In 2015, seven young people died in Beaver Lake Cree Nation — a tiny community in northeast Alberta with an on-reserve population of only 345 people.

“We started to lose young people,” recalled Crystal Lameman, treaty coordinator and member of the First Nation, in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “People my age, in my generation.”

A rise of drug use, alcohol consumption and violence in 2015 coincided with a downturn in the price of oil and job losses, creating a “time of crisis in the community,” she said.

Lameman is completing her Master’s degree on the relationship between mental health and traditional land use at the University of Alberta. She saw a direct correlation between what was happening in her community and the industrialization and “overdevelopment of extreme energy” in her territory.

“So it was like ‘ok, so what can I do?’ ”

An answer quickly became clear: solar power. Within less than a year, the community had installed 94 panels on the roof of its school.

Alberta’s New Indigenous Solar Program Quadrupled Installation Size

Beaver Lake had been discussing the concept of solar power for years. A feasibility study was started back in the late 1970s to evaluate the potential, but didn’t go anywhere.

The idea of small-scale solar was revived through conversations with Keepers of the Athabasca, a non-profit group dedicated to protecting the Athabasca River watershed. From there, Lameman gained enthusiastic support from the First Nation’s leadership and elders council, after which Beaver Lake drafted a request for proposal (RFP) for a 6 kW installation.

But as they were preparing to release the RFP in 2017, the Alberta government announced its Indigenous Solar Program. That allowed the First Nation to quadruple its initial plan, leveraging it into a 24.65 kilowatt installation via a 60-40 cost split with the province.

“Beaver Lake was very proactive,” Adam Yereniuk, director of operations at Kuby Renewable Energy — which won the bid and installed the panels — told DeSmog Canada.

“This was the first installation under the Alberta Indigenous Solar Program. They’re taking advantage of the grant money out there. I think it should encourage a lot of other First Nations to do the same because it really makes perfect sense.”

Indigenous communities across the country are getting on board with their own clean energy projects. A 2017 study by University of Calgary scholar Gregory Lowan-Trudeau identified 300 projects in 194 Indigenous communities in Canada; more than half are located in British Columbia, which created the First Nations Clean Energy Business Fund in 2013.

The Beaver Lake solar array was completed in July 2017, with the switch officially “flipped” in September.

The project is also a clear declaration of Indigenous sovereignty in the heartland of oil and gas production. https://t.co/vhZkKMxPgN

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 9, 2018

Switch to Solar About More than Clean Energy

The installation was about many things for Beaver Lake Cree Nation.

Lameman said the community’s drive to generate solar power was about more than clean energy: it was about harnessing the power to address intergenerational traumas in the community, manifesting in everything from high rates of drug and alcohol use, to incarceration, to violence, to child apprehension.

For that reason Beaver Lake kids participated in the solar project from its earliest stages: one of the first steps in the actual process involved a poster drawing contest, where school children drew what they thought of when they imagine the protection of Mother Earth.

The solar project was eventually installed on the roof of the Amisk Community School.

Now, as you walk into the foyer of the school, there’s a 20-inch flat screen monitor that displays how much electricity is being produced by the panels at any given time (Yereniuk pegged the number at about a fifth of the school’s total energy usage, although that number varies with conditions and demand).

The project was also a clear declaration of Indigenous sovereignty in the heartland of oil and gas production.

Lameman said that while Beaver Lake Cree Nation — which has launched precedent-setting court challenges against oilsands producers —  isn’t opposed to fossil fuel development, it has to be done in a way that respects treaty rights and environmental sustainability.

“Industry is not entirely responsible,” she said. “However, the way in which economics in this country has been defined has been at the expense of the lands and resources of Indigenous peoples.”

The community-led clean energy project was launched alongside a food sovereignty project, which used the school’s soccer field in the summer to establish a fruit orchard and community garden. Thanks to careful calculations and collaboration with the pre-existing food preservation program, there’s now enough fruit to feed the entire community for a year.

In time, the irrigation system that waters those grounds will be powered with the solar energy from the school.

Community Members Trained in Solar Installation

Then there was the emphasis on training and employment.

Lameman said that one of the major issues that Indigenous communities face is incessantly having to hire people from outside the community, costing extra money and not helping to build capacities amongst members. That’s why the project proposal specifically requested that the company host a training session, so that community members could monitor and troubleshoot any issues they have with the array.

Kuby Renewable Energy offered to conduct the training for no extra cost, including a two-day in-class portion and two-day on-site training. Nineteen community members were trained in the process.

“This is the first time we have had this number of young men in our community come forward for training that they weren’t paid to be at and didn’t receive any incentive: no honorarium or anything,” Lameman said.

“This was all on volunteer basis. They took two days of their personal time to come sit in a classroom.”

Three More Projects Already in the Works

The solar project on the school was well received by the community, Lameman said, “and that is what helped us to move forward on planning for more solar projects.”

Beaver Lake Cree Nation is already working on three more projects with Kuby. Another 80kW worth of solar arrays will be installed on the roofs of the health centre, the Wah-Pow drug and alcohol treatment centre and community store.

Kuby Renewable Energy also helped install a 20.8 kilowatt solar array in Lubicon Cree First Nation in Little Buffalo, Alberta.

There’s also a clear need for additional funding mechanisms: a 2011 study by the federal government identified 292 remote communities in Canada, 170 of which were Indigenous. At least 60 per cent of the total number are diesel-fuelled — a reliance that creates enormous greenhouse gas emissions, noise, costs and chance of blackouts for communities.

In the federal government’s 2017 budget, $53.5 million was pledged over a decade to encourage the deployment of renewable projects in remote communities that rely on diesel.

“My community is really on this path of redefining or rather defining what role the economy plays in our wellness, what role land-based teachings and practices play in our wellness, and what role energy plays in our wellness,” Lameman said.  

“When talking about energy we know that extreme energy hasn’t helped us in our path to being well. So we as a community have to define what Indigenous economic sovereignty means to us.”

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Residential school survivors, their families, indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians alike packed the ballroom of the Delta Ottawa hotel on Tuesday for the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) monumental report on 130 years of ‘Indian’ residential schools in Canada. 

“The eyes of the world and the gaze of history is upon us. What we do now and in the years ahead matters a great deal,” the commission’s chair, Justice Murray Sinclair, said during the report’s launch.

Six years of research and thousands of survivor testimonies led Sinclair and fellow commissioners Dr. Marie Wilson and Chief Wilton Littlechild to conclude residential schools were central to a century-long Canadian government indigenous policy that “can best be described as 'cultural genocide.'”

Beginning in the 1880s, more than 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were removed from their families and forced into state-run and church-run schools where physical, emotional and sexual abuse was rampant and indigenous languages and cultural practices banned. The last school closed in 1996.

“There are words, stories, medicines that have been lost forever. We don’t even know the extent of what we lost and we’ll likely never know,” indigenous lawyer Caleb Behn said. Behn is Eh Cho Dene and Dunne-Za/Cree from Treaty 8 territory in northern British Columbia.

The commission’s report documents the crimes perpetuated against the children of residential schools and provides recommendations on how Canada can deal with the legacy of a racist policy designed to “kill the Indian in the child.”

“What the TRC has done is brought out the stories of survivors and awoken something deep and profound in our elders and our young people,” indigenous rights and oilssands campaigner Clayton Thomas-Muller told DeSmog Canada. Muller is a member of the Missinipi Ethinewak  (Big River Cree) in Manitoba.

The commission’s recommendations, 94 in total, are broad in scope and are intended to close the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians. If implemented by the federal government, the recommendations would bring changes to key policy areas such as education, healthcare and justice.

The recommendations could also change business-as-usual in the energy sector.

“There can be no true reconciliation until the fight for land and resources is resolved,” said Crystal Lameman, treaty co-ordinator and tarsands communications manager for the Amisk Sakahikan Nehiyaw or Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Alberta.

“Until then, we will never have true reconciliation or a relationship with Canada based on peace, friendship and sharing as outlined in the treaties,” Lameman told DeSmog Canada.

Implement UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights: Commission's Recommendation

The commission’s report makes multiple references to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and recommends the internationally recognized document be the “framework” for reconciliation in Canada:

“The Commission therefore believes that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the appropriate framework for reconciliation in twenty-first-century Canada. Studying the Declaration with a view to identifying its impacts on current government laws, policy, and behaviour would enable Canada to develop a holistic vision of reconciliation that embraces all aspects of the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, and to set the standard for international achievement in its circle of hesitating nations.” (pages 243 -244 of the executive summary)

Canada was one of four countries to vote against the declaration in 2007 at the United Nations. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government had and has concerns the founding concept in the declaration of ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC) will undermine Canada’s sovereignty and ability to extract resources. 

“When does FPIC matter? Consent is an absolute necessity in a free and just society. We are not asking for the world here,” Behn said.

The declaration requires its signatories to obtain the free and informed consent of indigenous peoples “prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories.” This notion alone could throw a wrench into the Harper government’s plans on transforming Canada into an oil and gas “energy superpower.”

States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources. (Article 32(2) of UNDRIP)

Canada eventually signed the declaration in 2010, but has not made free, prior and informed consent part of federal policy. A private member’s bill by the NDP for implementing the declaration was voted down last month in Parliament.

Resource Extraction: “You Can’t Address Abuse While Abusing”

“Residential schools violated our bodies and souls. Inappropriate resource development violates our land and culture,” Behn told DeSmog Canada. 

“You can’t address abuse while abusing. You cannot address injustice while perpetrating injustice.”

Behn’s home in northeastern British Columbia is at the centre of the gas fracking bonanza featured in the documentary Fractured Land.

If there is one glaring common dominator between the crimes committed against the children of residential schools and the growing number of legal challenges mounted by Canada’s indigenous people against pipelines, mines and oil and gas developments, it is the lack of consent.

“Part of the colonial conquest and Canada's Indian Act was an attempt to eradicate the family, the most powerful element of indigenous worldview and cosmology,” Muller explains.

“Breaking up families to get indigenous peoples off the land were all part of this exploitation, and is the fundamental foundation of the current Canadian economic model.”

“Every Single Molecule of Us is Connected to the Land”

The Beaver Lake Cree Nation of Treaty 6 is locked in a major lawsuit with the governments of Alberta and Canada concering 19,000 oilsands and other energy projects on their traditional territory northeast of Edmonton. 

“The ongoing violation of nature through unchecked resource extraction is a violation to us. Every single molecule of us is connected to the land,” Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree told DeSmog Canada.

The Beaver Lake Cree argue in their case that the ongoing environmental degradation of their traditional land violates their treaty rights to hunt, fish and trap. Furthermore, they did not consent to this infringement of their constitutionally protected rights.  

“This Moment Needs to be Used to Push a Social Movement”

Many Canadians will be pessimistic about the current federal government embracing the commission’s recommendations. After all, hasn't Canada been down this road before with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples less than twenty years ago? Its recommendations were largely ignored.

But as Justice Sinclair was quick to point out yesterday, the report was not written solely for Canada’s government today. It was written for the future.

"We've described a mountain and shown you the path to the top. We're calling on you to do the climbing," Sinclair said in his closing remarks.

“Reconciliation is not an aboriginal problem, it is a Canadian one. It involves us all.”

“This moment needs to be used to push a social movement with the moral authority of TRC’s recommendations, like the Idle No More movement which exploded in Canada under Harper,” Muller said.

Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul argues in his latest book that Canada’s indigenous people are growing in strength and influence after hitting an abysmal low that is most heinously epitomized by the residential school system. He writes:

“And yes, non-Aboriginals have a choice. We can go on allowing our governments and power systems and corporations to slow or attempt to stop or deform this return of the founding peoples to their proper place. Or we can learn to listen and to understand what is happening. And then we can ensure that we do not continue to be the problem.” (The Comeback, p.68)

“We might not see reconciliation in the next ten years but I guarantee we will see dramatic changes,” Muller told DeSmog Canada.

Image Credit: Derek Leahy, Fractured Land, We Are the Land, Clayton Thomas Muller via Flickr

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Pressure is mounting on the University of Victoria Foundation’s board to rid itself of investments in fossil fuel related stocks, but, for now, the board is continuing to gather information and is sticking with the investing approach it fine-tuned last year.

Divestment supporters turned out in force Monday evening for a forum on climate change and divestment, organized by UVic and Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, with speakers ranging from Suncor Energy Inc. vice-president Steve Douglas to Malkolm Boothroyd, a spokesman for Divest UVic, and wild applause for those in favour of immediate divestment showed where the sympathies lay.

If it’s wrong to wreck the Earth’s climate, it is wrong to invest in fossil fuels, Boothroyd said.

“Responsibility means leaving those fossil fuels in the ground. We can’t have it both ways. UVic has got to make a decision and I believe it is UVic’s responsibility to divest from fossil fuels,” he said to a standing ovation from some of the audience.

For panel member Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, the basic question comes down to taking any possible action, including divestment, to stop problems caused by “extreme resource extraction” in the Alberta oil sands.

“If you breathe the air and drink the water, this is about you,” she said.

But supporters of divestment already have it both ways as petroleum products are in everything from lipstick and Lycra to cell phones and paint said Douglas, emphasizing that divestment does not solve climate change. He argued 90 per cent of oil reserves on the planet are controlled by governments so reducing investments in the small percentage of private companies will not help.

The conundrum is that there is no doubt that climate change is real and burning fossil fuels is one of the culprits, but fossil fuels are essential to modern life, he said.

“How do you reconcile those two ideas?” he asked.

“How do we transition our energy system to meet the energy needs of the future in a climate challenged world? … We have to transition in a way that doesn’t dislocate our economy and our social system.”

Last year, UVic professors and other groups demanded that all new investment in companies whose primary interests are fossil fuel extraction, processing and transportation should be frozen and that the administration should initiate a three-year divestment plan.

However, the University of Victoria Foundation, which manages the $370-million endowment fund – used for scholarships, bursaries and research –  wrote to the university’s board of governors in September saying that it would maintain its current responsible investment policies that incorporate environmental, social and governance considerations. As part of the Foundation’s efforts to explore direct involvement in organizations that promote responsible investing, the board voted to become a signatory to the United Nations Principals for Responsible Investment.

Last September $39-million of the endowment fund, or about 10.5 per cent of its assets, were invested in energy sector stocks.

The lack of action is infuriating some of the UVic students, who were gathering names on a petition Monday evening.

“I don’t think the university students are going to stand for anything less than divestment,” said Ida Jorgenson.

“I think this is an issue that is not going to go away. In the end they are going to have to confront it.”

The divestment movement is taking root at universities throughout North America, with active campaigns at about 30 Canadian universities including Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C, where faculty is currently voting on whether to ask the board of governors to change its policy on responsible investment.

However, while some herald it as a positive step to address climate change, others believe it is misguided.

The moral high ground is in climate solutions, not in the drop in the bucket represented by university divestment, said Cary Krosinsky, a Yale University lecturer and co-founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative.

“If we are serious about (addressing climate change) we need a global initiative. We need a really big action. Divestment doesn’t even come close,” he said.

However, divestment does not necessarily mean a loss for the endowment fund and portfolios that have divested from fossil fuels performed well during the last year, he said.

But for panelist and Vancouver Sun columnist Stephen Hume, the issue is trying to address climate change in a polarized environment.

“Among the delusions is that there’s a them and us. There is no them, only us,” he said.

“This isn’t a theatre. It’s a canoe and we are all in that canoe and we had better start paddling in the same direction or we’re going to tip over and we are all going to drown,” he said.

That means the involvement of government, said Hume, exhorting students to get out and vote.

The theme was picked up by PICS executive director Thomas Pedersen, who challenged the audience to take action on climate change by voting.

“Make this an issue of key political importance in the federal election,” he said.

Image Credit: Daily Collegian via Flickr

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In a move that epitomizes the principle of thinking globally and acting locally, national youth climate conference PowerShift has gone local. Rather than one large national event, the conference has been split into smaller, regional events. The first will be in Victoria, BC on October 4.

“We’ve held two national ones before, and while they were amazing, what we realized is we were missing the mark on really being able to connect with movements locally that were leading the edge in fighting the fossil fuel industry,” said Cam Fenton, director of convening organization Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. Last year’s PowerShift was held in Ottawa shortly after the Defend Our Coast rally at the Victoria legislature that drew thousands, and Fenton said the conference in Ontario failed to tap into the energy that was building on the west coast.

PowerShift is a series of youth-driven speakers, panels and workshops designed to give young people the skills and tools they need to organize for climate justice. Big-name speakers include David Suzuki and Council of Canadians national chairperson Maude Barlow, in addition to numerous young people from frontline communities all over Canada.

The decision to host the first regional event in BC was twofold. First, as a province that was once a leader in sustainable energy development and is now embracing LNG and tar sands development, BC has become a battleground. The fight to stop Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline has galvanized activists and ordinary British Columbians alike.

The second reason has more to do with logistics. Fenton said the largest number of youth who were unable to attend last year due to the cost of getting to Ottawa were in BC, so it seemed like a great place to start.

He said there has also been a shift in the direction of the fight against fossil fuels. Rather than focusing on governmental policy change like their forbears, young climate activists are creating grassroots movements though community-based organizing and action.

“We wanted to transform PowerShift into something that would reflect that, and rapidly build our power as young people and as a climate movement in general.”

The concept of movement building is key for Fenton, and bringing together the voices of people working across the country will be crucial going forward.

“In the past, it hasn’t felt like we’ve really had a movement to stand behind our champions, and I think we’re starting to see it and see these movements grow to be the force that we need and the people power we need.”

He used opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline as an example of a group of people large enough to guide and support politicians to stand up for the climate justice.

“There is a movement that will actually stand behind them when they do the right things, and also hold them accountable if they do the wrong thing.”

Fenton said one of CYCC’s biggest concerns right now is divestment from the oil and gas sector, drawing on support from university groups and other major institutions. He’s hoping to spark a major player to take a stand.

“In order to have this conversation more publicly, some folks and some institutions with a more significant profile need to step up.”

Eriel Deranger, environmental activist and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, will be bringing the story of her nation’s fight against extreme energy development on their traditional territory, with the hope of raising awareness about the scope and pace of tar sands development. She said part of the process of bringing national concerns to a regional level is highlighting the increasingly strong role First Nations are playing in defending the land and the water.

“I think just getting more people to have their eye on the expansion and approval of expansion on the Alberta tar sands is one of my main goals. The more eyes that are watching, the more the government will be careful.”

In the past, she said, approval for new projects was simply rubber-stamped and pushed through. But change is starting to happen, and Deranger said her ultimate goal is to maintain that kind of pressure not only on the government but also on the industry itself.

“We saw it with the Jack Pine Mine hearings. They actually put conditions on the approval and there was a strong public lens on it, which I think changes the way these projects are approved.”

Crystal Lameman, one of the keynote speakers, is member of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation and does most of her work in her traditional territory, fighting tar sands development on the ground and through legal frameworks. She hopes to leave youth with the message that, no matter which road they’ve come in on, they have something important to give.

“Before our feet touch the floor in the morning, we’re all human beings first and foremost,” she said. “This issue that we’re faced with now on the environmental front, this issue is no longer an Indian problem. If you drink water, if you breathe air, this is about you and you need to be involved.”

She has no doubt grassroots organizing is the most powerful force for change right now. But she also acknowledges the foundation of policy work and legal struggles that underlie it.

“They created tools for change that the grassroots people are now taking up and using,” she said. “They were just as important in this movement.” In addition to sharing the stage with David Suzuki next Friday, Lameman will be speaking on a panel about legal issues.  She said she’s also looking forward to bringing her two children to meet the PowerShift organizers and attendees.

“These youth have every intention of creating a sustainable and safe future for my children.”

Image Credit: Image courtesy of PowerShitCAN via Flickr

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A draft version of a new investigative report released this week by Global Forest Watch and Treeline Ecological Research argues the series of underground leaks currently releasing a mixture of tar sands bitumen and water into a surrounding wetland and forest on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range is related to a similar set of spills caused by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) in-situ operations in 2009.

The cause of the 2009 seepage was never determined and details of an investigation by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), then called the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), weren’t made public until last year, four years after the initial incident.

The new report, called “CNRL’s Persistent 2013 Bitumen Releases Near Cold Lake, Alberta: Facts, Unanswered Questions, and Implications,” takes aim at the AER for allowing certain in-situ, or underground, tar sands extraction technologies to continue without adequately addressing “major unknowns.” The independent investigation reveals the AER continually fails to protect the public interest in relation to these spills and that both industry and government demonstrate 'dysfunction' in their lack of transparency with the public.

CNRL, the company responsible for both the 2009 and current leaks, uses a process called High Pressure Cyclic Steam Stimulation (HPCSS) to fracture underlying bedrock in order to extract bitumen under pressure. HPCSS uses extremely high pressures and temperatures to create underground fractures allowing for the migration of bitumen. According to the ERCB’s investigation of the 2009 incident, these underground fractures were offered as a potential explanation for the uncontrolled release of bitumen above ground.

Despite multiple investigations, regulators and industry were unable to definitively identify the cause of the 2009 incident. The new report’s two authors, Peter Lee and Dr. Kevin Timoney, suggest this lack of certainty makes the company’s continued operation in the area, and use of HPCSS technology, inexplicable.

“In light of the unquantified risks to the bitumen reservoir, groundwater, and the adjacent ecosystems, the decision by the ERCB to allow HPCSS to continue during and after the [2009] incident was unjustified by the available evidence,” the report states.

There are “spatial and temporal” reasons for believing the two incidents are related, claim the authors. An analysis of the time and locations of the seepage shows a consistent pattern of leaks, each migrating outwards from a central location where the 2009 incident occurred.

Although the causes of the incidents remain “unclear,” they write the seepage is “known to involve migration of bitumen emulsion through a network of vertical and horizontal fissures.”

A map of the affected areas in 2013 from the Global Forest Watch report.

“Due diligence dictates that all HPCSS operations should be suspended until major unknowns are addressed. If not, continued use of HPCSS may result in large and unpredictable costs, and those costs will not be borne by the energy companies but by future generations,” the report states.

Crystal Lameman, member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation whose traditional territory the seepage is within, says the ongoing situation calls into question the role and ultimate purpose of the AER. “What is their job, really?” Lameman asks. “What is their job and what is their agenda?”

The AER’s role depends upon their ability to regulate industry, she says. “They are supposed to be monitoring them and ensuring they are following through with the proper protocols, policies and procedures,” she said.

Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation. Credit Emma Pullman.

Lameman says the AER’s inability to prevent multiple releases of bitumen into the environment is difficult to understand.

“Are they becoming deliberately ignorant to what industry is doing? Are they turning a blind eye? I guess I’m asking these questions because I can’t think of any other reason these thing like the CNRL spill can happen, or not be stopped, or reported at a quicker rate. It causes concern for me as someone who lives in a tar sands impacted community.”

For Lameman, the ongoing incident in Cold Lake is a part of a longer-running pattern.

“Since they’ve changed their name from the ERCB to the AER, I’ve seen nothing but a bad track record in the way they report, in the way they provide comment, the lack of expediting information to local First Nations people. What I’ve found is that we’re often the last ones to find out about these spills.”

The Global Forest Watch report also criticizes both the AER and CNRL for failing to communicate adequately with the media and the general public. The lack of information, says Lameman, leaves impacted communities guessing.

“What next? Are we going to find out that the spill from ’09 has been ongoing since ’09? And the AER, at that time the ERCB, didn’t tell us? Are we going to find out next that CNRL was pumping at higher pressures than they were supposed to?” she asked. The question of dangerously high injection pressures is a concern also raised by Timoney and Lee in the investigative report.

For Lameman, the events on CNRL’s site bring to light the inherent dangers of extracting bitumen deposits with in-situ technologies. “We’re putting our guards down when we believe the AER when it says that in-situ and SAGD are safer methods. How? How are these safe?” she asked. “The more spills that happen, [the AER] is proven otherwise.”

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According to new figures released by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) the total amount of bitumen emulsion – a mixture of tar sands heavy crude and water – released on Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s (CNRL) Cold Lake Site is now more than 1.5 million litres, or the equivalent to more than 9600 barrels of oil.

The reported amount has grow from an initially estimated 4,450 litres or 28 cubic metres in late June, according the AER’s website.

The figures, made public by the AER, are reported to the regulator from CNRL, prompting onlookers to raise concerns about industry self-reporting.

Bob Curran from the Alberta Energy Regulator says that it is normal for companies to report spill volumes and rates in incidents like these. Although, he adds, “these aren’t numbers that we’re saying we’ve 100 per cent verified but these are numbers that are being reported to us. I think there’s an important caveat on that.”

The seepage, which reportedly began in early 2013, although wasn’t officially reported to the public until late May, is occurring on sites where CNRL uses High Pressure Cyclic Steam Stimulation (HPCSS) to recover bitumen from deep reservoirs. The process uses a combination of high pressures and temperatures to fracture the rock surrounding bitumen deposits. Super hot steam melts and pressurizes the bitumen, allowing it to surface up a wellbore.

Currently, on at least 4 CNRL sites, pressurized bitumen is leaking to the surface through uncontrolled fissures in the ground. Both the AER and CNRL are unable to explain the cause of the spill or say when it might stop.

The AER didn't immediately announce the incidents to the public. The AER's Bob Curran told Postmedia News, “The first three incidents were quite small compared to this last one. There were no public impacts, there were negligible environmental impacts. No real trigger to put out a news release.”

Crystal Lameman, member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation whose territory includes the Cold Lake spill site, says she's frustrated with the AER's tendency to minimize the incident and its impact.

"The mere fact that they are the ones that determine what is minimal when it doesn’t directly impact them – that concerns me. I’ll be the judge of what is deemed minimal when toxic water is spilling out on the land in our traditional territory. So just because it may at that time have not affected a human being, it affects those beings that cannot speak for themselves and those beings that we have the constitutionally protected right to fish and hunt. But if they’re drinking toxic water and breathing toxic air how can they guarantee to us that those animals are in their purest form?" she said.

"I have a real issue with the way that they determine what is minimal, what is of concern, what is a lot, what it a little. That concerns me because thus far, since they’ve changed their name from the ERCB to the AER, I’ve seen nothing but a bad track record in the way they report, in the way they provide comment, the lack of expediting information to local First Nations people. What I’ve found is that we’re often the last ones to find out about these spills."

The released caused the death of 2 beavers, 49 birds, 105 amphibians, and 46 small mammals, the AER reports. Clean up and containment efforts are still ongoing and the early stages of a subsurface investigation are underway.

The AER and Alberta’s Energy and Sustainable Resource Development have launched provincial investigations and recently Environment Canada announced a federal investigation is also being undertaken.

Image Credit: Emma Pullman/CNRL

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"We don't know what the hell is going on under the ground."

That's what Crystal Lameman, a member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation recently told me. On June 27, an oil spill occurred at Canadian Natural Resources Limited's (CNRL) Primrose operations 75km east of Lac la Biche. The spill happened on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range (CLAWR), located in a region The Royal Canadian Airforce calls "the inhospitable wilds of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan." This 'inhospitable' region happens to be in her community's traditional hunting territory where her family traditionally hunted and trapped and where her elders are buried.

DeSmog Canada reported a release of bitumen emulsion, a mixture of heavy tar sands crude and water from in-situ (in ground) oil production.

Lameman told me she only heard about the spill from the press release from the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). "It was disheartening to open my Facebook and see a link showing me the spill in our traditional hunting territory – that I had to get the information from an outside source as opposed to the information coming directly to the community."

The press release is sparse on details, but confirmed that that neither the company nor the government are certain of the volume of emulsion spilled, that the affected area is near Pad 22 but off lease, and has impacted a nearby slough. According to the release, the company has begun clean-up operations. But Lameman heard from source on site that the damage of the spill it much worse than the company, government or media are reporting.

"I was being told, there's wildlife still drinking from the water." She was also told that the 'slough' in question was actually a lake, but the lake has receded so much that industry and government are calling the lake a slough to minimize the perception of the spill. "That concerned me," she says, "and it made me want to go out there and survey the damage." And so Lameman decided it was time to find some answers. We set off to the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range, about 45 minutes east of her community.

The Journey

We pulled up to the security gate of a military base. Though I'd heard it was a weapons range, it still surprised me to see the high security and tar sands operations right on the base. Lameman was immediately denied entry and told that she needed to seek permission from an Aboriginal Liaison officer to enter the grounds, on her own traditional territory.

"I was told later that I won't be allowed in either way," Crystal tells me. "These are just the channels I have to go through. We pulled away and I just felt this sense of depression. After all this time we are still having to ask permission to utilize our land. How we walk on the land – we're still being told that, where we can and can't go."

Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation.

While regulatory bodies like the ERCB, AER, Fish and Wildlife and the federal government are monitoring, surveying, and testing, Crystal confesses, "It's scary that they're doing whatever they can to deny us access. It makes me wonder, what's happening to those beings who can't talk for themselves? How bad is it? What is it? I don't feel good about it."

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the Beaver Lake Cree have been denied access to their own traditional territory. In 2008, they launched a lawsuit claiming that the cumulative effects of tar sands development interfere with their constitutionally-protected treaty rights to hunt, trap and fish. The nation is fighting for access to the CLAWR. Recently, a decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal rejected Canada and Alberta's attempts to have the case thrown out. 

Legal counsel for BLCN, Drew Mildon, noted: "First Nations have the strongest environmental law tools at their disposal in Canada." He went on to add that "this 'emulsion' spill is a perfect example of local impacts of the tar sands; unfortunately, the rest of us must rely on small, poverty-stricken First Nations to take courageous stands to stem the global impacts that are the debt we will pay for further tar sands development."

"Black Puddles"

According to Lameman's source, the damage was described to her as "black puddles" or "black spots" coming up in different areas. An employee on site confirmed that the tar sands emulsion seeping from the ground is not a pipeline spill. What's more, industry and government do not even know what the spill is. They also know there's a lot of oil seeping, and they don't know what it's coming from.

On site at the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. Photo by Emma Pullman.

"The ground seepage is off-lease," says Lameman. "And the fact that they're scrambling, trying to figure out what happened, and trying to keep us out of there as much as they can validates the information I was given that this spill is worse than what they're telling us."

According to information obtained from an employee, the contaminated lake in question is likely near Burnt Lake, possibly at Ward Lake.

Site of CNRL Primrose Project via Wikimapia.

Location of emulsion seepage.

Whither CSS?

CNRL's Primrose site uses a kind of tar sands extraction called Cyclic Steam Stimulation, or CSS.

According to CNRL's website CSS is a three stage thermal recovery method where steam is first injected into the well at temperatures over 300°C and pressures of 10-12 Mpa (1450-1740 psi). This heats the bitumen in the reservoir, reducing the viscosity so that it can flow. The steam is then left to 'soak' before production begins for several weeks, mobilizing cold bitumen, and then the flow on the injection well is reversed, producing oil through the same injection well bore.

CSS diagram from Slideshare presentation, CSS Technology for Heavy Oil. 

The CSS process is only able to typically recover approximately 20% of the oil in the ground.

CSS as a process is relatively new, having been developed by Shell by accident in Venezuela after one of its steam injectors blew out. The process is becoming more common in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the Lake Maracaibo area of Venezuela, and in the tar sands.

According to ESG Solutions, a microseismic monitoring company that monitors oil and gas development, the CSS process is:

"environmentally sensitive and many risks exist … Well casings are subject to severe tensile stresses due to the high temperature, high pressure nature of the CSS process. These stresses have the potential to result in mechanical failures such as cement cracks or casing shear leading to well downtime, damaging spills or hazardous blowouts. Shear stresses also develop during the dilation of the reservoir during the steam injection, potentially causing the incursion of fluids into the overlying shales and aquifers above the caprock and causing environmental contamination and costly clean up and regulatory penalties."

Of CSS, Lameman says: "This is a whole new kind of oil mess that no one's really ever heard of in terms of tar sands production. Everyone's heard of pipeline spills and open pit mining. But I don't think the public has been told of the dangers of CSS."

Mining on an active military testing site?

The apparent dangers of CSS and the fact that seismic monitoring is needed to oversee the process are heightened when you consider that CNRL's Primrose facility operates on an active weapons testing facility.

The Cold Lake Air Weapons Range construction began in 1952 and was chosen by the Royal Canadian Air Force to be the country's premier air weapons training base. The base land in Alberta and Saskatchewan covers an area of 11,700 square kilometres. While the federal government worked out an agreement with other First Nations who were systematically pushed out of the area, Lameman's ancestors were banned without consultation or compensation.

CLAWR is said to be the "northern equivalent" of the United States Air Force's Nellis Air Force Range. It hosts over 640 actual targets and 100 realistic target complexes, including 7 simulated aerodromes with runways, tarmac, aircraft, dispersal areas and buildings, as well as mechanized military equipment such as tanks, simulated radar and missile launching sites, mock industrial sites, and command and control centres.

According to the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range website, "the Air Force conducts live fire training exercises on the CLAWR" and it appears that live fire operations are taking place this week.”

In addition to CNRL, Nexen, Husky Energy, Enbridge, Interpipe and Cenovus operate on the CLAWR.

Range activities officer at the CLAWR, Dick Brakele, says "to mix an active oil industry and an active weapons range where weapons are dropped takes a lot of imagination sometimes to ensure that the needs of both are met."

Imagination is one way to look at it.

I met up with Naomi Klein who was also reporting in the area. She told me: "Canadians should be shocked that our government is dropping test bombs in the same geographic area as massive tar sands operations. This is already the most dangerous form of fossil fuel extraction on the planet from an ecological perspective. Combining that mining with weapons testing – no matter how careful the players claim to be – is so reckless it verges on the surreal."

"This is something that everybody needs to know about."

Lameman still has a lot of questions she needs answered. To the oil companies and government she asks, "What is the magnitude of this spill? What is it? How much of the water has been affected? Did you stop it yet?"

For now, she has few answers. But the single mother of two isn't going to give up.

"This is something that everybody needs to know about because though it happens to fall within our traditional hunting territory, there's just as many non-native people as Indigenous people in this area. All of the water systems are connected. If you drink water, this is about you."

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