At least 75 environment department officers have taken on positions with an oil and gas industry funded regulatory body in Alberta. It's expected that the same number, possibly more, will make the move in the spring.

The Edmonton Journal obtained documents that make it clear the environment department has been transferring files dealing with oil industry activities, specifically to do with the Public Lands Act, over to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) since the middle of November. The transition is all part of the Alberta government’s plan to streamline the environmental review process and comply with industry’s request for “one window” by which to get permits for new projects.

With the inception of the so-called arms length regulatory body, the AER, last spring, responsibility for administering all facets of environmental assessment, including the Water Act, the Public Lands Act and the Environmental Enhancement Act (legislation that deals with spills) is now bankrolled by the very industry it is meant to regulate.

Since the summer of 2012 the regulatory agency is now entirely funded by industry rather than split between industry and government.

Prior to last year, companies looking to secure oilsands development permits had to apply to both the provincial environment department and the former Energy Resource Conservation Board. That procedure is now managed by the AER.

Several people, including the vice-president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees — the union environment officers left to take industry-paid positions — and NDP MLA Rachel Notely, have expressed concerns about the AER's ability to remain objective and ensure environmental standards are kept high.

“This is just another step going down this road — we now have a regulator whose prime mandate in legislation is to promote economic development and it is now also the prime environmental enforcer in the oil patch,” Notley said.

The chair of the board of the new regulator is also the founder of Canadian lobby group the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), Gerry Protti. Next in command is former deputy minister of the environment Jim Ellis, the person behind the decision to keep the Pembina Institute from having standing at hearings concerning oilsands projects. The decision was eventually overturned when an Alberta court, noting a “direct apprehension of bias,” overturned the decision.

The Journal also noted new salaries for environment officers range from 25 to 80 percent higher than salaries with the environment department.

Former Environment Minister Diana McQueen told the Journal that the provincial environment department will still regulate forestry and gravel excavation, as well as develop the regional land use plans used to determine acceptable industry activity and pollution levels.

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.

It’s no secret that the province of Alberta, the government Canada, and the titans of the fossil fuel industry pride themselves on robust regulatory and oversight structures when it comes to the extraction of natural resources.

"Environmental protection is a priority for our government and Canada is a global environmental leader," said Canada’s Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver. "This is why Canada's oil sands are subject to some of the most stringent environmental regulations and monitoring in the world."

"The regulations that are in place are very stringent, the most stringent in North America and certainly around the world," added Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, Diana McQueen. "We have a lot of development in this province, but we also have very tough regulations with regards to any spills that happen."

"The system is working," continued Alberta Energy Regulator CEO Jim Ellis. "We have the resources we need now to properly regulate it. And that includes compliance, on the ground inspections, regulations… They are capably handling the workload right now."

"It was extremely frustrating. I just reached a point where I was so frustrated I said, 'I'm going to do whatever it takes to extract this information' because I just felt wronged by the whole process," said Timoney. "It just seems like it’s a process that’s designed not to release information but rather to appear to release information."

"When you've looked at thousands of these records, what we're seeing is the tip of the iceberg," added Timoney. "It was evident that there were thousands of incidents the public didn't know anything about."

"Not every incident is going to result in a compliance action," responded Alberta Environment spokesperson Jessica Potter when asked about such a low rate of enforcement. "The determination as to whether or not we move forward with an enforcement action entirely depends on what we find in that investigation."

In short, as both Timoney and the study are at pains to point out, the governments of Alberta and Canada are "absolutely not" doing enough to enforce regulations. "There is this disconnect between the statement from the government that we have these great regulations and we’re strictly enforcing them, and the reality, which is that there are thousands of violations about which they do nothing."

"I feel very strongly that the public has a right to know what’s happening," concluded Timoney. "In this situation, what we’re trying to do is say, 'Decide for yourself. Here’s the information that we gathered. If you wish to decide that environmental management in the bitumen sands region is good or bad, here's a set of information that you can look at to decide for yourself.'"

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.

Few details are available eleven days after a leak of “produced water” from a pipeline approximately 150 kilometers northwest of High Level Alberta.

Oil and gas exploration and production company Apache Corp. discovered the leak in their pipeline about 20 km north of Zama City during an airplane flyover and reported it to Alberta Environment on June 1st.

An updated press release from the company says that the water was spilled after the oil and gas had been removed. “The cause and volume of the spill remain under investigation.”

Greenpeace Canada Climate and Energy Campaigner Mike Hudema sees this delay in releasing detailed information as unacceptable. He points out that if it was spotted by airplane, the spill must be quite large, but says that representatives from Alberta Environment refuse even to estimate the size of the affected area. They also haven’t released photos.

“We’re eleven days after this event ended, apparently, and we still have no information from the province,” he says. “We don’t know how big the spill was. We don’t know how large the area was. We don’t know what chemicals were in the pipe. We don’t know how long the spill lasted. These are all details that should be easy to ascertain fairly quickly, and they’re still answers that the provincial government simply doesn’t know or won’t release.”

Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development spokesperson Jessica Potter says that although the agency has staff on the scene, the delay in the release of information is due to on-going assessments.

“The company did initiate protective actions such as blocking culvert drainage to restrict further movement of the affected water,” she says. “There’s ongoing monitoring of wetlands and water monitoring near the break.”

Oil and gas leaks have become commonplace occurrences amongst Alberta’s vast network on oil and gas pipelines. Last year Global News reported “28,666 crude oil spills in total, plus another 31,453 spills of just about any other substance you can think of putting in a pipeline—from salt water to liquid petroleum.”

The Zama City leak is not far from Rainbow Lake, which suffered a spill of 22,000 barrels of oil in May 2012.

In June 2012 a spill of more than 3000 of barrels of crude oil from a Plains Midstream pipeline sent residents near Red Deer, Alberta running from toxic fumes. The spill triggered a government safety report. Although it was completed in December, the public has yet to see the technical details, making promise of a public consultation process seem unlikely.

Earlier this year, a Suncor leak plant dumped 350,000 litres of wastewater into the Athabasca River over ten hours. At the time, a group including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Council of Canadians, First Nations, and Forest Ethics Advocacy sent a letter to Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen demanding an immediate release of information about the leak, including photos. 

This most recent spill's location makes independent observations difficult to carry out, but that doesn’t mitigate the environmental consequences. Though sparsely populated, the area surrounding Zama City is a marshy wetland that is a key habitat to many species of waterfowl. It also houses a number of wild bison.

Hudema connects the government’s lack of transparency in these situations to an ongoing “culture of silence” on the part of the province of Alberta when it comes to environmental issues.

“People deserve quick and truthful answers,” he says. “Who is the energy regulator trying to protect? Is the energy regulator trying to protect these companies? Or is the energy regulator trying to protect the communities and the environment?”

He questions whether their silence may relate to the ongoing debate about the Keystone XL pipeline, which has drawn international attention to the province’s oil and gas industry. “Is the public not getting the answers it deserves because the government is more interested in public relations than protecting the public and the environment?”

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.