Kearl oilsands leak exposes gaps in how Alberta and Canada oversee industry: experts | 24CA News
Recent leaks of poisonous tailings from northern Alberta oilsands mines have revealed severe flaws in how Canada and Alberta take care of the setting, observers say.
Some accuse the federal authorities of abandoning the province. Others level to what they name a captive provincial regulator. All agree that there’s no means a leak from Imperial Oil’s Kearl tailings ponds ought to have gone unreported for 9 months to each Ottawa and Edmonton, in addition to the individuals who stay close to it.
“We have never taken this issue seriously,” mentioned Martin Olszynski, a University of Calgary useful resource regulation professor and former federal regulatory lawyer. “They have never taken these risks and these threats seriously.”
Imperial found “brown sludge” close to one in all its Kearl tailings ponds in May and it turned clear over the summer time the issue was important.
However, the Alberta Energy Regulator didn’t replace First Nations or inform federal and provincial setting ministers in regards to the challenge till Feb. 7, when it issued a safety order after a second Kearl launch of 5.3 million litres of tailings from a catchment pond. Federal laws requires Environment Canada to be notified of such leaks inside 24 hours.
“The biggest learning from this is that the province has oversight and control over what information the federal government is receiving,” mentioned Mandy Olsgard, a toxicologist who has labored on regulatory points for the Alberta Energy Regulator and Indigenous teams.
Ottawa joins within the evaluation panels that assess initiatives then largely again away, Olsgard mentioned.
“They just hand it off to the province.”
And then the province palms it off to a regulator that many think about too near the business it’s alleged to oversee.
“This regulator has always thought of its relationship being bilateral, between itself and industry,” mentioned Nigel Bankes, a retired professor of useful resource regulation on the University of Calgary. “Never triangular, never a three-legged stool involving the public.
“For me, this (Kearl release) just confirmed all of that.”
That perspective is pervasive within the provincial authorities, Bankes mentioned.
“It’s a general message of don’t rock the boat,” he mentioned. “It permeates the department of energy and it permeates Alberta Environment.”
Gabrielle Lamontagne, an Environment and Climate Change Canada spokesperson, mentioned in an e mail the division remains to be determining what data Imperial reported to Alberta EDGE, so as to decide if the discharge met the triggers that might require the report back to be forwarded to ECCC.
EDGE, which stands for Environmental and Dangerous Goods Emergencies, manages transportation of harmful items emergency calls in Alberta and assesses the severity of harmful items incidents. Its web site says it “communicates openly with other regulatory agencies, such as the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), in the event of an emergency or safety-related incident.”
A survey carried out in 2021 for Alberta Environment discovered greater than 85 per cent of Albertans had little confidence within the regulator’s skill to control business, in that case coal. The survey additionally reported Albertans discovered the company reluctant to launch data and was not very clear.
Both federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault and his Alberta counterpart Sonya Savage have acknowledged issues want to alter.
“We need to take a step back and say ‘What are the processes? Were they followed? And do we need to enhance them?’” Savage mentioned this week. “We’re committed to taking the step to enhancing all of those processes.”
“We need to find better mechanisms,” mentioned Guilbeault.
But Marlin Schmidt, the Alberta New Democrat’s setting critic, is skeptical.
He mentioned the province and the regulator have already refused to inform him the scope and timeline for the investigation of the leak. Savage wouldn’t commit to creating the outcomes of the investigation public, Schmidt mentioned, nor would she promise to launch outcomes from an inside investigation into whether or not the regulator adopted notification guidelines.
“There’s no investigation into what process led to the failure, nor any commitment to improving,” he mentioned. “We’re just shrugging our shoulders and hoping next time things work out better.”
The Kearl state of affairs exhibits it may be a mistake for the federal authorities to “harmonize” rules with the provinces and delegate oversight to them, Olszynski mentioned.
“Given the kind of politics in this province, we could have seen that coming,” he mentioned. “We should have known that these folks aren’t talking very well together, so you might want to rethink these arrangements that depend on them talking together.”
Olszynski mentioned oilsands operators ought to now be required to report spills or another unscheduled releases on to the federal authorities.
“I think it is time for Environment Canada to take a much more proactive role in tailings management,” he mentioned.
The Kearl state of affairs has made one factor clear, mentioned Olsgard.
“It’s made it obvious to the public that there are not good processes between the provinces and the feds.”
© 2023 The Canadian Press
