2nd UPDATE: 230 Waterfowl Die Landing In Syncrude Tailings Pond

More waterfowl landed on a Syncrude Canada Ltd. tailings pond filled with toxic mining waste and at least 230 have died, just days after the oil-sands mining company agreed to pay C$3 million for the deaths of more than 1,600 ducks in a tailings pond two years ago.

The waterfowl landed in the Syncrude pond Monday evening, and many were heavily oiled by the tailings, which are mixture of clay, water and residual oil cast off by the oil sands mining process. A Syncrude spokeswoman didn't disclose how many landed, and said the company is still trying to save the lives of the remaining birds.

The latest incident is the worst since the deaths of more than 1,600 ducks at a Syncrude pond in April 2008. The 2008 deaths were a major blow to the oil-sands industry's reputation, and touched off a court case that ended last week after Syncrude agreed to a C$3 million fine, part of which will go toward environmental research.

"This has hit us really hard. We've spent the last two years trying to learn from the 2008 incident and we've invested a lot of time and effort in making changes to our bird deterrent system," Syncrude spokeswoman Cheryl Robb said.

Oil-sands producers put in place bird-deterrent systems after the 2008 incident; scarecrow-like dummies now stand in oil-sands tailings ponds and the air is filled with the popping sound of air-cannon noisemakers designed to scare birds away.

Robb said it wasn't immediately clear why the bird-deterrent systems didn't work, and the company is conducting a full investigation. Robb said the company's initial suspicion is that a freezing rain storm had forced the birds to find a place to land, despite the extra deterrents, including air horns and flares, that the company used to try to scare them away.

"I cannot express how disappointed and frustrated I am that this incident occurred," Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner said in the release. "Albertans deserve answers to why this happened again, and we will do everything we can to get those answers quickly."

Canada's left-leaning New Democratic Party asked the federal government to conduct a full investigation of the latest waterfowl landing. A spokesman for the conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the government takes the issue "very seriously."

"The oil sands must be developed in the most environmentally responsible way. Environment Canada enforcement officials will investigate, and where appropriate, charges may be laid," Harper's parliamentary secretary, Pierre Poilievre, said during a question period in the House of Commons.

Syncrude is a joint venture owned by Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., Imperial Oil Ltd. (IMO, IMO.T), Mocal Energy Ltd., Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR), Nexen Inc. (NXY, NXY.T), Sinopec (SNP, 600028.SH) and Suncor Energy Inc. (SU, SU.T).

-By Edward Welsch, Dow Jones Newswires; 403-229-9095; edward.welsch@dowjones.com

(Nirmala Menon contributed to this article.)

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