Residents of the Northwest Territories are demanding environmental reviews be conducted before companies are permitted to ‘frack’ for oil in the NWT. Despite controversy in Canada and other countries around the effects fracking or hydraulic fracturing has on water and climate change, the NWT’s first fracking project was approved last October without an environmental assessment.

“We can’t let another fracking project dodge an environmental assessment,” says Lois Little of the Council of Canadians NWT chapter.

“There is a lot of international concern about the environmental and social impacts of fracking,” says Ben McDonald, spokesperson for Alternatives North, a social justice coalition in NWT. “The moratoriums on fracking in the U.S. and eastern Canada are in place for good reasons.”

The Council of Canadians, Alternatives North along with Ecology North have launched a petition calling on the NWT government to refer fracking projects to environmental assessments that include public hearings from now on. Signatures will be collected until March 7th when the petition will be delivered to the NWT legislative assembly. Two hundred and fifty NWT residents have signed the petition.

“A full, thorough environmental assessment would provide all levels of government with information on the possible impacts of fracking on the NWT and create a venue for all voices to be heard,” says Christine Wenman, a water management campaigner with Ecology North, an environmental organization based in Yellowknife.

NWT Canol shale oil play could rival Bakken shale

The central NWT region called the Sahtu is home to the Canol shale, a shale oil play that could rival the booming Bakken shale oil industry in North Dakota. Shale oil (not to be confused with oil shale) is oil locked in the pores of rock-like shale underground. The Sahtu itself is an area of pristine wilderness accessed by ice roads and many residents live off the land.

The Sahtu Region

The method commonly associated with shale gas development – fracking – is employed by industry to release the oil trapped in the shale. ‘Frack wells’ are drilled vertically between two hundred to two thousands meters to penetrate the shale and then horizontally through the shale up to three kilometers. Pressurized water laced with chemicals is shot down the well to break apart the shale and force the oil to the surface.

Improperly constructed or cracked frack wells have contaminated water tables with methane (natural gas is mainly methane) or fracking chemicals, some of which are toxic.

“No one has done any mapping locating the underground waterways or aquifers of the Sahtu. We are playing in the dark here,” Little told DeSmog Canada.

Many of the proposed fracking operations in the Sahtu would take place along the Mackenzie River, the main artery of the Mackenzie River Water Basin, one of the world’s largest watersheds and Canada's 'Serengeti.'

“An EA (environmental assessment) would be a sober second thought about fracking in NWT before its too late,” NWT MLA Bob Bromley told DeSmog Canada in an interview. Earlier this week Bromley expressed his suspicions that NWT government employees were being discouraged from signing the petition for environmental reviews of fracking projects.

Canadian oil and gas on pace to be No.1 contributor to climate change

“There is a fundamental problem in developing the Canol shale when we know the impact producing more greenhouse gases will have on climate change,” says Bromley.

Methane once unlocked from shale during fracking operations can escape into water tables and the atmosphere. If it makes it above ground, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.

Over twenty year period methane has eighty-four times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide according the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) latest findings. This global warming potential is thirty-four times greater than carbon dioxide over one hundred years.

A DeSmog Canada exclusive revealed last year Canada is most likely already under reporting escaped methane emissions or fugitive emissions from the oil and gas sector. Even with these inaccuracies in calculating fugitive emissions Environment Canada projects the oil and gas sector will be Canada’s biggest contributor to global warming by 2030. Canada’s overall greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase 38% by 2030 as well.

Source: Canada's 6th National Report on Climate Change 2014

“Pursuing fossil fuels projects takes us in the wrong direction. Fossils fuels belong with the dinosaurs,” Bromley told DeSmog.

The Bakken shale oil industry in North Dakota burns off or flares around 30% of the natural gas byproduct that comes with fracking on the Bakken shale. An estimated $1 billion worth of natural gas was flared in 2012 alone. This is equivalent of adding one million more carbon dioxide emitting cars on the road.

Social impacts of fracking already emerging in the Sahtu 

Divisions are already emerging in the five Sahtu communities over developing the Canol shale. Sheila Karkagie of Tulita in the Sahtu received a death threat last January for her strong stance against fracking.

“I was scared and I was hurt,” Sheila Karkagie told CBC in an interview about the threat. “I'm fighting for my dad's land, because this is his land, his trap lines, his everything; our means of living, our backyard, our everything!”

The death threat came via telephone after Karkagie publicly stated past members of the Tulita Land and Financial Board are in conflict of interest for approving ConocoPhillips fracking project – NWT’s first fracking project – and then accepting contracts with oil and gas companies afterwards.

“We are seeing divisiveness in communities where it seldom existed before,” says NWT MLA Bromley.

“The lack of a thorough public process on the issue is causing stress, anxiety and pitting people against each other in the Sahtu communities,” Lois Little of the Council of Canadians told DeSmog. The Council of Canadians, one of the Canada’s foremost water advocacy groups, released a ‘Fractivist Toolkit’ earlier this month to assist Canadians confronting fracking in their communities.

The petition for environmental assessments of fracking projects in NWT can be found on the NWT legislative assembly’s website:

http://epetition.lant.public-i.tv/epetition_core/community/petition/2614

Image Credit: Transnational Institute, Council of Canadians, Environment Canada

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The federal agency investigating the Lac-Megantic oil train derailment and explosion that killed forty-seven people released recommendations last week to improve the safety of shipping crude oil by rail. If the recommendations are implemented by the federal government they will serve as a strong step forward in protecting communities living along railway lines. 

“The federal transport minister has a clear choice: protect public safety or secure profits of oil companies,” says Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada.

One of the country’s most active lobby groups – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) – responded to the recommendations earlier this week. CAPP asked the federal government “to ensure their implementation does not interrupt service and respects the competitiveness of transporting our products by rail.” In other words, new regulations should not interfere with business as usual for the oil industry.

“Companies have to pay the price for safety. Their profits cannot come before communities, the environment and general safety,” John Bennett, director of the Sierra Club Canada told DeSmog Canada.

The Transport Safety Board (TSB) made three recommendations to Transport Canada improve safety of oil-by-rail shipments: tougher standards for the susceptible-to-rupturing DOT 111 tank cars, strategic routing of oil trains that considers the environment and communities, and emergency response plans for rail lines transporting large volumes of oil.

Greenpeace and the Sierra Club welcome the recommendations. Both organizations have been pushing for stricter oil by rail transport rules since before disaster struck Lac-Megantic, Quebec on July 6th of last year. Rail company CN also supports the TSB’s recommendations. Rail tank cars are owned either by shipping companies or oil producers. Rail companies on the other hand own the rails, and are liable for derailments.

The recommendations focus on tank cars, not the rails themselves, which is one of the shortcomings of the recommendations. Improvements on both are needed.

Recommendations cannot protect the public if they are not implemented. Bennett is not very optimistic the recommendations will be applied by the federal government. Many TSB recommendations in the past, he says, have “just sat there” and were not adopted, like rail line improvement recommendations made after the Lake Wabamun derailment in Alberta in 2005.

Stewart speculates the federal government will wait to see what the U.S. does, something he thinks is very problematic.

“Lives are at risk. Canada should be taking a leadership role,” Stewart told DeSmog from Toronto.

The TSB and the U.S. National Transport Safety Board announced their safety recommendations for oil-by-rail intentionally at the same time. Transport Canada has ninety days to reply to the TSB’s findings. Upon release of the recommendations in Ottawa on January 23rd, TSB chair Wendy Tadros insisted “change must come and it must come now."

If adopted, applying the recommendations may prove to be difficult. Rerouting oil tank cars away from densely populated or environmentally sensitive areas is difficult due to Canada's limited rail options.

Emergency response plans also require greater communication between shippers in the public, especially regarding large oil shipments. Shippers have been reluctant to do this in the past.

“Canadians need to ask themselves why are we doing this? Transporting oil more – whether by rail or pipeline – is a risk with little to no benefits for communities because it is going for export,” says Bennett, who is based in Ottawa.

“We already have enough infrastructure to meet our own oil consumption needs,” Bennett told DeSmog Canada.

Oil tank car shipments in Canada have dramatically jumped from five hundred carloads in 2009 to 160,000 last year, but Canada’s consumption of oil has declined during the same period. All of the recent pipeline proposals in Canada are destined to export oil out of the country with the exception of the Line 9 pipeline in Ontario and Quebec.

“The federal government would be more than happy for this debate to be rail versus pipeline oil shipments,” says Stewart.

“The debate should really be between dirty energy and clean energy and why we continue to invest billions in infrastructure for the fossil fuel industry when that money should be used to fight climate change and reduce our dependence on oil,” Stewart told DeSmog Canada.

The oilsands boom in Alberta and the Bakken shale oil boom in North Dakota coupled with stiff opposition to new pipeline approvals have been blamed for the massive increase in oil-by-rail transport in North America. In the US, oil tank carloads went from 10,800 in 2009 to 400,000 in 2013.

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board

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The recent oil train derailment and subsequent explosion in North Dakota was yet another reminder tighter regulations and more independent research on transporting oil is needed — particularly where volatile shale oil is concerned. Last week another reminder hit close to home when a CN Rail train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire in New Brunswick.

The responsibility of protecting Canadians from an oil transportation disaster has largely fallen to the provinces while the federal government has weakened or eliminated rules and regulations that get in the way of its priority to sell as much Canadian oil as possible. 

By the end of this month the federal pipeline regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB), is expected to approve Enbridge’s proposal for its 38-year old Line 9 oil pipeline in Ontario and Quebec, which would carry shale oil — known for its propensity to explode as it did in North Dakota.

The NEB is not in the habit of rejecting pipeline projects (see Northern Gateway’s approval). With that in mind, the province of Ontario must hold its ground on Line 9 and ensure its demands for a safer pipeline are met.

While the province could have gone further with its demands, two of the conditions — a hydrostatic test of Line 9 and a third-party independent review — have the greatest potential of reducing the risk of a Line 9 rupture.

The first, hydrostatic testing, is the gold standard for pipeline safety. By pumping water through Line 9 at a slightly higher pressure than its proposed maximum allowable operating pressure, the test can help establish if Line 9 can operate safely at the maximum pressure. It can also identify weak points in the pipeline that need replacing.

The third-party independent review would entail an independent expert looking over Enbridge’s data on Line 9 and would eliminate reliance on Enbridge’s conclusions without duplicating the NEB process.

The least Ontario can do is flex whatever legislative muscle it can muster to ensure compliance with its conditions. Enbridge would do best to adopt these conditions given the company’s reputation as the “Keystone Kops” of oil pipeline safety for their bungling of a 2010 oil spill in Michigan, resulting in three million litres of bitumen spilling over the course of 17 hours.

None of this is to say Ontarians should settle for the Line 9 pipeline. Opposition to transporting oilsands bitumen via Line 9 will continue. The jury is still out on whether bitumen is rougher on pipelines than conventional oil and the difficulties of cleaning up a bitumen spill are well known. Expansion of the greenhouse gas intensive Albertan oilsands completely overshadows Ontario’s efforts to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions.

And while Ontario expressed how important proper consultations with Ontario’s First Nations on Line 9 are, this was not one of the province’s conditions. It would be hard to find a clearer case of the failure to consult with First Nations than that of Line 9.

Still, while the conditions are far from perfect, the province must not be allowed to make demands for pipeline safety they never intend on backing up. Ontario has not breathed a word about its conditions since it presented them to the NEB in a public hearing on Line 9 in October.

Provinces are still responsible for the land, the water and the people within their borders. Failing to act on a pipeline proposal that threatens all of the above would blatantly ignore that responsibility. Oil train explosions and pipeline ruptures cannot be considered the price of doing business.

Image Credits: Enbridge Line 9 Report, Enridge, Pipeline Observer

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