (and relatively easy) to deplete oil deposits, and, once depleted, they do not appear to refill.

As such, crude oil is part of a self-regulating system of biological and geological processes which has stabilized CO2 levels and thus temperature on earth. Chemical reactions with CO2 during the weathering of rocks is another process that adds to this homeostasis.

Spilt oil can pollute streams, rivers and, if it soaks through the soil and rock, groundwater. We must protect them both from pollution. Oil is toxic and harmful to plants and animals and a threat to their habitats.

Each year over 500,000 birds die worldwide due to oil spills. The recent BP oil rig disaster or the coast of Louisiana is a major ecological disaster, and the effects have been devastating.