A flare stack lights the sky from the Imperial Oil refinery in Edmonton on Dec. 28, 2018.Jason Franson/The Canadian Press
Imperial Oil Ltd. IMO-T has been fined $50,000 by the Alberta Energy Regulator over a continuing leak of water tainted with arsenic, dissolved metals and hydrocarbons from tailings ponds at its Kearl oil sands facility.
The fine is an administrative penalty only, levied Thursday under the province’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. It’s the maximum amount allowed under regulations, but the AER said it is still investigating other potential contraventions at Kearl. The regulator is also investigating a separate incident in February, 2023, when a drainage storage pond at Kearl overflowed, spilling an estimated 5.3 million litres of industrial waste water laced with pollutants from the surface of the site into the environment.
The federal Environment Department is also investigating the leak.
Tailings-tainted water has been seeping from Kearl into muskeg, public lands and waterways that are home to wildlife and fish since May, 2022. But it wasn’t until February, 2023, that the oil company told any communities close to the site, including the Fort Chipewyan First Nation, whose members exercise their treaty rights to hunt and fish in the area.
Allan Adam, the Chief of Fort Chipewyan First Nation, is furious about the size of the fine levied against Imperial.
“The CEO makes that in half a day, so it’s a slap on the wrist in regard to our community and our concerns,” he said in an interview Thursday.
The AER is an arms-length regulator, but Mr. Adam laid the blame with the province, saying the fine is indicative of the callous disregard that the Alberta government has shown for his community.
“They washed their hands clean and said, ‘Screw you, Fort Chip.’ If you ask the people of the community, they’ll tell you the same thing: The government doesn’t care about us.”
Aliénor Rougeot, the climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence, an advocacy organization, said a $50,000 fine was nowhere near the response required for “an egregious violation” by Imperial Oil.
“The AER should have prosecuted Imperial Oil and imposed a sizable fine if it wanted to deter the company and all other oil sands companies from repeating this kind of irresponsible behaviour,” she said in an e-mail.
Along with the monetary fine, the AER has ordered that the Calgary-based oil company undertake studies and develop plans to improve transparency and response strategies.
Imperial must share lessons it has learned from the continuing problem with other oil sands operators, for example, and develop and implement a plan to mitigate tailings seepage and make sure monitoring processes are good enough.
The company must also undertake an industrial wastewater-release research project to further study the potential impact of such releases on fish, aquatic ecosystems, soil, vegetation, wildlife and public safety.
Both projects require the publication of final reports on Imperial’s website and must be verified by qualified independent third parties to ensure “that the results are credible and reliable.”
Imperial said in an e-mail Thursday that it fully supports the projects ordered by the AER and would work collaboratively with local Indigenous communities.
The company is still working to contain the leak. It has installed pumps and more than 800 environmental monitoring wells to help limit further migration of industrial waste water into the environment, according to an August update on its website.
With the help of a third party, it has also mapped locations of potential seepage north of the Kearl site.
The furthest Imperial has detected shallow groundwater containing substances that exceed government guidelines for contaminated sites is 150 metres from the Kearl boundary. But it has found deeper contaminated groundwater (more than 12 metres below surface) approximately one kilometre from the site – around two kilometres away from the Firebag River.
Imperial said that monitoring data have found no indication of adverse effects to local wildlife or fish populations in nearby river systems, and no risks to drinking water for local communities.
“We are confident the actions we have taken to address the issue and the extensive measures we have put in place to refine and strengthen our seepage monitoring and collection systems are working. We continue to monitor and provide regular updates and data to local Indigenous communities, and we remain committed to working to regain their trust,” the company said in a statement.