Since Suncor opened Canada's first oil sands mine in 1967, our operations have disturbed approximately 17,749 hectares of land. As of the end of 2008, the company had reclaimed approximately 1,019 hectares, or about 5.7 percent of the total land disturbance to date.

Reclamation takes place once the disturbed land is no longer part of active operations. Suncor expects the rate of reclamation to accelerate significantly as the amount of land available for reclamation increases.

Recent Innovations

Reclamation techniques are constantly evolving and improving. In 2007 and 2008, Suncor made some significant strides in how quickly—and how well—it reclaims disturbed lands.

Mining oil sands ore requires digging about 50 metres below the surface. The soil that's removed is known as overburden and has to be stored in an overburden storage area, usually situated close to the mine site. Once the overburden is removed and the ore extracted, a pit is created. These pits are often filled back in with liquid tailings from the extraction process.

In 2007, Suncor began reclaiming a 50-hectare overburden storage area that was created in the 1990s at our Steepbank mine. We completed surface reclamation in 2008. Instead of the muskeg soil typically used in past reclamations, for the first time we salvaged upland soil that's found along the escarpments of the Steepbank and Athabasca rivers. The soil is drier and, when placed on the top of the storage area, mimics the better drainage properties of the escarpment landscapes, increasing natural regeneration.

There were other innovations. Some of the trees cleared by Suncor to allow for mining were chopped up and the woody debris placed on the reclaimed dump site. The debris shields the soil from the sun and allows it to remain more moist, promoting greater biodiversity. As well, about 20 of the dead or dying trees from Suncor's clearing operations were placed upright on the reclaimed lands. These so-called “snag trees” are expected to act as perches for raptor birds.

“We did a lot of cool things on this dump and regulators who have been on site have called this a “best-in-class” reclamation,” says Suncor's Melinda Mamer, Supervisor, Reclamation Planning. “We continue to work with universities and consulting groups on research projects to further refine reclamation techniques on this site.”

The decade-long lag between the creation of the Steepbank overburden dump and its reclamation was typical of past industry efforts. But Suncor is aiming to reclaim disturbed lands as they are created. Mine Dump 5, an overburden storage area in Suncor's Millennium Mine, is an example of what's known as progressive reclamation.

As soon as the 160-hectare Mine Dump 5 was created in 2008, Suncor began reclaiming it. Enough progress was made that topsoil was placed on the overburden and seeded with the usual barley nurse crop by the spring of 2009. Following fertilization, tree planting will occur a few months later.

“This is the wave of the future,” says Mamer. “Progressive reclamation is now built into mine operating plans for real-time improvement.”

Work also proceeded on what will be an industry milestone—the first surface reclamation of an oil sands tailings pond. Infilling of Suncor's Pond 1 to create a solid landscape ready for final reclamation continued throughout 2007 and 2008.

The Certification Issue

Questions have been raised about why so few of the lands described by the oil sands industry as “reclaimed” have been certified as such by government regulators. Part of the answer is that under the current regulations companies can only apply for a reclamation certificate when the lands in question are fully functioning ecosystems—and that can take many years to achieve. For example, even when surface reclamation of Suncor's Pond 1 is well underway in 2010, and after all the trees are planted, it will take at least another 15 years to reach the “free-to-grow” standard required for certification.

But even when reclamation has run its full course, there are additional reasons why industry is reluctant to seek certification under the current regulations. Reclaimed lands that have been certified revert to Crown ownership and can be accessed by the public. Since most of the reclaimed land is adjacent to, or entirely within ongoing operating areas, granting public access to such lands would create a concern for public safety.

Land Disturbance and In Situ Technology

As the oil sands industry grows, the ratio of land being disturbed by development is expected to decline. That's because more of the oil will be extracted using in situ technology to retrieve bitumen buried too deep to be reached by mining. In situ operations disturb only 15 percent of the land required for traditional mining operations and do not produce tailings ponds.

While it's true that lands surrounding in situ facilities are affected by a network of roads, seismic lines, power corridors and pipelines, many of these impacts can be mitigated through technological innovation and better land management. Suncor helped pioneer equipment to build low-impact seismic lines that significantly reduced the amount of land disturbed by natural gas, in situ and pipeline development. We've also entered into agreements to share best practices and infrastructure with industry peers and to provide conservation offsets for boreal forest habitat impacted by development.