Program ID: Innovation Anthology #391
Program Date: 04/19/2011
Program Category: Energy, Environment, Oil Sands, Water
CONRAD Part 7: Dr. Howard Wheater on Oil Sands Impacts
Development of Alberta’s oil sands poses a significant risk for water resources in Canada’s boreal forest.
That’s why Dr. Howard Wheater will be focusing on what he calls a complex set of problems of global industrial and environmental significance.
Dr. Wheater is the new Canada Excellence Research Chair in Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan.
DR. HOWARD WHEATER: So we’ve identified some thematic areas that we think that are important. And that includes really large scale experimental work in the field to look at the performance of managed soil covers and wetlands and end pit lakes. We see the need for improved understanding of the chemistry and improved analytical tools, We’ve got some great expertise in the university because we have the country’s only Canadian Light Source. And then we’re also interested in the environmental effects. And we’ve got some, again, great expertise in eco-toxicology that can be brought to bear on that using advance techniques, including genomics.
As a modeler, Dr. Wheater is also working on new tools to predict the long term performance of remediation efforts under climate change.
Thanks today to Syncrude Canada Ltd
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
