Early last spring, provincial civil servants cut off virtually all communication about what the government knew about a sprawling network of potentially dangerous and unregulated dams in northeast B.C. on the pretext they could not comment because of the impending election.

The coordinated effort meant there was virtually no comment until months after voting day from front-line agencies on how 92 unlicensed dams were built on the then BC Liberal government’s watch.

Details about muzzling government communication on the dams — which were built to trap freshwater used in natural gas industry fracking operations — are contained in some of the 8,000 pages of documents released by B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) in response to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), which was the first to report on the dams early last May.

The initial CCPA report, published one week before the election and widely covered by media outlets, exposed how fossil fuel companies had built “dozens” of unlicensed fracking dams.

The FOI documents include internal emails between senior OGC staff and the Ministry of Natural Gas Development, in which the two organizations agree to refuse to release information on the dams on the grounds that doing so would violate rules on managing government records during the “interregnum” (the time between governments).

But this assertion is flatly rejected by an expert on privacy policy.

“Guidelines on ‘managing records during an election’ cannot trump the law,” said Colin Bennett, a University of Victoria political scientist. “If there is a public interest in disclosure, then the election period is irrelevant.”

Bennett added that B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Act clearly states that government officials should proactively release information that is in the public interest without delay. That did not happen in this case.

Not only did it not happen, but the OGC insisted on formal FOI requests being filed to obtain the information. By doing so, the Commission — with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Natural Gas Development — ensured that documents on the troubling dams would not be released until long after the election.

The suppressed information included documents about unlicensed dams built by Progress Energy, a subsidiary of the giant Malaysian state-owned company Petronas. At the time of last spring’s election, Petronas was still weighing whether or not to invest in a proposed liquefied natural gas plant at the mouth of the Skeen River near Prince Rupert.

The project was enthusiastically backed by then-Premier Christy Clark and Minister of Natural Gas Development, Rich Coleman. The premier went so far as to call opponents of the project “the forces of no.”

Averting a potential disaster

Early in our investigation, the CCPA learned that at least one unauthorized Progress Energy dam was so poorly built that the OGC had quietly ordered the company in spring 2016 to dewater the dam’s reservoir in order to avert a potential disaster. (A gas compressor station was downhill of the dam.)

The OGC even posted a very short summary of the order on one of its webpages, a low-key public acknowledgement that a more comprehensive document existed. The CCPA’s request for a copy of the full order was initially denied.

An April 18, 2017 email exchange between the OGC’s executive director of corporate affairs, Graham Currie, and the Ministry of Natural Gas Development’s communications director, Paul Woolley, refers to the full order and related documents as materials that both organizations agree not to release or to answer questions about:

“FYI – spoke with [CCPA policy analyst] Ben Parfitt today and advised him we could not release the order he was asking for and that he should submit an FOI. He said he has to report on this – and will put a line in to the effect:

‘I asked to receive a copy of the order and Graham Currie told me, due to the interregnum, it was not available and I should submit an FOI.’

I suspect we’ll see his editorial coming in the next day or two, based on this conversation.”

A half hour later, Woolley responded saying:

“Thx. This is [sic] the lines we are working with:

• During the interregnum period, it is public service’s duty to remain impartial during this time both in action and perception.
• Government communication practices are the same as they have always been for this election which is to not offer media relations support beyond pointing to already publicly available data or information.
• There are exceptions to these practices which are immediate public health matters, environmental health and emergencies.
• Further, during this time government staff do not provide analysis or comment on campaign promises of any political party, or any general comments they may make about government programs, policies and services.

Release of the order would not be an immediate concern related to public health and safety or an emergency in my opinion.”

Vincent Gogolek, former executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, said the email exchange is troubling, particularly in light of a complaint made by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre on behalf of the Association in 2012.

Gov failed to alert public to dam hazard in 2010

That complaint, to B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Commissioner, outlined several instances where the Association felt that government officials had acted incorrectly by withholding information that should have been released because it was clearly in the public interest.

One notable example was the government’s failure to notify the public about possible safety concerns at the small Testalinden dam in southern B.C. near the community of Oliver. A portion of the dam’s wall gave way in 2010, releasing 20,000 cubic metres of water.

Miraculously, no one was killed when the dam’s reservoir triggered a mudslide that wiped out five houses and blocked a portion of Highway 97 for five days.

After reviewing the law centre’s complaint, then-Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham wrote a report in response in which she found that provincial civil servants knew from government inspection reports that the Testalinden dam was near the end of its lifespan and that it posed “a hazard.”

Denham concluded that the government “failed to meet its obligation” by not alerting the public to the “compromised state of the dam.”

Testalinden creek mudslide south of Oliver, B.C., 2010. Photo: Darren Kirby via Flickr

Denham was particularly concerned that when it came to the troubled dam, civil servants appeared to ignore one of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act’s most important provisions, Section 25, which stipulates that the head of any public body “must, without delay” disclose any information “about a risk of significant harm to the environment or to the health or safety of the public or a group of people.”

In light of Denham’s report, Gogolek wonders how the OGC and Ministry of Natural Gas Development concluded four years later that it was not in the public interest to proactively release information on the dozens of unauthorized earthen dams built by fossil fuel companies. Some of those earthen dams held back seven times more water than what escaped during the catastrophic Testalinden failure.

And in each case, those dams were not vetted by provincial dam safety officials before they were built, meaning it was anybody’s guess whether or not the structures were designed and built to even minimally acceptable engineering specifications.

“How did they interpret that these dams were so radically different than the Testalinden dam? That’s the critical question in my mind,” Gogolek said.

Gogolek’s concern has added significance in light of other documents released in response to the CCPA’s FOI requests. Those documents show that OGC personnel knew as far back as June 2015 that there was a significant problem at another unauthorized Progress Energy dam, yet the OGC took no significant action until May 2016.

And the commission remained virtually silent on the matter for almost another year until it was forced to respond because of the CCPA investigation.

‘I cannot determine the mode of failure’

The scant details on the June 2015 incident — a failure of some kind — at a Progress Energy dam site are contained in an “assessment report” written 11 months later (on May 26, 2016) by the OGC’s then-chief hydrologist Allan Chapman.

According to the assessment report, the chief hydrologist was not happy with what he found. Chapman discovered during his field visit that Progress had built the dam to capture freshwater from two streams.

Under provincial water laws, the company had to apply for a licence before diverting water from streams.

That had not happened.

The dam was 10 metres high and stored roughly five times more water than what spilled during the Testalinden disaster. That made the dam a fully regulated structure under provincial laws, meaning that before it was built engineering plans should have been submitted to provincial dam safety officials.

That didn’t happen either.

Then, in spring or early summer 2015 — Chapman was uncertain when — the dam experienced some kind of failure.

“I cannot determine the mode of failure,” Chapman wrote in his report, noting that the dam’s reservoir could possibly have overfilled and the water overtopped the structure.

“There is evidence of substantial water and sediment movement into the forest downslope of the dam,” Chapman wrote, noting that there were “mud and splash lines on trees” about one metre above ground level, and that those splash lines extended 100 metres or more into the forest “approximately 100 metres downslope” of the dam.

For any oil and gas industry workers in the immediate vicinity downhill of the dam that day, the mudflow could have had deadly consequences.

More than a year after Chapman’s visit, in response to questions emailed to Progress Energy by the CCPA, the company acknowledged that an event had, indeed, occurred at the site — but not a failure of the dam per se.

In the email, Progress’s vice-president of external affairs and communications, Liz Hannah, said that during construction of the dam “frozen material had been excavated from the pond area and stored in the northwest corner of the site. During melting conditions, a portion of this frozen saturated material had mobilized and run offsite onto a Progress right of way and into the adjacent forested crown land.”

Copies of photos included in Hannah’s email show a very large stream of dried and caked mud that she said had been carried away from the dam site.

“It is correct that a portion of the excavated soil pile failed,” Hannah concluded in her email, “but the dam itself did not.”

By the time of Chapman’s spring 2016 report, the OGC knew it had allowed a big problem to develop on its watch.

Progress Energy and other companies had clearly built many unlicensed dams on Crown or public lands — dams that the OGC could have, and should have, stopped. It was also clear that many more such dams had been built on private lands, dams that the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO) also could, and should, have stopped.

At the time, provincial regulators didn’t know how many dams there were. They also didn’t know where the dams were located, what waters they impounded or how safe or unsafe they might be.

Scrambling to quantify just how many such dams there were, the OGC sent a letter on May 13, 2016 to companies drilling and fracking for gas in B.C.

The companies were instructed to report back on all “fresh water storage” structures they had built including information on dam heights, water sources, and the amounts of water stored behind the dams.

The letters also instructed the companies to supply “produced, signed and sealed” documents from professional engineers on the “structural integrity” of the dams. The companies were also told that their engineers must report on any “risk to public safety, the environment, or other property” that the dams posed.

Once the responses came in, the OGC concluded that Progress Energy had built roughly half of 51 unauthorized dams, all but three of which are located on Crown lands.

It is now up to the OGC to approve or disapprove the dams retroactively.

Progress Energy’s Lily dam is roughly as high as a five-storey building and was buit without government approval under the B.C. Environmental Assessment Act. Photo: Ben Parfitt

Evidence massive dam is ‘moving’

Subsequent work by FLRNO revealed that in addition to those 51 unregulated dams, another 41 were built without the required permits and that the bulk of those dams are on private lands, including farmlands in B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve.

Two unregulated dams built by Progress Energy in 2012 and 2014 are particularly problematic because they are so big. One is nearly 23 metres high or roughly as tall as a seven-storey apartment building and the other is roughly as high as a five-storey building. The taller of the two earthen structures is referred to in various documents as the “d-42-k” or Lily dam.

Both dams qualified as “reviewable projects” under B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act, meaning that each of them should have undergone separate provincial environmental assessments first to determine whether Progress would be allowed to build them at all.

But the company never alerted the Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) of its intentions to build the dams and Progress subsequently took the extraordinary step of asking the EAO after the fact to exempt the dams from review.

The EAO eventually ordered the company to drain virtually all of the water behind the massive structures and is expected to soon issue its decision on the company’s request. Several organizations, including the Blueberry River First Nation and the CCPA, filed documents with the EAO urging that the company’s application be rejected.

A photocopied photo included in the FOI documents obtained by the CCPA shows a tension crack at the top of one sloped wall of the towering Lily dam near Mile 156 of the Alaska Highway. The 23-metre-high structure’s “live storage” volume — meaning the amount of water that could be unleashed should the dam fail — is more than 20 million gallons or enough to fill 30 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Another email in the FOI package quotes an OGC official saying there was evidence the massive structure was “moving,” a sign that the dam’s earthen walls or berms were slowly shifting, potentially causing the dam to become unstable.

Since the first stories on the sprawling network of unauthorized dams were published by the CCPA on May 3, 2017, belated inspections by compliance and enforcement personnel with the OGC and EAO uncovered significant problems at 16 unlicensed dams on Crown lands. Companies were ordered to take corrective action, including draining much of the water behind many of the dams to lower the risk of catastrophic failures.

Further problems were identified at another dozen unlicensed dams built on Crown lands, for which the Province could still issue more orders. And, more problems may yet come to light at other unlicensed dams, in particular at the 41 built on private lands and recently identified by the FLNRO.

All of this makes the government’s pre-election strategy to suppress the release of information on the problematic dams more vexing. No environmental concerns? No risks to human health and safety? How did the government possibly draw such conclusions when documents in its possession clearly said otherwise?

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This piece originally appeared on Policy Note, by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The number of unlicensed and potentially dangerous dams built in recent years in northeast British Columbia is nearly double what has been reported, according to one of the province’s top water officials.

At least 92 unauthorized dams have been built in the region, where natural gas industry fracking operations consume more water than just about anywhere on earth. That’s far more than the 51 dams previously identified in documents obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

With the number of unlicensed dams built to impound freshwater used in fracking operations approaching 100, more questions are being raised about how so many structures were built without provincial agencies halting their construction.

Ted White, director and comptroller of water rights in B.C.’s Water Management Branch, confirmed the higher number, which includes an additional 41 dams to those originally documented by the CCPA, all built on private lands, most if not all, on rural farm lots in the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve.

White’s confirmation came after his ministry — the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (FLNRO) quietly posted a consultant’s report on its website early in the new year.

The report, posted without an accompanying press release, called some of the unauthorized dams potential “time bombs” and said a top priority must be “to find the high consequence dams and make sure they are properly constructed and operated and maintained in an appropriate manner before any of them fail.”

Jim Mattison, who wrote the report, was also once B.C.’s water comptroller.

Mattison based his conclusions on satellite imagery analyzed by FLRNO staff who looked at the vast network of artificial water bodies in the northeast where B.C.’s largest natural gas reserves are found. The analysis revealed nearly 8,000 water bodies have been constructed in the region, more than half of which are relatively small holes or “dugouts” in the ground that capture and store water used by farmers and/or natural gas companies.

Additionally, the report identified 268 “large” or “very large” artificial water bodies that could be dam reservoirs. These water bodies, all at least a half hectare in size and many much larger, became a top priority for further study.

After Mattison submitted a first draft of his report in March 2017, dam safety officials with FLNRO flew by helicopter to 80 suspected dams.

Those inspections, White said, identified 41 previously undocumented dams that were built without the proper licenses and authorizations. In an emailed response to questions, White said “the 41 dams identified by the Ministry are in addition to the 50 or so that the OGC [Oil and Gas Commission] had identified previously.”

In contrast to previous reports that identified dozens of unauthorized dams built on public lands, the recently identified 41 dams are all on private lands, including farmlands, White said, adding that “the Ministry and OGC have been working closely together to identify dams that require regulation.”

B.C. fracking consumes between 20 and 100 times more water than a decade ago

The unprecedented scale of problematic dams built in the region coincided with a rapid expansion in the amount of water that fossil fuel companies use in their fracking operations, particularly in the Montney Basin, the more southern of the two largest natural gas plays in northeast B.C.

According to a 2016 analysis by consulting firm Foundry Spatial, fracking operations in the region now consume between 20 and 100 times more water than they did just over a decade ago.

Around the time Mattison submitted his draft report last March, the CCPA received a tip that many unauthorized dams had been built by fossil fuel companies without the companies first obtaining required water licences or submitting engineering and construction plans to provincial dam safety officials.

The CCPA subsequently flew to Fort St. John, identified unlicensed dams in the field and published findings showing how “dozens” of such structures had been built in apparent violation of provincial acts and regulations including the Water Act, the Environmental Assessment Act and the provincial Dam Safety Regulation.

B.C. Oil and Gas Commission responsible for regulating problematic dams

FOI requests later confirmed that 51 such dams had been built. All but three were on Crown or public lands shared with First Nations.

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission (OGC), which regulates fossil fuel companies, is now responsible for regulating those dams.

Nearly one third of the dams first identified as unauthorized were later found to have structural problems that posed serious enough risks to human health and safety and the environment that the companies were ordered to take corrective actions.

Among the most significant design flaws were dams built without spillways, which are essential to divert water safely away from dam reservoirs in the event that reservoirs overfill. Without spillways, dams are at heightened risk of catastrophic failures.

The 41 dams on private land are FLNRO’s responsibility to regulate not than the OGC’s, and White said dams on private lands are nevertheless subject to the same laws and regulations as those on public lands.

Once dams exceed a certain height and/or impound enough water, they become regulated structures. The 41 identified dams on private lands and the 51 on Crown lands meet the criteria for regulated dams.

The story of one of the dams on private land sheds light on the challenges ahead for FLNRO’s dam safety and water officials.

The frack water gambit on private lands

Old Faithful Water Inc. is an offshoot of Swamp Donkey Oilfield Services, a Dawson Creek-based company owned by Trent Lindberg. The company is in the business of selling water to natural gas industry clients.

Like the famed geyser that spews forth water with regularity in distant Yellowstone Park and that the company named itself after, Old Faithful’s owners boast on the company’s website that they can sell water to the fracking industry winter, spring, summer and fall. Each of the company’s four “all season” facilities in the Peace River region straddle the B.C.-Alberta border and are near major hauling routes like the Alaska Highway.

Each facility has ample room for incoming trucks to hook up to pumps that can fill the average tanker with 32 cubic metres of water in just eight minutes. Then the trucks can rumble off to nearby gas drilling pads where the water is pumped underground during some of the most water-intense methane gas industry fracking operations on earth.

Much of that information is on the Dawson Creek company’s website, which features a somewhat bucolic photograph of grasses and flowers in front of what appears to be a small lake except the lake’s far banks look like they’ve been bulldozed into place.

“When it comes to easy water,” Old Faithful’s website gushes, “we have it for you.”

But the “easy water” story has an edgier, uneasy narrative.

A large, earthen dam operated by Old Faithful on private lands. Photo: Vicky Husband

At least some of what the company sells to its industry clients comes from a reservoir impounded by a large earthen dam on private land owned by Trent and Twyla Lindberg. (The Lindbergs could not be reached for comment.)

According to a document filed with the Peace River Regional District, when the dam’s reservoir is at “full capacity” the impounded water is six metres “above grade.” In other words, a wall of water roughly as high as a two-storey house is at risk of spilling in the event the dam failed.

The company built the dam in violation of key provincial regulations, including obtaining a water licence before building the dam. According to documents filed with the Peace River Regional District by a surveyor working for the company, the dam was built in mid-2013, long before the provincial government issued the water licence.

Old Faithful’s dam and reservoir are also on farmland in B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve, land that can no longer produce crops because it is either covered by the dam and reservoir, or by the road leading to and from the facility, or the by the large clearing constructed for the tanks and pumps used to fill the incoming trucks with their frack water.

And the water used to fill the unlicensed dam’s reservoir was pumped without permission from nearby Six Mile Creek. The surveyor’s report incorrectly claims that the creek is a “non-fish-bearing” stream when in fact the creek is home to spawning and rearing fish.

‘It’s the Wild West up here’

Last April — four years after the unlicensed dam was built — FLRNO retroactively issued Old Faithful’s owners a water licence, allowing the dam to continue operation. White said the government elected not to fine or charge the company for violating the rules.

“When instances of non-compliance are discovered related to a dam, the goal of the Ministry is to bring owners into compliance with the WSA and its regulations through application of the Dam Safety Compliance and Enforcement Policy. By applying for and being granted a water licence, the owner is demonstrating progress toward coming fully into compliance with the WSA and regulations,” White said in an emailed response to questions.

“There are currently no outstanding orders or fines related to this file.”

The lack of fines for building a dam without the required pre-approvals does not surprise Arthur Hadland, a longtime area resident, farmer and former elected director for the Peace River Regional District.

“It’s the Wild West up here,” says Hadland, who while a regional district director between 2008 and 2014 represented about 7,000 rural residents living in the outlying region around Fort St. John.

“There’s no sense of stewardship anymore,” Hadland laments. “We’ve lost that.”

Most people living in the region may have never heard of Old Faithful Water Inc.

Shell Canada, a subsidiary of the global fossil fuel behemoth Royal Dutch Shell, is another matter. The company’s sign can be seen at Shell gas stations in just about every community in the province and the company also has subsurface rights to oil and gas over an area totalling more than 88,200 hectares in northeast B.C.

In 2016, Shell had drilling rights on an even greater area of land before selling those rights on nearly 24,700 hectares to Tourmaline Oil Corporation as part of a $1.03 billion cash and stock transaction. The subsurface rights that Shell sold were in the Gundy area (generally north of Fort St. John) and included farmland where Shell, like Old Faithful, had a role in constructing two dams that violated key provincial laws.

Documents obtained by the CCPA through FOI requests filed with the OGC indicate that Commission personnel were aware of the two Shell dams that contravened key pieces of provincial legislation.

‘Long saga’ with dams: hydrologist

In an October 2016 email with the subject line “Shell Canada – Gundy – dams,” the issue of the two dams is addressed by Allan Chapman, the OGC’s then chief hydrologist, in a note to numerous FLNRO personnel.

Chapman notes that Shell had recently retroactively applied for water licences for two dams “and related stream diversions” on a rural property north of Fort St. John. He went on to write in the email that because Shell subsequently sold its leases, it was expected the company would withdraw its water licence applications and leave it to the new lease owner to come into compliance with all relevant provincial laws.

“There is a long saga with these dams and stream diversion. Everything was done 3-4 years ago without authorization,” Chapman wrote.

FOI documents also reveal that both dams are located on a “district lot” within B.C.’s Agricultural Land Reserve.

A provincial land title search shows the property – District Lot 2615 – is in the Peace River District and owned by Joleen Meservy whose mailing address is listed in La Glace, Alberta. On her Linkedin page Messervy describes herself as an owner and manager of the Bar 4A Cattle Company and as a “civil consultant” for Meservy Holdings Ltd. The word Shell and the corporation’s distinct bright yellow seashell logo outlined in red is prominently displayed beside the Meservy Holdings name.

According to the land title document, Shell holds three registered leases on the Meservy property. The document does not indicate how much Meservy paid to purchase the property, or how much she may have received from Shell in return either as a one-time up-front payment or through annual lease payments, or what arrangements may have been made between the Shell consultant and the company to access the land and take water away.

Meservey could not be reached for comment.

One of the Shell dams is identified in the document as “Water Pit #3” and was built in the middle of a wetland on the property. B.C.’s Ministry of Environment notes that wetland losses have accelerated in many parts of the province, that they are “one of the most important life support systems on earth,” and that they provide “critical habitat” for fish, birds and other wildlife, including threatened and endangered species.

There is no information in the documents about whether the two dams were built to an acceptable engineering standard.

In an emailed response to questions, Graham Currie, the OGC’s director of public and corporate relations, said the OGC “intends to issue and enforce” orders at the dams and that the Commission holds Shell responsible for the structures.

Like the dams built on public land, those on private land were all built for one express purpose: to supply water to natural gas companies for use in their hydraulic fracturing or fracking operations.

Western Canadian shale plays. Source: Rystad Energy

Accelerating gas production means more water use

While prospects appear dim for a much-hyped liquefied natural gas industry in B.C., natural gas drilling and fracking operations are intensifying in the Montney region, thanks to an abundance of naturally occurring liquids or “wet gases” that flow to the surface following fracking operations. The liquids include pentane, butane and condensates, prized commodities in the Alberta tar sands.

High-volume fracking — a process where immense volumes of water are pressure-pumped deep underground to create cracks or fractures in gas-bearing rock — is now essential to coax gas liquids and methane gas to the surface because the best, easiest to access gas resources are long gone.

Methane — a gas, not a liquid — was long the mainstay of B.C.’s oil and gas industry.

But with gas prices remaining stubbornly low, profits in the Montney now derive almost entirely from naturally occurring “wet” gases that flow to the surface along with the gas following fracking.

The drive to coax as many wet gases from the ground as possible has triggered a sharp increase in the amount of water used at fracking operations.

Encana, one of the region’s largest holders of wet gas deposits, predicts it will double its methane gas production in the Montney by 2019 while at the same time its gas liquids output will soar fivefold to reach 70,000 barrels per day.

That accelerating production means a need for more and more water.

In August 2015, a Progress Energy fracking operation in the Montney Basin consumed 160,000 cubic metres of water — the equivalent of 64 Olympic swimming pools — at just one well, according to award-winning investigative reporter and author Andrew Nikiforuk.

The fracking operation triggered a 4.6 magnitude earthquake, a tremor far more powerful than the two 2.7 magnitude earthquakes that may have contributed to the recent failure of a tailings pond dam at an Australian gold mine in New South Wales.

The water pumped during the Progress Energy fracking operation was eight times more than the amount used in an average fracking procedure in the continental United States.

Small dam failure destroyed 5 houses in 2010

Just as the OGC must now rule retroactively on whether companies that built dozens of dams without permits on Crown lands should be allowed to continue to operate those facilities, it now falls to FLNRO personnel to decide the fate of at least 41 frack-water dams built on private land.

The dams in question are tiny compared to the region’s nearby hydroelectric dams or to larger tailings pond dams operated by mining companies, however, the Mattison report is clear that plenty of damage could occur in the event one of the unlicensed fracking dams were to fail.

Some fracking dams dwarf other earthen structures that have given way in other parts of the province causing great damage, Mattison said.

“Testalinden Lake was a small reservoir in the Okanagan holding about 55,000 m3 of water, artificially created by a small dam less than 10 m high. In mid June 2010, the dam failed. Only about 20,000 m3 of water escaped and ran down a gully for 8 km, by which time it was a debris flow of about 200,000 m3. It destroyed five houses, blocked Highway 97 for five days, covered a four hectare orchard and a vineyard with one and a half metres of mud, and resulted in nine million in damages. Fortunately, there was no loss of life,” Mattison noted.

FOI documents reveal that some of the unauthorized fracking dams impound 150,000 cubic metres of water, roughly three times what the Testalinden dam held back.

The potential damage from the failure of even modest dams is one reason why the penalties for building dams without permits can be significant. If charged and convicted for violating the Water Sustainability Act or B.C.’s Dam Safety Regulation, fines can run to $200,000 and in the most extreme cases $1 million.

The worst offences can also result in jail terms.

To date, however, neither the OGC nor FLNRO have laid charges against any companies for violating provincial laws by building unlicensed fracking dams. Instead, government has taken the softer approach of coaxing companies to “come into compliance” after-the-fact.

Time will tell whether or not that approach safeguards the public interest and proves a sufficient deterrent.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

B.C.’s scientific inquiry into fracking won’t address risks to public health, the government quietly assured the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) nearly six weeks before government publicly announced the inquiry on Thursday.

B.C. also assured CAPP the inquiry would not address industry’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, according to documents obtained by DeSmog Canada.

“You have the preeminent industry association in the country given six weeks advance notice not only about the inquiry itself but a clear indication that key things are simply not going to be addressed,” Ben Parfitt, an investigative journalist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told DeSmog Canada.

”I’m deeply troubled by that.”

In November the CCPA, along with 16 partner organizations, called on the B.C. government to launch a broad-reaching public inquiry into all aspects of the fracking industry, after Parfitt revealed several companies had built unlicensed dams to hold water for frack operations.

The groups renewed that call in December after a leaked report showed the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission had kept information about potentially hundreds of leaking oil and gas wells hidden for four years.

“I am extremely worried and all the groups that signed on to a call for an inquiry are extremely concerned about what we see here,” Parfitt said.

Nearly six weeks before B.C. announced its review of the fracking process, CAPP was notified the inquiry would focus only on water usage and induced earthquakes from fracking operations.

Government also made CAPP aware the province would not conduct a full public inquiry as had been requested by civil society groups, that the panel would consist of three academics and would conduct its work in April and May.

None of the 17 organizations that made the call for a public inquiry into fracking were notified of government’s intentions to launch a scientific panel.

The B.C. Ministry of Mines and Petroleum Resources did not answer questions about the nature of its consultation with CAPP or whether the industry association made specific recommendations regarding the province’s scientific inquiry. CAPP did not respond to a request for comment.

Significant harms to human health associated with fracking

The announcement of B.C.’s scientific inquiry this week coincides with the release in the U.S. of the most authoritative study of fracking’s threats to human health ever published.

The compendium, a 266-page report which draws from nearly 1,300 peer-reviewed studies, reports and investigations, was released by the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Concerned Health Professionals of New York.

The report found “no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health” and puts B.C.’s avoidance of health impacts in its scientific inquiry conspicuously on display according to Barbara Gottlieb, director for environment and health at Physicians for Social Responsibility and one of the co-authors of the study.

“I’m so glad to hear there is going to be a government scientific review of fracking,” Gottlieb told DeSmog Canada. “I’m struck there are no health voices on the panel.”

The body of information addressing the threats fracking poses to human health is enormous, Gottlieb said, adding the bulk of the research has been conducted in the last five years.

“The most important thing to note is that we can say with certainty fracking causes harm to human health.”

Recent research has demonstrated a real statistical correlation between those living close to fracking sites and an increase in hospitalization for numerous causes, including increased asthma, harm to fetuses and premature birth which is the leading cause of premature death in infants in the U.S., Gottlieb and her co-authors found.

“For a long time the information was largely anecdotal, largely at the level of symptoms, so we’d see people living near fracking sites had headaches or sudden and severe nosebleeds.”

The research now shows a strong connection between serious harm and proximity to fracking operations, Gottlieb said, noting the occupational risk to those working for the oil and gas industry.

“The extraction sites are dangerous,” she said.

Amy Lubik, member of the Public Health Association of B.C., one of the groups that called on government to launch a public inquiry into fracking, said much of the research into the impacts of fracking on human health has been done in the U.S.

“There aren’t a lot of studies in B.C. around the impacts on health,” Lubik told DeSmog Canada. “It’s one of the reasons why we were hoping the government was going to examine fracking in a public inquiry.”

Lubik, who is an environmental health scientist with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, said many other jurisdictions that have placed a ban or moratorium on fracking have done so precisely because of risks to health.

“I think we need to do a hell of a lot more research,” she said. “We talk about the chemical issue a lot with the different groups in public health. What about the people that are living and working in these industries?”

Lubik added when it comes to public health, emissions associated with the industry are also of significant concern.

“Climate change is the biggest public health risk of our time. If we aren’t meeting our Paris targets, we will put a lot of people’s health at risk.”

Emissions impact of fracking overlooked

Scientist John Werring with the David Suzuki Foundation, also a signatory of the call for a broad public inquiry into fracking, has spent the last several years measuring the impacts of leaking methane from oil and gas infrastructure in B.C.

Werring’s research found fugitive methane — an extremely potent greenhouse gas — is escaping at much higher rates than previously estimated by government or industry. A report published in collaboration between the David Suzuki Foundation and St. Xavier University recommended B.C. require industry to provide regular monitoring and reporting of fugitive emissions.

Werring said he’s disappointed B.C.’s scientific review of fracking was designed to exclude looking at those fugitive emissions.

“I think unfortunately that this is a very, very, very narrowly focused scientific review,” Werring told DeSmog Canada.

While there are environmental hazards associated with the fracking process itself, Werring said much of the impacts of fracking happen above ground.

“When we’re talking, for example, about the issue of fugitive emissions, they contain potentially toxic components that have adverse impacts on human health. These are things like benzene, toluene and hydrogen sulfide gas.”

“There is nothing here in government’s scientific review that they are going to look at the human health impacts. Nothing,” Werring said.

Gottlieb said tracking methane is important for tracking the larger movement of contaminants away from fracking sites and into communities. She added there is no known safe threshold for exposure to benzene, which causes cancer.

“The fracking site is where the gas is extracted but then the methane is carried to processing stations and then carried often hundreds of miles to power stations or increasingly in the U.S. there is a push to liquify natural gas,” she said.

Those pipelines carry with them some of the dangerous substances that come out of the ground with the methane, including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and often radioactive material, Gottlieb said.

“These dangerous substance are not only causing sickness and hospitalization and so on where this is extracted but this whole pipeline and infrastructure system carries this toxic material with them and into communities hundreds of miles away.”

“We’re all stakeholders in regards to fracking.”

Stronger review needed

Gottlieb said in her home state of Maryland, where there is a current ban on fracking, Physicians for Social Responsibility pushed for health voices to be included in reviews of the industry’s impacts there.*

She said B.C. may be well counselled to embed a health professional in their review.

Lubik said there is still time for B.C. to alter the scope of its inquiry.

“I think there’s definitely still an opportunity — they haven’t even started yet.”

Parfitt said beyond assessing the health and emission impacts of the fracking industry in B.C., a meaningful inquiry would address the efficacy of the regulatory environment in the province.

“This review isn’t going to come anywhere remotely close to what our organization and other organizations felt was critical to be addressed by a much broader, fulsome public inquiry,” Parfitt said.

There have been too many examples of the regulator failing to protect the public’s interest, Parfitt said.

“We believe very strongly they’re not going to wrestle this beast to the ground if they’re not willing to look at how this industry is regulated.”

Fracking Inquiry Correspondence March 2018 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

*Update: Wednesday March 21, 2018 6:45 p.m. PST. This article has been updated to reflect the fact that the state of Maryland has a ban on fracking and not a moratorium as previously stated.*

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Hundreds of gas wells could be leaking methane and potentially contaminating groundwater, according to a B.C. Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) report that has been kept secret from the public and politicians for four years.

That suppression of information is giving ammunition to calls for a full public inquiry into fracking operations in the province.

“It is deeply troubling that B.C.’s energy regulator kept this report secret. Why did it not tell the public? Why, as the OGC now alleges, did it also not share the report with cabinet ministers who have responsibility for the energy industry?” Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told DeSmog Canada.

“We need answers and a full public inquiry is the best way to get them,” he said.

The staff report from December 2013 was finally posted to the commission’s website last month, after a copy was leaked to an investigative reporter, and that points to troubling questions about the motivation in not releasing such sensitive information, Parfitt said.

Phil Rygg, the Oil and Gas Commission’s director of public and corporate relations, said in an emailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada that the Gas Migration Report was an internal report to allow the commission to “better understand the issue of gas migration, plan next steps for data gathering and potential mitigation effects.”

“It is deeply troubling that B.C.’s energy regulator kept this report secret. Why did it not tell the public?” https://t.co/Ac6c4nwdDh

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 16, 2017

Report Identified 900 Potential Leaking Gas Wells

The 2013 report documents 47 cases of gas migration — leaking methane — and speculates that, in the one zone studied, in northeast B.C., there could be 900 leaking wells. But, the commission does not have an “accurate understanding” of the total number of methane-leaking wells or good research on the effect of gas migration on aquifers, it says.

None of the wells identified were in close proximity to domestic water wells and there was no information that the confirmed leaking wells had affected domestic groundwater, the report says.

But risks to health, safety and the environment are acknowledged.

“Although methane is non-toxic, if methane is introduced into a drinking water system, there is potential to create an explosive atmosphere in confined spaces. Additionally, gas migration is a source of GHG emissions,” it says.

ICYMI: Coalition Calls for Public Inquiry Into B.C. Fracking

The report was written shortly before Rich Coleman, then BC Liberal minister of natural gas development, said that there was no evidence of groundwater contamination after decades of fracking.

“The reality is we’ve been doing this for over 50 years, we’ve never had a contamination from a drill,” Coleman said in response to questions about a scientific report saying fracking could contaminate surface and groundwater.

At that time, the province was aggressively pursuing liquified natural gas (LNG) development, so the information in the commission’s report was politically sensitive, said Parfitt, adding that that makes it even more puzzling that the information was not shared with politicians.

“We have a politician saying there is no evidence of groundwater contamination, but the head of the the commission has different information,” Parfitt said.

Cozy Ties Between Oil and Gas Industry and Regulator

It is not possible to know why the information was suppressed, Parfitt said.

“But a criticism that has been made of the Oil and Gas Commission is that there appears to be a troublingly close relationship between the regulator and industry clients that it regulates. I think this is something that should be looked at very closely by the provincial government,” he said.

It would be more acceptable for permit issuance to be separated from the compliance and enforcement function of the commission, Parfitt said, suggesting that enforcement should be handed to another organization such as the Conservation Officer Service.

Auditor General Carol Bellringer concluded after the Mount Polley tailings dam collapse that there was an inherent conflict of interest between promotion of the mining industry and ensuring compliance with environmental standards; Parfitt believes Bellringer would be likely to come to the same conclusion if she looked at the oil and gas sector.

Rygg said that since 2013 the commission has bought new equipment to better detect leaks, tightened regulations to ensure the commission is immediately notified of incidents and is conducting additional field investigations.

In addition, he said the commission has formed a working group with industry to improve drilling and cementing practices, is involved in several research projects, and recently conducted a helicopter survey of abandoned wells to better identify methane emissions.

“As of June 2017, gas migration has been reported to be associated with 144 wells in northeast B.C.,” he said.

It is the second time this year that serious questions have been raised about the OGC’s lax regulation of fossil fuel companies, Parfitt said.

Earlier this year, a CCPA investigation found the gas industry had built about 50 unlicensed dams to trap water used in fracking operations.

ICYMI: A Dam Big Problem: Fracking Companies Build Dozens of Unauthorized Dams in B.C.’s Northeast

Also, this year, the David Suzuki Foundation published research showing that 118,000 tonnes of “fugitive” methane was being released into the atmosphere annually at B.C. gas wells and other energy sector sites. The Suzuki Foundation found that release of that methane — which as a greenhouse gas is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide — is equivalent to adding two million vehicles to the road.

The CCPA and Suzuki Foundation are among 17 organizations that have called for a public inquiry into fracking, instead of the government’s promised scientific panel review.

“Only with a full, adequately funded, independent public inquiry, where witnesses testify under oath, do we believe British Columbians will get the information they need,” Parfitt said.

“That includes information on why the OGC has failed to effectively regulate the industry and protect the public interest, and why it has withheld key information from the public.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article was originally published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The provincial government has ordered Progress Energy to drain virtually all of the water trapped behind two massive dams the company built in violation of key provincial regulations.

The company was told on October 31 to drain all but 10 per cent of the water stored behind its Town and Lily dams near the Alaska Highway north of Fort St. John by Chris Parks, assistant director of compliance and enforcement with B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).

The order comes after Progress Energy filed an extraordinary application this summer with the EAO asking the provincial environmental regulator to retroactively “exempt” the two dams from required environmental assessments. Both dams are higher than five-storey buildings.

By law, Progress should have filed its exemption applications well before the projects were built, not after. Progress built its Town dam in 2012 and its Lily dam in 2014.

Both are part of a vast network of unlicensed dams that the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) first reported in early May have been built across northeast B.C. by fossil fuel companies to trap massive amounts of freshwater used in gas drilling and fracking operations.

ICYMI: A Dam Big Problem: Fracking Companies Build Dozens of Unauthorized Dams in B.C.'s Northeast

Numerous organizations, including the Blueberry River First Nation (BRFN), on whose traditional territory the dams were built, have written to the EAO objecting to Progress’ exemption request.

“BRFN has been repeatedly sounding alarm bells to the Crown (including through affidavits filed in court) about the diminished water quantity in our territory,” wrote Blueberry River First Nations lands manager Norma Pyle. “We have been watching lake levels drop, muskeg disappear, mineral licks dry up and streams reduce to small versions of their former selves.”

"Blueberry’s concern goes beyond these two dams to the failure of regulatory oversight in their territory — it’s not just these two dams, but dozens of them,” Blueberry River legal counsel Maegan Giltrow added in a separate e-mail statement.

“This is in the face of Blueberry’s repeated concerns to the Crown about the diminishing water quality and quantity they are seeing. This September the Blueberry River itself ran dry — Blueberry members haven’t seen that before. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of freshwater in their territory is being illegally impounded for oil and gas operations.”

“And Blueberry had to learn about the problem from media reports — where was the regulator? The Nation still doesn’t have answers to the questions it has put to the Oil and Gas Commission about all the illegal dams and water use."

#Fracking Company Ordered to Drain Two Unauthorized #Dams in B.C.’s Northeast https://t.co/uc9uj2v8y0 #bcpoli #progressenergy #petronas @BCOGC

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 10, 2017

Public Inquiry into Fracking Needed

The presence of the dams — and a host of additional issues relating to how Progress Energy and other fossil fuel companies use the water stored in them for their fracking operations — are among the concerns that triggered a call this week by 17 organizations (including the CCPA) for a full public inquiry into natural gas industry fracking operations in B.C.

In addition to the proliferation of unlicensed dams, the call for an inquiry was prompted by troubling events in the northeast of the province, including evidence of powerful earthquakes triggered by fracking, escalating water usage at B.C. fracking operations, rapidly increasing methane releases at gas well sites, local health impacts and ongoing impacts to First Nation lands.

ICYMI: Coalition Calls for Public Inquiry Into B.C. Fracking

The groups encouraged the government to examine the impacts of fracking and related operations on First Nation lands and resources in particular.

“We are deeply troubled that this dam-building free-for-all occurred on First Nation lands, that First Nations were not fully consulted about the true size and extent of these dams, and that our Indigenous Title, Rights and Treaty rights are still completely ignored or denied. There are still no substantive or meaningful opportunities to fully participate in decisions around how water resources are managed in our respective territories,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

“We need a credible, strong, independent inquiry to get to the bottom of this.”

The Environmental Assessment Office has yet to say how it will respond to the Blueberry River First Nation’s letter and those of many other organizations urging the government to reject Progress’ application for exemptions. David Karn, a senior public affairs officer with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, said in an e-mail that he expects the EAO to make a decision about Progress’ exemption request “in early 2018.”

Both dams are considered “major projects” under B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act because both exceed a critical height threshold of 15 metres. The Lily dam dramatically exceeds that threshold. It is 23 metres high or as tall as a seven-storey apartment building.

B.C.'s Environmental Assessment Office has ordered Progress Energy to drain almost all of the water from this unauthorized dam. Photo: Ben Parfitt

Build it First, Ask for Permission Later

Both dams are among more than 50 large earthen structures built by energy companies on Crown or public lands in northeast B.C. that are also subject to Treaty 8, the 1899 agreement reached between the Crown and the region’s First Nations.

Most or all of the dams were built without the companies first obtaining key provincial authorizations such as water licences. In addition, engineering specifications appear to never have been submitted to and approved by provincial authorities before the dams were constructed.

Dam safety and water licensing officials with the provincial Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations are also investigating additional fracking dams that have been built on private lands, including farmlands within the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve. B.C.’s ALR was created in 1973 to preserve farmland.

It now falls to B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission (OGC), which allowed the dams to be built without the proper permits first being obtained, to retroactively review dozens of pending water licence applications, and to assess the health, safety and environmental risks posed by dams that may not have been built to proper engineering standards.

The first batch of retroactive water licence applications came in late December last year when Progress Energy applied for 13 such licences on a single day.

Each application was for water rights at dams that had already been built and that were already impounding water. The applications did not include the water licence requests at the two dams currently under review by the EAO.

Recently, investigative journalist and author Andrew Nikiforuk reported how the OGC sent staff on a flyover of 51 unlicensed dams following publication of the CCPA’s initial research in May.

The inspections revealed serious problems at seven dams, or 14 per cent of those visited.

ICYMI: B.C. Regulator Finds Numerous Frack Water Dams Unsafe, At Risk of Failure

Progress Energy built five of the seven problematic dams (these five do not include the two before the EAO) and ConocoPhillips built the other two.

Noted problems included erosion, slumping and water overflowing the top of some dams.

According to documents obtained through numerous Freedom of Information requests filed by the CCPA, all of the unauthorized dams were purpose-built to trap freshwater used in fracking operations, where huge quantities of water are pumped under intense pressure to fracture or crack open deep rock formations so that trapped methane gas is released.

During a Progress Energy fracking operation north of Fort St. John in 2015, 160,000 cubic metres of water — the equivalent of 64 Olympic swimming pools — was pressure pumped underground at a fracking operation, triggering a 4.6 magnitude earthquake.

Dam Safety at Issue

The EAO’s order to Progress requiring it to drain its Town and Lily dams does not speak directly to the issue of how safe or unsafe those structures may be. Nor does it speak to the broader question of how the dams came to be built under the OGC’s watch, or whether or not the dams may be at risk because of ground motions triggered by nearby fracking operations.

The order notes, however, that “an environmental assessment certificate has not been issued for the dams” and because a certificate has not been issued, the Environment Minister “may order that the construction, operation, modification, dismantling, or abandonment of the project cease, either altogether or to the extent specified by the Minister, until the proponent obtains an environmental assessment certificate.”

Progress is then ordered to:

1. Maintain water volumes stored by the dams at no more than 10 per cent of live storage capacity unless otherwise directed by the EAO’s compliance and enforcement division/branch.  
2. Monitor and record water volumes on a weekly basis during frozen conditions and on a daily basis during conditions where flowing surface water is present, and provide that information to EAO compliance and enforcement upon request.

Following this order, Progress Energy’s president and CEO Mark Fitzgerald issued a statement to the Globe and Mail claiming “that it was his own company that identified problems with some of its dams — including the failure to obtain proper authorizations — and brought the findings to the attention of the provincial government.”

The article continued: “He said an engineering review of the company’s water-holding facilities found no structural issues, but noted that some were larger than permits allowed.”

"We own those mistakes, and are working with the [Oil and Gas Commission] to correct them," Fitzgerald said to the Globe and Mail.

“What's important to me is that we will not make these mistakes again. We're committed to working closely with the regulators and to managing our operations in an environmentally responsible manner."

An unauthorized Progress Energy dam where millions of gallons of freshwater was found impounded in early April. It is among “dozens” of unpermitted dams spread across northern B.C. Photo © Garth Lenz, all rights reserved.

Self-reporting Doubts

But records obtained from the Oil and Gas Commission through the CCPA’s various Freedom of Information requests paint a different picture.

Progress Energy did not suddenly arrive at the conclusion that some of its dams were built without the required authorizations.

Rather, the company — along with all its competitors operating in northeast B.C. — was told by the OGC in May 2016 to submit lists of all dams that it had built. Why the OGC apparently didn’t know the answer to the question is not clear.

Two months later, after the companies had reported back to the Commission, then OGC chief hydrologist, Allan Chapman, wrote an e-mail to the Commission’s vice-president of applications, James O’Hanley, and its vice-president of operations, Lance Ollenberger, stating:

“Hi James and Lance. Progress Energy has confirmed that they built two Freshwater Storage Sites that exceed the EA Reviewable Projects Regulation of 15 metres. In their submission from Wednesday, they indicate that one is 23 metres, which is quite breathtaking. I have advised them they need to contact the EAO.”

So clearly, the company did not voluntarily approach the Environmental Assessment Office. It was compelled to do so by the regulator, which should have prevented the dam from being built in the first place.

Several problems with the Lily dam were also subsequently noted by Progress Energy in its own commissioned engineering report submitted to the EAO. The Lily Dam Project Description document noted signs of seepage, or water leaking from behind the dam’s walls, and improperly graded water outlets for the dam. According to the engineering report, both issues had the potential to cause severe damage to — or failure of — the dam, if left unaddressed.

Whether those troubling words of warning influenced the Environmental Assessment Office’s decision to order Progress to drain most of the water from its two largest dams is unknown.

If the company's application for exemption is ultimately denied and the two dams are finally subjected to a full provincial environmental assessment, the answer to that question and more may finally see the light of day.

Even so, this case drives home why B.C. needs a full public inquiry into fracking activities.

Image: The Lily Dam wa built by Progress Energy without a provincial environmental permit. Photo: Progress Energy

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A full public inquiry, with powers to call witnesses and gather research, is needed to investigate natural gas fracking operations in B.C., says a coalition of 17 community, First Nations and environmental organizations.

The group, which includes the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, David Suzuki Foundation, Public Health Association of B.C. and West Coast Environmental Law, is appealing to the NDP government to call a public inquiry — instead of the scientific review promised during the election campaign — because of mounting evidence of problems caused by fracking.

“We believe that the NDP’s campaign promise to appoint a scientific panel to review fracking won’t be enough to fully address the true risks of deploying this brute force technology throughout northeast B.C.,” said Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, one of the organizations asking for an inquiry.

Fracking — or hydraulic fracturing — involves pumping large volumes of water into the ground at high pressure to break open rocks or fissures and extract oil or gas.

Problems include excessive water usage, induced earthquakes, poor consultation with First Nations and the proliferation of dozens of unlicensed, earthen dams, constructed by companies ignoring provincial water laws.

The BC Greens have called on the NDP to investigate the use of unapproved dams.

The use of fracking in B.C. comes with serious implications, Parfitt said.

“We have significant earthquake activity that is being generated in the northeast of the province, with the largest earthquakes associated with fracking operations occurring in B.C., and we also have strong indications that the amount of water that is being used, and subsequently contaminated, is at a level that is not seen anywhere else on the continent,” Parfitt said in an interview.

At a Progress Energy site near Fort St. John, where, in 2015, the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission confirmed a record-setting 4.6 magnitude earthquake was caused by fracking, the company was using eight times more water than used at operations anywhere in the U.S., Parfitt said.

Coalition Calls for Public Inquiry Into B.C. #Fracking https://t.co/wxylk6DXL9 #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 6, 2017

“The water volumes are very, very significant and there is a correlation between the tremendous amount of water being used and the earthquakes that are cropping up,” he said.

BC Hydro has expressed concern about fracking in areas near major dams and a public inquiry could look at whether there should be exclusion zones, he said.

One reason for the excessive use of water in areas such as Montney Basin is to coax valuable gas liquids to the surface. The presence of the gas liquids is one reason fracking operations are increasing even though natural gas prices remain low.

Gas liquids include light oil, condensate, butane and propane. Condensate from the Montney Basin is used to dilute bitumen from the Alberta oilsands.

Air as well as water is affected by fracking and there is compelling evidence from the David Suzuki Foundation that more methane is venting into the atmosphere from oil and gas operations than previously reported.

“That is going to have a serious impact on our greenhouse gas emissions in the province,” Parfitt said.

Peer-reviewed research from the Suzuki Foundation found that methane pollution, largely from fracking operations, is 2.5 times more than reported by the industry and the provincial government.

Ian Bruce, Suzuki Foundation science and policy director, said the province must make controlling methane pollution a priority and then ensure the industry helps come up with solutions.

“Right now, we know that British Columbians are not getting accurate and transparent information about the real environmental damages from oil and gas activities,” Bruce said.

For First Nations, a major concern is unlicensed dams built on First Nations land without consultation.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs president, said the dam-building free-for-all and effects of excessive water use by the industry is deeply troubling.

“There are still no substantive or meaningful opportunities to fully participate in decisions around how water resources are managed in our respective territories,” he said in a news release.

“We need a credible, strong, independent inquiry to get to the bottom of this,” Phillip said.

Among questions that need scrutiny are the public health effects, said Larry Barzelai of the B.C. Chapter of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Recent U.S. studies have shown increases in premature births, asthma and congenital heart disease in people living close to fracking operations, Barzelai said.

“Can we be assured that the same complications will not occur in B.C.? We think that a properly funded public inquiry, with a comprehensive and strong mandate, is needed to answer critical questions such as these,” he said.

Public inquiries in B.C., such as probes into forest industry practices, have produced useful recommendations, but the gas industry has never been subjected to such scrutiny, Parfitt noted.

Among questions the group wants addressed are:

• The extent of consultation with First Nations and whether it meets standards set by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• Public health and safety risks.
• Risks to the environment and water resources.
• Risks to critical infrastructure, such as dams.
• Increases in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Whether there is adequate monitoring and transparency by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission.

During this year’s election campaign the NDP acknowledged there are questions about fracking and the party’s election platform said: “With the potential of significant expansion of gas production in the years ahead, we will appoint a scientific panel to review the practice to ensure that gas is produced safely and that our environment is protected.”

The review will include an assessment of the impacts on water and “given recent minor earthquakes in the area,” what role gas production has in seismic activity, it said.

So far, the government has not moved on the scientific review and the mandate letter, given by Premier John Horgan to Energy Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Michelle Mungall, makes no specific mention of the review, although it could be encompassed in more general endorsements of sustainability and respect for First Nations.

Neither Mungall nor Green Party spokespeople were available to comment by deadline for this story. However, later Monday the Ministry of Energy and Mines sent along a statement from Mungall:

“The provincial government is attentive to the concerns expressed about hydraulic fracturing in British Columbia, and we respect the diversity of opinions shared with us by third parties and stakeholders.

“We will act on our commitment and appoint a scientific panel to review hydraulic fracturing in British Columbia. This will include looking at impacts on water and the relationship to seismic activity. Further details will be announced in the near future.”

In 2016, after a scientific study was published drawing a direct line between fracking and earthquakes in the Western Canada sedimentary basin, on the Alberta/B.C. border, Green Party leader Andrew Weaver called for a “moratorium on horizontal hydraulic fracturing until there is a better understanding of its risks.”

In a September interview with DeSmog Canada, Weaver said the problem was not so much the existence of fracking, but the free-for-all approach.

“The right approach would be to pause and reflect on the cumulative impacts of our wild-west approach to resource extraction here in B.C.” Weaver said.

The Green platform called for creation of a natural resources board, which could take a detailed look at the cumulative effects.

Image: Premier John Horgan tours the AltaGas Ridley Island propane export facility. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A patchwork of roads, ditches and unauthorized dams are scarring First Nations territories in north east B.C. while water sources are being jeopardised by natural gas companies using hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of water for fracking, according to a study conducted for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

A sharp increase in fracking operations is underway in B.C. but First Nations have little say in decisions about how the companies operate on their traditional lands, finds the study, written by Ben Parfitt, CCPA resource policy analyst.

“Today, in the more remote reaches of northeast B.C., more water is used in fracking operations than anywhere else on earth — and substantial increases in water use will have to occur in the event a liquefied natural gas industry emerges in B.C.,” the paper states.

Fracking is the practice of pressure-pumping immense quantities of water, deep below the earth’s surface, to fracture rock in order to release trapped gas.

“It is easy to see how all that water use, which ultimately results in the water becoming heavily contaminated, poses increased risks both to surface waters and below ground or groundwater sources such as aquifers,” says the study, which points out that more water is used in B.C. fracking operations than anywhere else in the world.

A previous CCPA study found that, between 2012 and 2014, water use at fracked gas wells in the Montney and Horn River Basins, the region’s two major basins, climbed by about 50 per cent.

“Natural gas drilling and fracking operations have devastated local First Nations, steadily eroding their ability to hunt, fish, trap and carry out other traditional practices, which are supposed to be protected by Treaty 8,” said Parfitt, who last month revealed that dozens of unauthorized dams had been built in the same area to trap water used in fracking operations.

Parfitt found that two of the dams built by Progress Energy, a subsidiary of Malaysian-owned Petronas, were so large they should have been reviewed and approved by the province’s Environmental Assessment Office.

First Nations Bear Brunt of B.C.’s Sprawling #Fracking Operations: New Report https://t.co/4klbtq8lxJ @LavoieJudith @ccpa #bcpoli #LNGinBC pic.twitter.com/xaQbGmcxC4

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 4, 2017

In addition to the effect on First Nations lands, there is concern that fracking operations are known to trigger earthquakes and there is no guarantee that the dams are safe.

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission found that, in 2015, fracking by Progress Energy, north of Fort St. John, triggered a 4.6 –magnitude earthquake.

Now, with growing concerns about the amount of water being used by the industry, it is time First Nations were given more control over what happens on their land, Parfitt said.

Although First Nations receive advanced notice of fossil fuel industry development planned for their territories, they have little influence on the timing, rate or location of company operations and there is growing frustration over the inability to look at cumulative impacts or what constitutes a reasonable amount of industrial activity within a watershed, according to the study.

Some First Nations are resorting to legal action and the Fort Nelson First Nation, a Treaty 8 signatory, succeeded in having a water licence within its’ territory cancelled while the Blueberry River First Nations is suing the provincial government for cumulative damages to its territory from multiple industrial developments.

Three-quarters of Blueberry River territory is just 250 metres away from a variety of industrial disturbances, according to members. The potentially precedent-setting case is likely to be heard next year.

The new NDP government in B.C., propped up by support from the Green party, has not made any promises regarding fracking in B.C. although a joint agreement signed by both parties vowed to honour the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Green party Leader Andrew Weaver has previously called for a moratorium on fracking in B.C. until the risks of the process can be more fully understood.

Parfitt said that, if B.C. is going to respect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there must be changes.

“To start, we need to end the current death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach, where First Nations are simply asked to respond to one proposed industrial development after another, and, instead, place First Nations firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to guiding activities in local watersheds,” Parfitt said.

Meaningful consultation needs to take place well before activities occur, he said, noting that disturbance to the land for fracking operations ranges from logging to construction of wastewater containment ponds.

The report recommends that, instead of First Nations simply being asked to respond to government and industry referrals, the province should bring in new co-management regimes, with First Nations and government working together.

The system could be similar to that on Haida Gwaii, where the Haida Nation co-manages the Gwaii Haanas national park reserve and Haida heritage site with the federal government and co-manages forest resources on the north of the islands with the provincial government.

Other recommendations include:

• Setting maximum natural gas extraction limits on a watershed-by-watershed basis.
• Creating no-go, drill-free and frack-free zones, including protected areas where healthy, functioning ecosystems are maintained so that indigenous rights can be fully exercised.
• Charging more for industrial use of water, in hopes of encouraging conservation, and investing those funds in water studies and enhanced water protection.
• Requiring fossil fuel companies to detail exactly where they intend to operate over the long-term, so decisions on industry development and water withdrawals can be made in the context of cumulative regional impacts. The system would be similar to requirements that the logging industry give 20-year development plans detailing where they are proposing to build roads or log.

“There is an urgent need to embrace these recommendations — and more — in light of what First Nations contend with in the face of modern-day natural gas industry operations,” says the study.

“All natural resources, particularly water resources, are finite. They sustain lands and resources that First Nations have relied on since time immemorial. They must be managed with that in mind.”

Image: Caleb Behn, indigenous rights advocate, has fought for years to prevent the negative impacts of fracking on indigenous lands in B.C. Photo: Fractured Land

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.