The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition oil sands producers are investing heavily in water reduction and reuse, aiming to cut to a minimum the amount of fresh water withdrawn from the Athabasca and other rivers. The Globe's Shawn McCarthy and Ivan Semeniuk write that concerns persist. The mining side of the business uses roughly three barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced, while in-situ producers use a third of a barrel of water for every barrel of crude. Given expansion plans, the council report forecasted that water withdrawals for mining operations will double from 2012 to 2030, to two billion barrels of water a year. The current use is less than 1 per cent of the water available from the Athabasca River and producers are increasingly recycling and reusing water. Suncor Energy is even piping recycled water from its main mine site to its Firebag in-situ project for its steam-assisted gravity-drainage operations. Environmental groups say that is not enough, noting Syncrude and Suncor were grandfathered under recently announced regulations and can continue to draw water from the Athabasca in periods of low flow. Today the river is well below its usual spring levels.