Residual Bitumen
N 56.51.42 W 111.20.35 Suncor South, Alberta, Canada

Detail of a tar or bitumen slick on the surface of Suncor’s newest tar pond. A massive dike and a huge man-made lake are the first signs of the tar sands development north of Fort McMurray. While the residual bitumen (having escaped the bitumen extraction process) is quite dramatic, the brown water and sludge might be of more concern; it is saturated with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and naphthenic acids. After 40 years there is still no process to properly dispose of effluent.