Alberta regulator fines Imperial Oil over Kearl tailings pond leaks

August 22, 2024 Canuck

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has fined Imperial Oil $50,000 for an oilsands tailings pond leak that went unreported to the public for nine months.

The regulator is imposing the administrative penalty amid its investigation into potential contraventions at the company’s Kearl oilsands site, 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.

The regulator is investigating two releases of industrial wastewater from the Kearl site, one reported in 2022 and another in early 2023. The fine announced Thursday relates to the leak first detected in 2022.

On Thursday, the regulator released its first investigation finding, revealing that industrial wastewater bypassed a seepage interception system and resulted in the off-lease release.

The regulator says it’s also requiring Imperial to develop and implement a plan to mitigate damage from the release and submit a proposal for an industrial wastewater release research project. Final reports from both projects must be shared publicly, the regulator said

No impacts on fish, amphibians or other wildlife have been reported so far, the regulator said in a statement Thursday. The AER investigation is expected to continue.

“These findings and resulting compliance and enforcement decisions do not encompass all potential contraventions that may have occurred at Kearl,” the statement said.

The first sign of a problem at Kearl came in May 2022, when a discoloured substance was spotted outside the boundaries of one of its tailings ponds.

The toxic tailings water was detected and reported in the spring of 2022 but only came to light months later.

The AER was notified, but neither the regulator nor Imperial Oil told downstream First Nations about it until February, after a separate spill of 5.3 million litres overflowed a containment pond at the site.

The seepage of tailings — a toxic mining by-product containing water, silt, residual bitumen and metals — angered Indigenous leaders whose communities are downstream of the oilsands, and triggered a series of investigations into the operator’s response and calls for increased transparency in Alberta’s regulatory framework.

The AER’s environmental protection order of Feb. 6, 2023, said that August 2022 sampling of the first wastewater leak found iron, arsenic, hydrocarbons, sulphate and total sulphide levels exceeded provincial guidelines.

View original article here Source