This report describes the application of ten bioassays (battery of tests approach) to waters and sediments collected from the tar sands area of northern Alberta, Canada. In this study there were three main goals: (1) to establish the presence and sources of toxicants in these northern waters and sediments, (2) to determine if their presence is related to sediment composition, and (3) to establish which of the various sediment extracting procedures used was most efficient in producing responses in the bioassays used.

Results of these investigations indicated that there were two obvious sources of toxicants/genotoxicants, the tar sands extracting area and streams passing through tar sands or oil shales and at least two unknown sources. Based on the techniques used in this study, there does not appear to be a strong sediment structure–toxicant response relationship. Extraction procedure results were variable and are discussed in detail in the report.