1/🧵 Kearl oil sands tailings pond spill/leak update
March 14 CANGov Fisheries Act Direction to @ImperialOil:
*Wastewater seepage (started May 2022) "is believed to be deleterious, or harmful, to fish"
*Immediate action required to prevent seep from entering fish-bearing water
2/For background on the 2022 leak and the 2023 spill of 5.3 million litres of wastewater, check out Energi Media's background thread.
typefully.com/politicalham/pQPwMtj
3/From Environment & Climate Change Canada (ECC) statement:
*EEC visited Kearl site March 8 to collect samples, met w/AER officials
*Direction to contain seepage March 10
*EEC monitoring the cleanup to ensure Fisheries Act compliance, reviewing Imperial's remedial action plan
4/A "Direction is a compliance tool that may be used by enforcement officers when there is an unauthorized deposit of a deleterious substance into water frequented by fish or when there is a serious and imminent danger of such an incident and immediate action is necessary."
5/Nearby First Nations say they are outraged by the failures of the AER and Imperial Oil. March 14 release from @ACFN_KaiTaile and Chief Allan Adam:
"The disaster is ongoing, and the toxic tailings are visible on the land, adjacent to ponds, tributaries, and creeks."
6/"This is further evidence that the regulator has lost all credibility. We need the Federal government to use all legal tools at its disposal to take control of the investigation and cleanup," said Chief Allan Adam.
7/AFCN release said, "toxic tailings from Imperial's Kearl oil sands site have leaked into the Athabasca watershed and impacted a fish habitat."
ECC actually said that seepage has been determined to be "deleterious" (dangerous) to fish.
I have asked AFCN for a clarification.
8/Miskew Cree First Nation Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro: "This is a failure of the provincial regulator to do its job. The AER and Canada approved Imperial's project knowing the risk of seepage for this tailing pond.
9/"...There needs to be an independent review of the approval of this tailings pond and the AER's management of this mess."
Chief Tuccaro called on Canada, Alberta to establish a commission to find solutions for tailings pond reclamation.
10/"...there are many more tailings ponds and the risk to our Nation is huge. Meanwhile, Imperial Oil needs to honour the agreement that we entered into prior to this project going ahead."
An "independent review into the AER's oversight of oil sands tailings" should be called.
11/AER March 8 statement:
*CEO Laurie Pushor and COO Martin Foy visited "many" First Nations, Métis Associations, and Indigenous communities to discuss the leak + spill
Promises to provide "compliance monitoring and oversight" of its Environmental Protection Order, cleanup
12/Summary:
Chief Adam and Chief Tuccaro have called for: 1) independent review of AER handling of the Kearl leak + spill; 2) a commission to look into remediation of tailings ponds.
Both these requests should be seriously considered by Alberta and Canada.
13/My interview with Prof Jason MacLean, an expert on environmental law: "Alberta Energy Regulator is captured by oil and gas. Now what?"
Bottom line: the AER is the most egregious Canadian example of a regulator "captured" by the industry it regulates.
share.transistor.fm/s/707c7e29
14/And the reclamation of oil sands tailings ponds has been punted down the road by AB govts for decades.
In 2020, a NAFTA committee determined that according to scientific literature, tailings ponds were leaking into groundwater.
youtu.be/cIBF4YJUNAo
15/If Alberta misses this opportunity to address the elephant in the oil sands room, it is begging for an even worse disaster in the future.
Energi Media's editorial position is that there is no future for the oil sands without the reclamation of ALL 37 tailings ponds.