Athabasca River low in heavy metals from oilsands: U of A study

[Seth1968]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/athabasca-river-low-in-heavy-metals-from-oilsands-u-of-a-study-1.2862908

Take it as you will, but for those who claim bias, you might want to question just about every other scientific "study".

Loved the first comment in the article:


Just wait till all the lead and heavy metals in electric cars work their way into the environment

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Arash Boodagh]

Uhh you do know Canada's largest spill happenend in that river last year?
48UhGl1d7tY&

[googe]

Let's pat ourselves on the back because the specific things he measured are low (dissolved lead), even though we know this has nothing to do with all of the other massive contamination and emission problems, some of which are mentioned in the bottom half of the article.

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/files/2011/06/ostrich.jpg

[CompletelyNumb]

I'm on to your tricks Arash.

[AndyL]

How does this surprise anyone? Athabasca is mostly surrounded by muskeg... Aka wetlands - aka mother nature's filtration system... Remember they teach us we need wetlands like the weaslehead - to remove contamination - mosses, plants bacteria grow really well in these areas - and take up the pollutants...

They're a giant biofilter; the Athabasca just happens to have a massive one... We think of the world as a fixed system - we forget that there is a natural reaction for every action. But that's the system in which we live - introduce one waste product - and you introduce a food for some other flora/fauna to thrive on...

[01RedDX]

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[Nitro5]

Originally posted by 01RedDX


I can claim bias because the study is clearly biased; it removes certain important variables, as mentioned in the article. For example:



You don't get to claim bias "just because." For example, if an industry or lobby commissioned a study and directed the scientists to remove certain variables in order to skew results in their favour, that study would be biased.

But if a fully comprehensive study is made purely for scientific purposes, you don't get to claim it is "biased" in favour of science. You don't get to claim something is biased just because you don't like the results. That's not how it works. Except you are one of those people who asserts that any scientific claim they don't agree with is biased. Like the "claim" that vaccines are important in medicine, amirite?

Anyways, liked these comments:

Harper has given the U of Alberta so much money of late that they can not be considered un-bias in any report that comes from them .

"New" research done by and for the benefit of the tar pits through U of A in an attempt to skew all the independent studies that have already been done.

The notion that only dissolved materials count discredits this researcher, not the findings. I'm shocked that his frame of reference is so narrow and poorly informed.

If that's your argument then any study commissioned by anyone is biased. Environmental group pays for a study? Biased!