page_title: Oil sands tailings ponds (Canada)
section_title: Horizon tailings dam
hierarchical_section_title: Oil sands tailings ponds (Canada) / Cost of clean-up / Horizon tailings dam
caption_attribution_description: CNRL Horizon processing plant in the Athabasca Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada. Burn from the 2011 Richardson Fire visible in foreground.
context_page_description: Oil sands tailings ponds are engineered dam and dyke systems used to capture oil sand tailings. Oil sand tailings contain a mixture of salts, suspended solids and other dissolvable chemical compounds such as acids, benzene, hydrocarbons residual bitumen, fine silts and water. Large volumes of tailings are a byproduct of bitumen extraction from the oil sands and managing these tailings is one of the most difficult environmental challenges facing the oil sands industry.
context_section_description: As of 2010, according to the "Mature Fine Tailings Inventory from mine operator tailings plans submitted in October 2009, Canadian Natural Resources's (CNRL) mine, Horizon mine had 48,000,000 cubic metres (1.7×10⁹ cu ft) of mature fine tailings (MFT) in their tailings ponds. However COSIA argues that CNRL's Horizon External Tailings Facility (ETF) is a relatively young pond with a configuration that minimizes the "Pond Centre (PC) depositional environment". It has a "side hill" facility with a three-sided dyke impounding fluid against the natural ground that rises away from the containment dyke."
caption: Horizon tailings dam
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