Cause for Concern in Canada?

Nothing to see here folks, a few dead animals, around a watering hole. Rabbits, goats, birds. Fizzy water bubbling out of the ground, and a farm family evacuating the family farm in fear of losing their lives. Not as if people go camping in Weyburn. So no chance of people waking up dead after sleeping on the ground.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2011/01/19/CarbonStorage/ It says they are injecting 6000 tonnes per day into the ground (of CO2). That couldn't possibly be right, could it?

"around 18 million metric tons as of July 2010" according to scientific america.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/alleged-leaks-from-carbon-storage-project-questioned/article1869487/

Its carbon storage, not as if it is gas, or anything like gas, is it?

Oops , I farted. Good job it is not CO2, eh? 18 million metric tonnes.

How big is a tonne of CO2 anyway?

I sympathize that these folks have a problem and the cause should be identified. But the figures for CO2 levels really don't support the argument this is the problem, according to the Globe and Mail. 2.3% doesn't compare with the levels known to be toxic elsewhere.

There are two more issues raised in the Globe and Mail article you linked: natural gas and toxic algae blooms. The toxic algae is an easy and relatively inexpensive thing to test. Collect a sample, is it toxic or not. This doesn't explain bubbling gases but would explain sudden animal deaths.

Natural gas is another matter. The geologists and others involved in monitoring the CO2 project should know whether this is a plausible effect of the project that should be investigated. Also what kind of threat it poses to animals, should be easily established since the fracking for natural gas has caused all kinds of contamination to drinking water in the areas it's being done. Again, I would assume that levels capable of causing death would be easily detected in a water sample!

Last word, when animals die suddenly, their bodies can be taken to environment canada or to a vet or farm regulatory body with the request to examine for the cause. This is the obvious approach to finding out the reason, in addition to testing the suspected pond.

If these steps were taken and no cause could be identified, then it might be reasonable to worry about sequestered CO2. The articles, however, suggest that causes other than CO2 were not examined. Maybe the megaproject loomed so large in their eyes, it was assumed to be the cause, and so the obvious steps to determine the cause objectively were overlooked??

Wouldn't carbonating water just make it a more valuable commodity? I mean a bottle of water is expensive at the store, but a bottle of sparkling water...

Dissolving supercritical CO2 into brine won't overcome the salinity problem. When all of that very salty water is pumped to the surface out of deep saline formations to make room for the CO2, the salt will have to be prevented from getting into the water supply.

Well that's easy, place it in lined shallow reservoirs, like they do all over the world, and let the sun work on it for a while. Then harvest the salt, or let Morton do it. hyper-saline is good, takes less solar energy to remove the extra water.

if it turns out to be true.....would they get a refund on their carbon credits?

It is a leak. Many animals have been killed. Only a professional liar has any doubt that the containment has failed.