‘Stinky’ and ‘a hazard’: on 40,000 oil and gas site inspection records

“Six dead birds.” “Very stinky.” “Leakage.” “A hazard.” “Serious deficiency.”

These are some of the things officials in British Columbia said about a host of oil and gas sites across the province — yet gave them a passing grade upon inspection, anyway. 

When northwest B.C. reporter Matt Simmons got his hands on 40,000 records from the BC Energy Regulator — a provincial agency largely funded by the oil and gas industry — he knew he’d need a little more help to go through it all. We teamed up with the folks at Investigative Journalism Foundation, and Matt along with reporter Kate Schneider got to work. They put AI to use to find at least 1,000 instances of inspectors noting potential environmental infractions — one site had been possibly “gurgling” since 2012. (Those are just the ones Matt and Kate manually verified, so the number of actual instances could be higher.)

This matters because the public has no clue when an oil and gas company appears to breach environmental regulations — leaks, spills and the rest aren’t publicly disclosed. B.C.’s natural resources like liquefied natural gas are touted as better, safer and more responsible thanks to our laws — but what if those laws are not being put to use?

“We specifically looked at how exactly the regulator enforces those laws — kind of like a health inspector going around to restaurants and checking on their food safety procedures,” Matt told me.

The investigation revealed a pretty widespread pattern of lax enforcement. I sat down with Matt to learn more about his reporting. Read on for more.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Why should anyone really care about this investigation? 

People literally have no clue when an oil and gas company appears to breach environmental regulations — leaks, spills and the rest aren’t publicly disclosed. What we are told, however, is B.C.’s natural resources, including liquified natural gas, are way better, safer and more responsible than, say, Japan or South Korea buying the same product from Qatar or even the United States. But this investigation shows how our domestic rules are, in a lot of cases, not necessarily being enforced rigidly. Maybe our laws really are better and stronger in terms of protecting the lands and waters and animals and people who live here — but if there is evidence suggesting they aren’t being enforced, we really need to know that. The northeast is also about to see a serious uptick in gas production. Every well that’s drilled and every piece of pipe put in the ground needs eyes on it. And if companies make mistakes, the government should be holding them accountable and ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

What does the BC Energy Regulator do, anyway?

The regulator is responsible for all permitting of oil and gas and other energy projects in B.C. — and oversight, including having authority over a suite of laws that are normally the responsibility of other government ministries. We specifically looked at how exactly the regulator enforces those laws — kind of like a health inspector going around to restaurants and checking on their food safety procedures. Just like a health inspector can shut down a restaurant if they find some seriously nasty stuff and a bunch of cases of people getting food poisoning or finding broken glass in their burger or whatever, regulator inspectors have a bunch of tools they can use to stop companies from unsafe or polluting practices if and when they find them.

Forty thousand records?! Tell me more about how you got your hands on them! 

I filed this request after doing a story in 2023, where I got my hands on 40 inspection reports from the Coastal GasLink pipeline project. I decided I wanted to have a look at every inspection report B.C.’s regulator ever did. That’s what I first asked for, and they politely told me that was an insane request (not their words). After going back and forth a bit, to their credit, they offered to compile the information into a spreadsheet for me, giving me close to what I wanted: spatial data, inspector notes, and more. I agreed and a few months later they sent over a massive spreadsheet.

What surprised you the most reading through them?

Seeing so many instances of inspectors clearly stating how whatever they’d found appeared to be a non-compliance or infraction — and not marking it as such in the regulator’s systems. It really begs the question: why not? I asked exactly that but didn’t get a direct answer, so it’s still unclear. 

What questions remain unanswered?

So many! I’m really curious to know the scale of what we’re seeing, or more to the point what we’re not seeing. Like: how many more inspections need/should be done, but haven’t been. There are not a lot of inspectors out there on the ground keeping these companies in check — or as this investigation shows, failing to do so — and I would really love to get at a percentage of sites that have NOT been inspected at all.