• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta June 29, 2022
London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty June 29, 2022
G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance June 29, 2022
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate Impacts & Adaptation Health & Safety

‘Voluntary’ Pipeline Reporting Ratchets Up Alberta Fossil Oversight

April 4, 2017
Reading time: 3 minutes

NPCA Online/flickr

NPCA Online/flickr

 

The Alberta Energy Regulator, beset by evidence of a mounting backlog of unaddressed pollution hazards left behind by shuttered fossil fuel operations, has asked pipeline operators to tell it more about their preparations to deal with leaks and safety failures on their networks.

“Pipeline operating companies in Alberta are already required to develop and implement a documented [safety and loss management system] under AER regulations,” the industry news source JWN Energy reports. “However, until now operators weren’t required to share their specific plans with the regulator.”

That is changing, sort of. Later this month, the AER “intends to send a self-assessment form to approximately 50 oil and gas pipeline licensees,” JWN states. “Companies will have six weeks [to] fill in the form, have it signed by a senior officer, and return[ed] to the AER.”

The companies targeted are not those operating main interprovincial pipelines, but smaller firms with local, often temporary networks of pipes collecting raw oil and gas from production sites for processing. Based on the form, the AER may decide to conduct a deeper review of a company’s plans for dealing with pipeline “safety and loss” incidents. While the agency can’t compel companies to submit the forms, it pointedly noted that failure to do so might in itself constitute a red flag that a further review is called for.

“We want to make sure they have effective systems in place to manage the risks of their pipelines,” AER spokesperson Jordan Fitzgerald told JWN.

The news outlet earlier noted that reported “pipeline incidents” occurred slightly more often than daily in Alberta in 2016. The 460 events—93% of which had “low to medium consequences in terms of public, wildlife, and environmental impacts”—were just slightly fewer than the 473 documented in 2015.

But aging and abandoned oil and gas infrastructure is a mounting headache for Alberta regulators.

“There are almost a half-million oil and gas wells, well over 400,000 kilometres of pipelines, and tens of thousands of [other] facilities that played a part in bringing wealth,” to the province, the National Observer recently observed in an article asking “who should pay” for their clean-up. “But Alberta’s conventional oil and gas industry has long been mature and now is well into terminal decline,” that outlet warned, “haunting the province with the spectre of cleaning up a hundred years’ poorly regulated mess.”

As The Mix reported in February, a single Calgary oil and gas producer, Lexin Resources, left 1,380 well sites, 201 pipeline licences, and 81 other facilities to be cleaned up by the province’s Orphan Well Association after being ordered to suspend operations for repeatedly violating operating standards. The industry-funded association managed to plug only 185 wells last year, despite a significant funding increase. At that rate, the OWA will be caught up on its backlog of more than 190,000 wells in about a millennium, the Pembina Institute observes.

But it’s not just dried-up conventional oil and gas wells coming back to haunt the province. Nine months after the AER presented tar sand/oil sand mine operators with a similar request for detailed disclosure on how they plan to rehabilitate lakes of toxic waste that now extend over 220 square kilometres and hold more than a cubic kilometre of contaminated water and sludge, the results are in—and not passing muster, the Calgary Herald reports.

The AER itself rejected the waste pond recovery plan submitted by the sector’s biggest operator, Suncor. More recently, a Pembina Institute review of six submitted plans found that not one met new provincial rules.

“All companies have submitted plans that are not consistent with Alberta’s tailings management framework,” said Pembina’s Jodi McNeill. “We expect the regulator to reject other deficient plans.”



in Health & Safety, Legal & Regulatory, Oil & Gas, Sub-National Governments, Tar Sands / Oil Sands, Water

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Keith Hirsche
Jobs & Training

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
422
London Eye UK England
Cities & Communities

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
131
Number 10/flickr
International Agencies & Studies

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
152

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

June 29, 2022
227
Keith Hirsche

Ex-Fossil Workers Convert Old Oilfields to Solar Farms After ‘Rapid Upskilling’ in Alberta

June 29, 2022
422
Danielle Scott/flickr

Advocate Urges Ottawa to Intervene Before Ontario Builds Highway 413

June 29, 2022
130
David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
1.2k
Number 10/flickr

G7 Miss ‘Golden Opportunity’, Walk Back Pledge to Cut International Fossil Finance

June 29, 2022
152
London Eye UK England

London Becomes Biggest City to Sign Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 29, 2022
131

Recent Posts

AJEL / Pixabay

Windfall Tax on Food, Fossil, Pharma Giants Would Raise $490B to Solve ‘Catastrophic’ Food Crisis: Oxfam

June 29, 2022
58
futureatlas.com/flickr

Ottawa Demands Deeper Fuel Emissions Cuts, Offers Fossils a Double-Dip on Tax Breaks

June 29, 2022
78
Province of B.C./flickr

Comox Joins Municipalities Seeking Ban on New Gas Stations

June 29, 2022
78
/Piqsels

Refocus Agriculture Spending to Cut Emissions, Boost Productivity, OECD Urges Governments

June 29, 2022
29
Jimmy Emerson, DVM/flickr

Public Vigilance Key to Protecting Greenbelts for Climate Resilience, Report Finds

June 29, 2022
36
Miguel V/Wikimedia Commons

Forests Fall Short of Full Carbon Storage Potential, Study Finds

June 29, 2022
64
Next Post
BeforeItStarts/flickr

Tar Sands/Oil Sands Carbon Footprint Underestimated by Nearly 25%

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}