Interactions and uptake of trace elements during the reclamation of tailings water and the surrounding landscape at Lake Miwasin

油砂为20多万加拿大人提供了就业机会，迄今为止的资本支出超过2430亿美元;然而，采矿和炼油业务因其对环境的影响而受到严厉批评。尾矿池的形象唤起了特别负面的情绪，妨碍了知情的理解，阻止了加拿大国内外的平衡价值评估。事实上，公司被要求将100%的土地归还给一个自给自足的生态系统，包括当地的植被和野生动物。因此，为矿山和尾矿池开发有效的补救技术对于复垦和社会许可至关重要。评估填海的有效性需要通过全面的测试和可靠的数据来全面了解潜在的影响。还需要这些信息，以确保填海将产生安全和适合最终用户的景观，包括土著社区和野生动物。这一伙伴关系将产生关于缩小处理景观中环境过程的新知识，旨在展示和解决新的油砂尾矿处理过程，以支持生态影响评估以及相关的油砂坑湖复垦和关闭。SWAMP实验室将专注于通过景观的微量元素（TE）的输入，转换和输出，以确保它们的形式和浓度是安全的。这将包括开发环境监测、环境毒理学和农业实践的新技术。活动将包括：1）量化降水化学、水停留时间和冻融过程对土壤溶液中TE分布和流动性的影响; 2）量化土壤性质与植物对TE吸收之间的关系; 3）量化湖水和沉积物性质与水生生物对TE吸收之间的关系。

The oil sands provide over 200,000 Canadians with employment and represent over $243 billion in capital expenditures to date; however, mining and refining operations are heavily criticized for their environmental impacts. The image of tailings ponds evoke especially negative sentiments that preclude informed understanding, preventing a balanced value assessment both within Canada and abroad. In fact, companies are required to return 100% of the land to a self-sustaining ecosystem with local vegetation and wildlife. Hence, developing effective remediation technologies for mines and tailings ponds is critical for both reclamation and social licensing. Assessing the effectiveness of reclamation requires complete knowledge about potential impacts developed through comprehensive testing and reliable data. This information is also needed to ensure that reclamation will produce landscapes that are safe and suitable for end users, including Indigenous communities and wildlife. This partnership will generate new knowledge about environmental processes in a scaled-down treatment landscape designed to demonstrate and troubleshoot a new oil sands tailings treatment process, to support the assessment of ecological impacts and the associated reclamation and closure of oil sands pit lakes. The SWAMP lab will focus on the inputs, transformations and outputs of trace elements (TEs) through the landscape to ensure that they are in forms and concentrations that are safe. This will include developing new technologies for environmental monitoring, environmental toxicology, and agricultural practices. Activities will include: 1) Quantify the impact of precipitation chemistry, water residence time, and freeze-thaw processes on TE distributions and mobility in soil solutions; 2) Quantify relationships between soil properties and the uptake of TEs by plants; 3) Quantify relationships between lake water and sediment properties vs. uptake of TEs by aquatic organisms.