A performance update that was recently released by the Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance shows that there was a decline in the water amount needed to produce a single barrel of oil, and this decline was roughly 30% in the two year period between 2012 and 2014. In 2012 energy companies which used water from the Athabasca River required 2.2 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil. In 2014 only 1.5 barrels of water was needed to end up with a single barrel of oil. According to John Brogly, the Water EPA director for COSIA, “It is still very early days and COSIA members expect there may be significant variation in performance from year to year.” The report released by COSIA also showed that the organization members were responsible for 37 different environmental projects covering a wide variety of environmental concerns.

In recent months there has been a lot of concern expressed about the water usage by energy companies which draw water from the Athabasca River. Earlier this year the water level of the river was low enough to be noticeable, and there were calls on monitoring water usage from the river and lowering the amount of water that companies could draw from the waterway. The recent COSIA report shows that the energy industry is trying to find ways to conserve water and lower their usage. Wood Buffalo depends on the energy industry for a thriving economy, but the environment also has to be protected in order to preserve it for future generations.