First Nations leaders and approximately 100 supporters gathered in Fort McMurray earlier this month to reject the Alberta government’s proposal to release treated oil sands tailings into the Athabasca River system. The river is a lifeline for Indigenous communities that have already endured decades of environmental and health impacts.

The rally, organized by Mikisew Cree Nation and attended by Treaty 8 Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi as well as other Treaty leaders, signals the beginning of what they promise will be a long-term fight involving legal action and continued public pressure against the so-called “treat and release” approach to the polluted byproducts of oil extraction.

A crisis of health and trust

Indigenous communities downstream from oil sands operations have experienced alarming rates of rare cancers for years, and they believe the contamination is directly linked to industrial activity upstream.

Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro of Mikisew Cree First Nation in Fort Chipewyan delivered a stark message to government officials and industry representatives at the rally. “People choose their wealth over our health,” he said. “I made mention to Prime Minister Carney — if they want our consent, they can make a pipeline from here, take it to Calgary and Ottawa, and they can drink the water first because we’re tired of being their Guinea pigs.”

Mikisew Cree elder Margo Vermillion spoke emotionally at the rally about the toll the oil sands has taken on her community and the legacy being left for future generations. “I was just visiting people here in Fort McMurray that have cancer in our communities. It’s our grandchildren that I worry about so much. Our children, yet to be born. What are we leaving them? What are they leaving them?” she said.

“If they want our consent… they can drink the water first because we’re tired of being their Guinea pigs.”

“They didn’t ask for any of this. They didn’t ask for the poison waters, to have all this destruction in our region. Flying over from Fort Chip to come to Fort McMurray, it breaks my heart because I see all of industry, what they’re doing to our lands.”

Vermillion emphasized the Indigenous responsibility to speak for the natural world. “The trees and water may not have a voice, but as Indigenous peoples they are our relations. We have to stand our ground and speak on behalf of our waters, our trees, our lands, our animals and especially our grandchildren. We need to say no to “treat and release.” We don’t want that to happen, we don’t need any more sickness in our communities. We want to be able to drink our fresh water again.”

The frustration stems from years of watching community members fall ill while governments and industry prioritize oil sands expansion. Dr. John O’Connor, a physician who worked in Fort Chipewyan for years, was among the first to sound the alarm about elevated rates of rare bile duct cancer in the community.

“This is absolutely a nightmare situation,” Dr. O’Connor said in an interview with Ricochet. He expressed disbelief that after decades of independent scientific research confirming the “toxic nature of tailings pond water,” governments would consider releasing it into waterways. “These ponds were never meant to hold anything. They’re not lined. So things are constantly seeping into the groundwater, [they’re] already impacting surface water and animals and the environment.”

The provincial push

Last month, Alberta’s Oil Sands Mine Water Steering Committee released recommendations calling for new treatment technologies, increased community monitoring, and the establishment of standards for releasing treated oil sands mine water. The province accepted all recommendations and committed to developing an accelerated plan.

Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Schulz stated that doing nothing while mine water continues accumulating is not sustainable, calling the recommendations “a path forward to responsibly manage these waters and grow energy production while protecting the environment and communities downstream.”

Premier Danielle Smith has instructed Schulz to finalize and publicly release an accelerated strategy for oil sands mine water management and tailings pond reclamation.

The urgency, according to provincial officials and industry representatives, stems from practical necessity. As of 2023, Alberta’s oil sands tailings ponds contain more than 1.3 billion cubic meters of water—over a trillion liters—including both process-affected water and captured precipitation. Without the ability to release treated water, continued operations and eventual reclamation become increasingly difficult.

“As I expected, the latest government-created oil sands committee has put forward a requirement for something that is yet unproven.”

Responding to concerns raised by Indigenous leaders, Ryan Fournier, Press Secretary to Minister Schulz, provided a statement to Ricochet outlining the province’s position on the steering committee’s recommendations.

“We cannot continue to ignore this challenge or let water keep accumulating for 50 more years. We need to keep working together to find practical and effective solutions that protect Indigenous rights, people and the environment for years to come,” Fournier wrote.

He added that the province is proceeding with caution: “After extensive study and analysis, Alberta’s independent Oil Sands Mine Water Steering Committee released 9 recommendations, including that Alberta and the federal government expedite establishing release standards for treated oil sands mine water. We are reviewing how the committee’s recommendations can be safely and effectively put into practice. This will include developing a plan and engaging with First Nations and others before any standards are set for safe treat and release.”

Sarah Elmeligi, NDP MLA for Banff-Kananaskis and Shadow Minister for Environment and Protected Areas, expressed concerns about both the government’s approach and the lack of concrete action.

“There can be no doubt that we need better management and reclamation of oil sands tailings. We need to make sure that tailings ponds are managed in a way that doesn’t impact downstream communities,” Elmeligi told Ricochet. “As I expected, the latest government-created oil sands committee has put forward a requirement for something that is yet unproven. I understand the need to create standards before the technologies can be refined and tested but I also appreciate the concern raised by community members that this government cannot be trusted to define sufficiently robust standards that protect all of our communities from pollution.”

Elmeligi criticized the committee’s recommendations as insufficient: “The latest report recommendations still read like a wish list rather than an action plan, and what Albertans need is action. I believe we have the innovativeness and incredibly smart people in Alberta who can meet this challenge, [and] I look forward to supporting them in ways that make sense for the technology, all our communities, and the environment.”

Despite these assurances from the provincial government and calls for action from the opposition, Indigenous leaders at Friday’s rally expressed deep skepticism about commitments to meaningful consultation. They question whether their concerns will be treated as an afterthought in decision-making processes that directly affect their health, lands, and treaty rights.

Federal involvement and Indigenous consultation

The federal government is also developing its own regulatory framework for oil sands tailings management. Environment and Climate Change Canada established a Crown-Indigenous Working Group in 2021 with nine Indigenous communities to explore options for managing the accumulation of oil sands process-affected water in tailings ponds.

Currently, the Fisheries Act prohibits the deposit of deleterious substances in water bodies containing fish unless authorized by federal regulation. No such regulation exists for oil sands mines, meaning there is currently no federal authorization to release oil sands process-affected water as effluent.

Keean Nembhard, Press Secretary for the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, provided a statement to Ricochet, “The Government of Canada is committed to ensuring that decisions affecting the environment are based on the best available science and respect Indigenous rights and interests,” Nembhard said. “The federal government takes seriously the concerns raised by Indigenous communities in the Athabasca water systems region about tailings pond safety.”

“They didn’t ask for any of this. They didn’t ask for the poison waters, to have all this destruction in our region.”

However, Indigenous leaders have expressed frustration that despite the establishment of the working group, meaningful progress on protecting their communities has been slow, and they remain concerned about being pressured to accept inadequate solutions.

In March 2024, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, along with advocacy groups Keepers of the Water and Environmental Defence, formally requested that federal officials assess naphthenic acids found in oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) to determine whether they should be designated as toxic substances.

The request, submitted by environmental law organization Ecojustice on behalf of the three groups, argues that naphthenic acids in oil sands process-affected water were improperly excluded from a previous federal assessment of “commercial naphthenic acids” despite constituting “the vast majority of NAs and the sources through which they are entering or may enter the environment in Canada.”

The comprehensive 26-page submission details how naphthenic acids are entering the environment in significant quantities through tailings pond seepage, outlines their harmful effects on fish, amphibians, and other aquatic organisms, and emphasizes the vulnerability of Indigenous communities downstream from oil sands operations.

“NAs are considered the major toxic component of OSPW and are among the most persistent compounds in OSPW,” the request states. “NAs exhibit toxic effects through multiple modes of action including narcosis and endocrine disruption.”

The submission emphasizes that ACFN and other Indigenous Peoples in the region qualify as “vulnerable populations” under CEPA due to their greater exposure to contaminants through reliance on traditional foods, their proximity to industrial development, existing health concerns in their communities, and the historical impacts of colonization.

“ACFN and other Indigenous Peoples in the Athabasca oil sands region are ‘vulnerable populations’ who, due to greater susceptibility and greater exposure, face ‘increased risk of experiencing adverse health effects’ from OSPW NAs,” the request argues. “Located close to oil sands operations, they face some of the highest degrees of pollution exposure and environmental injustice in Canada.”

The request also identifies the Athabasca oil sands region itself as a “vulnerable environment,” noting that Senator Jane McCallum specifically referenced the region as an example when the term was added to CEPA during parliamentary debates on Bill S-5.

Environmental Defence is working to have naphthenic acids listed as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which would provide additional regulatory tools to protect communities. Cassie Barker, Senior Program Manager for Toxics at Environmental Defense noted that her organization is nominating naphthenic acids for assessment and providing evidence demonstrating their toxicity to fish, even though comprehensive research on human health effects remains limited.

Indigenous leaders say action on the issue is long overdue. Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi argued that despite years of advocacy by First Nations, federal regulations have not advanced in ways that protect communities.

“How are they going to rectify the issue? By dumping it into the Athabasca River?” Chief Mercredi asked. “And no matter what is said and done, those releases will be toxic. They call it treat and release, and the regulations are controlled by the federal government. And they haven’t made a move one way or another to improve those regulations, no matter how hard the chiefs have been pushing.”

Chief Mercredi noted that industry representatives have told him it would only cost an additional two dollars per barrel to improve treatment to acceptable levels, but they are hesitant to invest the extra funds. “So that tells me that it’s profits over lives, it’s profits over health, and that’s what the people here are dealing with time and time again.”

“When you see the level of harm that is visible from space that these nations are dealing with… “

Oil sands process-affected water contains many compounds that may be harmful to the environment if released without treatment, including metals, salts, naphthenic acids, petroleum hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other organic compounds.

The industry argues that treatment technologies exist and have been proven effective. The Mining Association of Canada states that while other types of mines in Canada are allowed to release treated water to aquatic environments under stringent regulatory requirements, oil sands mines have had to retain process water and accumulated precipitation since operations began. They claim that proven treatment technologies already exist for common contaminants, and that operators have demonstrated processes to treat unique constituents like naphthenic acids to safe levels.

However, environmental experts and Indigenous communities remain deeply skeptical. In an interview with Ricochet, Environmental Defence’s Barker emphasized that it’s an issue of trust and proven effectiveness.

“There are no examples of industry doing this type of treatment at scale and being able to ensure that the downstream communities will have no further exposure to these substances, such as naphthenic acids,” Barker explained. She noted that these extraction processes concentrate naturally-occurring substances to levels thousands of times higher than would be found in the environment.

The province’s desire to rush toward industry-framed solutions before this assessment is complete is “unacceptable,” she said.

Dr. O’Connor questioned why, if such a breakthrough in treatment technology had occurred, it wasn’t celebrated as a major scientific achievement. “I would have expected that if there was a science that suddenly made a major breakthrough and said we can treat and make this toxic tailings pond water fit for consumption or fit for exposure, that surely would have been like a dramatic banner headline,” he said. “It would have gone everywhere. It would have been, I’m sure, nominated for some sort of scientific prize for such a major work. Nothing like that has ever happened, and suddenly it can be treated and released. Come on.”

Environmental racism and rights

Many see the situation as a clear case of environmental racism — a pattern whereby Indigenous communities and communities of color disproportionately bear the burden of environmental hazards.

When asked directly whether this constitutes environmental racism, Barker said, “When you see the level of harm that is visible from space that these nations are dealing with… what other examples are as egregious as the tailings and the decades of negligence that have created this crisis?”

She emphasized that Indigenous nations have borne the burden of hiring their own scientists, policy experts, and industry liaisons to force governments and international corporations to address the problem. “This has been the very polite request from nations being done over the decades since this problem started, and the level of ignorance and silencing and violence that these communities deal with is egregious, and of course would never happen to any other community in Edmonton,” Barker said. “The fancy postal codes of Edmonton would certainly not suffer a day of this treatment, let alone decades.”

Dr. O’Connor was even more direct in his assessment. If the proposal moves forward against the consent of impacted communities, “it should go to the UN,” he said, “and it should be opposed based on discrimination, environmental discrimination, racism, and genocide. This is planned genocide.”

He noted that health issues have already arisen from seepage of tailings water into the river system and environment. “If we’ve seen the health impact from this type of exposure, it is a nightmare to even think about what impact it could [have] with this so-called treat and release. This is absolutely discriminatory. It would not happen if industry was upstream of Calgary or Edmonton.”

For the Mikisew Cree Nation, this fight is just beginning. Chief Tuccaro stated: “By moving forward on treat-and-release regulations, the government of Alberta is showing it cares more about solving industry problems than protecting people’s lives. Using unproven technology to treat oil tailings before releasing them into a waterway that is a crucial resource for our people is unacceptable. We have seen elevated cancer in our community already; this will only make it worse. Our peoples’ lives are at stake and the government of Alberta must act.”

The nation has committed to pursuing legal challenges and continued public advocacy.

Meanwhile, the Fort Chipewyan Health Study — a community-led initiative funded by the Government of Canada and conducted by Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, and the Fort Chipewyan Métis Nation — is currently underway to document the health impacts of oil sands development on community members.

Barker hopes naphthenic acids will soon be declared toxic under CEPA, which would provide additional regulatory tools to protect communities.

“Industry has been allowed to kill water in the province. They’ve been allowed to steal it, they’ve been allowed to keep it, they’ve been allowed to abuse it. This is its own form of harm,” said Barker.