Page 22 - Suncor 360 - January 2015

FEATURE
Fen-omenal progress
We have some good news: the Nikanotee Fen is performing as designed.
Over the past year, a team of researchers from the University of Waterloo and Colorado State University has been working with Oil Sands Reclamation to monitor and evaluate the fen to determine whether it’s acting like a natural watershed.
“We are finding that the fen remains wet through the seasonal weather cycles we’ve experienced so far, and that some of the plants in the fen are spreading naturally,” says Josh Martin, reclamation R&D co-ordinator.
In 2013, Suncor became one of the first companies in the world to construct this type of a wetland.
Located at our oil sands base plant, the fen was designed to be fed by groundwater, with a water table at or just below the surface. Researchers are finding the water table of the fen ranges from surface ponds to about 20 centimetres (about eight inches) below the surface.
While the upland portion of the watershed has a water table below the design level, researchers say they’re not concerned.
“We anticipated that it may take some time to recharge the upland aquifer, in part because the topsoil is too compacted. But this should improve over time. The good news is that the water that is reaching the fen is generally of good quality. That is, it is not transporting too much sodium or naphthenic acids with it from the underlying base which was constructed using sand and coke from our operations,” Josh explains.
Nikanotee Fen is also showing a net gain of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, just as you’d expect in a natural fen. Peat is accumulating as predicted, and plants are growing.
The research is also evaluating the success of different planting methods, including transplanting moss from another location, planting seeds and seedlings, and the use of mulch. Plants have even emerged from the moss donor material, and water sedges are spreading into control plots where no planting was done.
Looking ahead to the next growing season, Josh believes that Nikanotee will continue to impress. “This is the first time we’ve ever constructed a fen watershed. Not only are we learning a lot about how the design works, we’re sharing that knowledge with others in the industry, to advance the science of reclamation.”
Nikanotee Fen has now become a joint industry project, contributed by Suncor to other members of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA).
An artist's rendering of Nikanotee Fen's completion.
Christine Daly, senior sustainability advisor, land & reclamation, discusses the fen process with colleagues.
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