Tender: Surface Water Quality Sampling of the Athabasca River and Tributaries in the Oil Sands Region

About

The adaptive monitoring program is seeking a supplier for ambient surface water quality sampling throughout the Athabasca River and its tributaries within the Athabasca Oil Sands region. The program supports the OSMP mandate by addressing key monitoring questions and evaluating potential effects of oil sands development on aquatic ecosystems, focusing on priority watersheds where open-pit mining and in situ operations, including Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), are active. Monitoring will measure a suite of physical, chemical, and biological indicators to detect changes and assess potential cumulative effects across the watershed, examining water quality indicators alongside environmental variables to identify drivers of change and the extent to which changes may be associated with oil sands development. Parameters include those associated with bitumen-derived compounds (for example polycyclic aromatic compounds, vanadium, selenium), factors influencing transport and cycling (for example carbon), and indicators of landscape disturbance or altered watershed hydrology and hydrogeology such as nutrients, dissolved and suspended solids, and major ions.