• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
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
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022 January 31, 2023
Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB January 31, 2023
Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty January 31, 2023
Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds January 31, 2023
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Alberta Government Mishandling Funding for Contaminated Sites, Repeat Audit Concludes

June 14, 2021
Reading time: 4 minutes
Full Story: The Canadian Press @CdnPressNews
Primary Author: Bob Weber @row1960

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

 

Alberta’s auditor general is criticizing the government for failing to fix problems pointed out six years ago in a program that’s supposed to guarantee coal and oilsands mines clean up after themselves.

Doug Wylie says there’s so much confusion over who’s responsible for the government’s own contaminated sites that there’s no stable funding to ensure that an abandoned coal mine in northern Alberta stays safe, The Canadian Press reports.

  • Be among the first to read The Energy Mix Weekender
  • A brand new weekly digest containing exclusive and essential climate stories from around the world.
  • The Weekender:The climate news you need.
New!
Subscribe

“There is an impact beyond accounting and process issues,” Wylie said in a briefing before his report was tabled in the legislature last Thursday. “This impacts sites and it impacts people within the province.”

Among other issues, Wylie’s latest report revisits the Mine Financial Security Program first audited in 2015. It also looks at how the government handles contaminated sites for which it is responsible.

Wylie found the government hasn’t answered concerns about how company payments into the security fund are calculated. He found five ways in which it still allows companies to overstate their assets, underestimate the effects of oil price declines, and delay payments.

“After six years of analysis, the department has not decided if and how the calculation should change,” the report says, adding that the government currently holds C$1.5 billion in security on mining liabilities of $31.5 billion.

It also says there are problems with how the government handles contaminated sites when it can’t find the responsible party or when a site doesn’t fall within the purview of the Orphan Well Fund or any other management group. The government says there are 2,600 such sites with an environmental liability of $248 million.

Too often cleanup gets shuffled between Alberta Environment and Parks and the Alberta Energy Regulator, Wylie writes.

In the case of the old Smoky River coal mine near Grande Cache, the regulator stepped in on an emergency basis in 2018 to prevent the failure of a selenium-poisoned tailings pond. Alberta Environment told the regulator the work would be funded through the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Fund, then folded the fund back into general revenue, which left the regulator on the hook.

The same funding issue is preventing the regulator from fixing sinkholes caused by old coal mines in southern Alberta.

The report says the government has no risk assessment for its sites or analysis of their status. It doesn’t have individual cost estimates for cleanup or for keeping sites safe into the future.

For those reasons, Alberta’s estimates of its own environmental liabilities are suspect, said assistant auditor Eric Leonty.

“It could be more, as more information is available and it’s determined that the government is responsible for more sites,” he said.

In an emailed response, Alberta Environment spokesperson Paul Hamnett said consultations on reforming the mine security program are to be held this summer.

“The review will ensure appropriate funds are being collected over the life of the project to cover reclamation liabilities and ensure continuous program improvement, including feedback from the (auditor),” he said.

The department is reviewing its contaminated sites to collect the information Wylie found lacking, he added.

“Alberta Environment and Parks and the Alberta Energy Regulator are working on a long-term solution that will bring clarity over the responsibility and funding for those sites.”

New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt said his party tried to fix the mine security program when it was in power from 2015 to 2019. The report that resulted, he said, has been shelved.

“It’s sitting on the minister’s desk,” he said.

Schmidt said the fund needs more money while there’s money to be had.

“We don’t know how much longer these assets will be valuable.”

University of Calgary law professor Martin Olszynski pointed out the government has already eased payments for the oilsands in response to last summer’s oil price collapse.

“At essentially every turn, the (program) is designed to favour oilsands operators over taxpayers,” he wrote. “Given the (United Conservative Party’s) track record…there is absolutely no reason to think or hope that they will address this problem meaningfully in the upcoming review.”

Regan Boychuk of the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project said the problem is simple: the fund needs to collect more money.

“Billions of dollars should already be in the bank from these highly profitable companies,” he said. “The only thing that’s going to clean up the oilsands is the revenue from producing that bitumen. We can either save the money for that cleanup while that money is still coming out of the ground, or we can wait until they’re done producing.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 10, 2021.



in Canada, Climate & Society, Climate Impacts & Adaptation, Coal, Fossil Fuels, Health & Safety, Jurisdictions, Legal & Regulatory, Sub-National Governments, Tar Sands / Oil Sands

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Mike Mozart/Flickr
Ending Emissions

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
326
Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures
Canada

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE
Ending Emissions

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61

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

Mike Mozart/Flickr

BP Predicts Faster Oil and Gas Decline as Clean Energy Spending Hits $1.1T in 2022

January 31, 2023
326
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
122
/Pikrepo

Four Decades of Research Show Gas Stoves as ‘Overlooked’ Risk to Indoor Air, Child Health

December 7, 2020
1k
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

Canada, U.K., U.S. Must Cut Oil and Gas 76% by 2030 to Keep 1.5° Alive, New Analysis Finds

March 23, 2022
505
Nuclear Jordan/Facebook

TC Energy Wants to Supply ‘Small-Scale’ Nuclear Reactors to Alberta Tar Sands/Oil Sands

May 4, 2022
399
openthegovernment.org

BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package

August 8, 2022
540

Recent Posts

Gina Dittmer/PublicDomainPictures

Canada Needs Oil and Gas Emissions Cap to Hit 2030 Goal: NZAB

January 31, 2023
196
CONFENIAE

Ecuador’s Amazon Drilling Plan Shows Need for Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

January 31, 2023
61
Ken Teegardin www.SeniorLiving.Org/flickr

Virtual Power Plants Hit an ‘Inflection Point’

January 31, 2023
125
/snappy goat

Rainforest Carbon Credits from World’s Biggest Provider are ‘Largely Worthless’, Investigation Finds

January 31, 2023
94
Victorgrigas/wikimedia commons

World Bank Climate Reforms Too ‘Timid and Slow,’ Critics Warn

January 31, 2023
42
Doc Searls/Twitter

Guilbeault Could Intervene on Ontario Greenbelt Development

January 31, 2023
132
Next Post
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Wikimedia Commons

Report Calls for Climate, Biodiversity Action to Work in Tandem

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

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

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
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}