The world’s largest oil sands plant has been operating since 1978 as a zero liquid discharge facility and has every intention of pursuing ways of operation that will allow it to continue being a zero discharge facility. However, the practice of containment or impounding of process affected water is under severe pressure as water is released from improved fine tails management processes and closure obligations are confronted.
Aggressively rising to this challenge in keeping with the company’s commitment to the protection of the environment while securing Canada’s energy future, resources have been mobilized to seek an optimum solution. This paper discuses work that was recently conducted to assess the application of existing and emerging technologies to provide the best means to discharge water if necessary, or to allow even greater recycle/reuse within the plants. This paper reviews the reasons why discharge could be necessary, our experience in going through the initial phases of the regulatory process to establish possible discharge limits for contaminants and the options available for reuse.
Keywords: discharge, oilsands, Alberta, regulatory, limits, Syncrude, Suncor, wastewater.