A massive C$16.5-billion carbon capture and storage project in Alberta is advancing without the necessary environmental impact assessment, warn First Nations and environmental groups, suggesting that Canada’s heavy reliance on the technology to meet its emissions targets is part of the problem.

The Pathways Alliance project, if built as planned, would be the largest CCS project ever proposed in Canada and one of the largest in the world. It aims to capture carbon dioxide from 20 oil sands plants and transport it over 400 kilometres of pipeline to be injected and stored underground in an area south of Cold Lake, Alberta.

Last week, the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) informed the local Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) and several environmental groups that their request for an environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the Pathways project had been denied, Ecojustice wrote in a release. The group of allies had submitted a letter outlining numerous environmental, health, and safety concerns back in May.

In a letter to Ecojustice shared with The Energy Mix, Bola Talabi, vice president of Regulatory Applications for the AER, wrote that under Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, “further assessment of the activity is not required,” nor is an EIA report necessary.

However, Section 44 of the Act states that the AER, when deciding whether an environmental assessment is needed, should consider the location, size, and nature of the proposed activity, the complexity of the project, and the technology involved. It adds that the decision should consider “any concerns in respect of the proposed activity that have been expressed by the public.”

The allied groups have asked the federal government to step in and order an EIA for the project, but say they fear their requests may be falling on deaf ears.

“There’s a reason the AER doesn’t want to put the Pathways project through an environmental assessment,” ACFN Chief Allan Adam said in the release. “It is because it will expose the environmental impacts, the poor economic viability and the risks to human health.”

Adam vowed to fight the project “tooth and nail.”

Cold Lake First Nations Chief Kelsey Jacko told Alberta Native News last month that “it just seems like everything is getting rubber stamped.”

Phillip Meintzer, conservation specialist at the Alberta Wilderness Association, echoed these concerns. “There’s an incentive to push these projects through, even if they’re a massive high-risk gamble (and sinkhole for public money),” Meintzer commented on LinkedIn.

Ottawa Offers Support

The AER’s decision for no EIA came days after the Globe and Mail reported on a breakthrough in financial negotiations between the federal government and the Pathways Alliance, the lobby group whose members account for 95% of oil sands production.

Sources told the Globe that the Canada Growth Fund (CGF) had put forward a long awaited proposal to support capital costs for the Alliance.

Ottawa has already introduced a new tax credit that covers up to 50% of carbon capture, storage and utilization (CCUS) investment costs, and the Alberta government has committed an additional 12% in similar backing, wrote the Globe. Federal Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault has insisted for many months, and repeated this week, that oil sands companies should invest a share their own record profits to reduce their surging greenhouse gas emissions.

But Pathways has held out for even more lavish subsidies and financial assurances, including a guaranteed value for carbon credits even if the system is scrapped due to political change or if the credit market falters. Environmental advocates maintain these deals with Ottawa would guarantee Pathways companies ongoing profits at an established carbon price.

“This all could mean that the public bears most of the costs, and private companies get all of the potential benefits,” Ecojustice wrote in the release.

Exploiting a Loophole

Their concerns don’t end there. Alberta’s EIA process is flawed because of a loophole called “project splitting,” Meintzer said. The group says Pathways has split the project into at least 66 smaller segments and made multiple applications for each.

“By failing to conduct an EIA, the AER is allowing a piecemeal approach which impairs the AER’s ability to adequately identify and assess all project-specific, direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts,” said Meintzer. “It’s like saying drivers don’t need a licence to operate a vehicle because the individual parts aren’t technically a whole car.”

Pathways President Kendall Dilling said the project has satisfied provincial regulatory requirements “which include significant environmental oversight.”

But the environmental petitioners are worried about carbon dioxide leakage, emergency management, groundwater contamination, explosion risks, water consumption, and air and water pollution from burning natural gas during the process.

Keji Banjoko, government relations and consultation coordinator for ACFN Dene Lands and Resource Management, told an Assembly of First Nations climate gathering in October that decades of health concerns plague the Fort Chipewyan community downstream of the oil sands.

“While we’re trying to advocate for environmental protection, industry has actively lobbied the government for public funds, for efficient approval, and just a general buy-in to their solution.”

Pathways and the Canada Growth Fund are “under political pressure to get something done,” writes the Globe, as oil and gas production is the biggest source of Canada’s emissions and the most significant obstacle to hitting national climate targets. Adam Sweet, director for Western Canada at Clean Prosperity, argued in favour of the project in a Globe op-ed last week, writing that “getting this project done would represent one of the largest reinvestments of federal money into Alberta.”

“Pathways would reduce oil sands emissions by 22 megatonnes a year by 2030, the equivalent of taking 90% of all cars and trucks off the road in Alberta,” he wrote. “After years of discussion, the time is now. Let’s get Pathways done.”