An Alberta regulator has fined ExxonMobil subsidiary Imperial Oil $50,000 for allowing water contaminated with arsenic, dissolved metals, and hydrocarbons to continue leaking out of the tailings ponds at its Kearl oil sands facility over a period of years.
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) said the fine was the maximum permitted under the provincial Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, the Globe and Mail reports. In subsequent news reports, administrative law experts said the regulator chose to structure the fine to avoid an assessment that could have been 26 times higher.
Imperial will also be required to “undertake studies and develop plans to improve transparency and response strategies,” put a tailings mitigation plan and place, and “make sure monitoring processes are good enough,” the news story states.
A study by management consultants at Deloitte found the AER was aware of some leakage at the site as early as 2019, The Canadian Press reported last year. Nearby First Nations communities only received limited notification of a seepage “incident” in May, 2022. That leak only drew closer attention in February, 2023, when a storage pond at Kearl leaked an estimated 5.3 million litres of polluted industrial wastewater.
The subsequent leak is still under investigation by the AER and Environment Canada, the Globe writes.
Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation told the Globe he blamed the provincial government for the low fine, even though the AER is meant to operate as an arm’s length agency.
“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. “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.”
“If the AER was serious about protecting local communities and the environment, Imperial Oil would have faced prosecution and a hefty fine,” Aliénor Rougeot, climate and energy program manager with Environmental Defence Canada, said in a release. “The quality assurance measures imposed by the regulator today should have been in place long before Imperial was ever allowed to operate.”
Just as the AER was announcing its fine, Adam and Fort Chipewyan Métis President Kendrick Cardinal were warning their communities to stay away from Lake Athabasca due to water quality concerns and possible contamination, CBC reports.
“We’ve all known for the longest time that there’s something wrong with the water here,” Cardinal said in a Facebook video. “I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure this community is kept safe and the water is clean.”
The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation declined comment beyond its community warning until it receives the results of water quality testing over the next two or three weeks. But Fort Chipewyan Elder Alice Rigney said the questions and concerns are nothing new.
“I mean, the dock is a place where barges and boats are always loading and unloading, so there’s always gas on the surface. And what’s coming down from the oil sands, it does leach into the river system,” she told CBC.
“They know that there’s something going on—we’ve known it forever,” she added. “It’s just that it has fallen on deaf ears.”
