A six year, $17 million study has concluded there are few associations between cattle health and oil and gas emissions in Western Canada.
More than 33,000 cattle in 205 herds in Alberta, Saskatchewan and northern British Columbia were studied after producers said they believed there was a link between oil industry emissions and the health and productivity of their cattle.
“Exposure is not associated with nonpregnancy and stillborns,” said Tee Guidotti, co-chair of the science advisory panel of the Western Interprovincial Scientific Studies Association, which released the report in Calgary May 18.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
“The most predominant pattern is that there were no associations between the measured exposures and most of the health outcomes,” said Guidotti during the release of the 700-page Western Canada Study of Animal Health Effects Associated with Exposure to Emissions from Oil and Natural Gas Facilities.
While the study looked at half a dozen questions, it was designed to answer two key questions from cattle producers: do emissions affect calf mortality and survival and do emissions affect cow productivity?
Those questions have been the centre of controversy between the oil and gas industry and the cattle industry for years as ranchers questioned what they believed were more frequent livestock health problems near oil and gas flares dotting the Prairies.
While the study found no association between emissions and whether the cattle became pregnant and the frequency of abortions or stillbirths, there were concerns about animal health and productivity in areas with the highest measured concentrations of some emissions.
There was a “notable finding” of an increased risk of mortality for calves born to cows from areas with the highest observed exposures to sulfur dioxide.
Some measures of exposure were also associated with a small increase in the time to calving for the cows, the occurrence of respiratory lesions in calves and a decrease in a few types of specialized white blood cells.
Eric Butters, vice-chair of Alberta Beef Producers, said the results from the experts who studied the information should put the concerns of cattle producers to rest.
“It’s been an issue on the minds of a lot of people,” said Butters.
The findings of the small but statistically significant increase in calf mortality from high exposure do mean more research needs to be done in this area.
“That’s where we need to focus our next research project,” said Butters. “It’s small, but significant.”
Dairy farmer Bill Bocock, who has long had concerns about oil and gas emissions, said he doesn’t know if the study offers him much comfort, but at last the research has been published.
“It at least brings the subject into public attention, which in itself is useful,” said Bocock of St. Albert, Alta.
Cheryl Waldner, a University of Saskatchewan veterinarian and researcher who led the study, placed monitors designed to measure hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds in fields where cattle were kept.
For two years producers and veterinarians monitored the cattle and answered detailed questions about the animals’ health, pregnancy tested each animal and did autopsies on calves and cattle that died. Information about emissions from wells and facilities was then correlated with the animals’ locations.
Waldner said the study was the most comprehensive of its kind ever undertaken in western Canadian herds. Along with information about the impact of the oil and gas industry, researchers also gathered a mountain of research on the health of cattle herds that they will be able to use in future studies.
For example, they learned that herds vaccinated against BVD and IBR were less likely to abort than cattle that weren’t vaccinated.
The study gives comfort to the oil and gas industry as well, said David Pryce, vice-president of western Canadian operations with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“There’s some pretty reassuring messages in there,” said Pryce.
“The study does answer some of the significant questions.”
Even before the study began in 1998, the industry began reducing its flaring (burning off excess gas in wells) as a proactive step.
