We’re chuffed to see photojournalist Amber Bracken’s work for The Narwhal has been nominated for a National Magazine Award!

Bracken’s work features a series of intimate portraits of residents of Fort Chipewyan, Alta. and was nominated in the photo essay and photojournalism category.

In Fort Chip, as locals call it, residents have long been worried about their water. Over two years ago, Imperial Oil discovered industrial wastewater leaks that were infiltrating groundwater from a mining site, and failed to tell residents about it for months.

In the wake of these revelations, Bracken travelled to Fort Chip to speak to residents about their relationship to water. She brought back an emotional and visually compelling photo essay in which people shared, in their own words, how the situation impacts them.

“Amber’s ability to put a human face on the effects of industry is always impressive and evocative,” executive editor Denise Balkissoon said. “The combination of these portraits and the soaring aerial views of the oilsands alongside really intimate, personal details is pure Bracken — and something every Canadian should read and see.” 

Bracken has travelled to Fort Chipewyan four times in recent years, including as part of feature reporting for The Narwhal about the initial reaction to the leak. 

During a 2024 trip to the region, Bracken invited various community members to meet with her at an Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation house she had permission to use, asking them to share what feelings the meeting brought up about their connection to water and their right to a healthy environment. 

“This story represents some of the things that I value most in journalism, including working with a talented, caring and invested team — and also having sustained interest and sustained coverage of issues that affect people’s everyday lives,” Bracken said.

“It’s not always easy to get to the community of Fort Chipewyan, and it means a lot to me that The Narwhal stood behind me to make a repeat visit and to try to tell these stories.”

Bracken heard from other community members about someone else they thought would want to talk — Claire Cardinal, who had been spending time in Edmonton for cancer treatment. Bracken met with her just months before she passed away from her illness.

“I’m fighting for my life,” Cardinal told Bracken. “Hopefully I can beat this,” Cardinal said of the cancer she believed was tied to the oilsands. “I want to be on this earth for another at least 10 years — just to see my grandson when they graduate and the two younger ones. Yeah. Fighting, fighting, fighting.” 

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Cardinal passed away last summer from her illness.

The region has been found to have “higher than expected” cases of rare cancers, and it wasn’t until last year that the federal government finally agreed to assess the toxicity of compounds found in oilsands tailings.

“It was truly an honor to have Claire, Kenneth, Janelle, Jason, Lionel, Jean and Roy put their trust in me, and I’m really grateful to see their stories getting some of the attention that they’ve always deserved,” Bracken said. “I find myself thinking about Claire and her husband, Kenneth, and I do wish that Claire could be here to see the attention that her story has received.”

“Claire wanted her story to be told, and also for other women to read it,” Whiteknife said after the photo essay was published. “You just gotta think positive and pray and just go on with your life, but don’t think negative. Live life till the last day on earth. And that’s what my wife did.”

A story produced as part of a collaborative series between The Local and The Narwhal was also nominated in the investigative reporting category. The Local’s Wency Leung was recognized for her investigation into GFL, the Ontario-based waste management company that says it’s “Green For Life” — but its neighbours disagree.

The winners of the National Magazine Awards will be announced Friday, June 13, in Toronto.

If you receive a typical salary, the top executives in Canada’s oilsands have already been paid more money than you will make for the entire year.

The Narwhal looked at the compensation received by the highest-ranking executives last year at the top six oilsands producers, a group called the Pathways Alliance. 

Those companies include Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Suncor, Cenovus, ConocoPhillips Canada, MEG Energy and Imperial Oil. Three days into 2025, their top-paid executives will have made the median Canadian salary — and then some.

Let’s start with the lowest on the list — Derek Evans, president and chief executive officer at MEG Energy, was compensated $5,354,731 in 2023

That’s about $20,595.12 per day. 

Meanwhile, the ‘median’ Canadian was compensated $213 per day last year. The median salary, drawn from Stats Canada data, represents the midpoint of Canadian salaries. That means half of Canadians made more than this figure, and half made less.

If each dollar was a kilometre, a median-earning Canadian could get from Ottawa to Montreal, while Evans could travel halfway around the Earth each day.

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Three days into 2025, Evans has likely been compensated $61,785 — higher than the median annual income of Canadians between the ages of 25 and 54, which is $55,300. (For the purposes of this analysis, we excluded the youngest and oldest Canadians, who have lower salaries.)

In the middle of the pack, Brad Corson, chairman, president and chief executive officer at Imperial Oil Ltd., was paid $14,831,530 in 2023

That means he netted the typical yearly salary in one day.

If every dollar meant you got a second of vacation, the average Canadian would get a little less than two days off, while Corson would get more than 24 weeks.

At the top of the list is Richard Kruger, president and CEO at Suncor, but his 2023 compensation — a whopping $36,946,735 — was a notable package to draw him out of retirement

That works out to $141,103 per working day — or $17,763 per hour, if you assume a regular eight-hour workday. A Canadian (of any age) working full-time was paid a median wage of roughly $1,400 per week last year.

At his rate, Kruger could have been compensated a typical Canadian’s salary by lunch time on New Year’s Day.

Often these executives’ salaries are a small chunk of their final compensation, which is driven by cash and stock incentives. Though compensation fluctuates, overall executives are making more year over year.

Ryan Lance, chairman and chief executive officer at ConocoPhillips Canada, was compensated $20,770,673 in 2023

If every dollar equalled one square kilometre, the average Canadian would have a land base about the size of Lake Michigan, while Lance would have a land base as big as Canada and the United States put together.

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Despite profits, oilsands companies pay low fines, receive government support

Fines that these companies pay for significant environmental damage are also notably lower than the annual compensation packages of top executives.

Suncor had $9 billion in 2023 earnings and has polluted the Athabasca River repeatedly, but fines have never exceeded $1 million, PhD student Ben R. Collison reported for The Conversation.

Imperial Oil faced a $1.1-million fine this year for a 2021 oil spill in Sarnia, Ont., which included a $225,000 victim surcharge for causing illness to people living nearby. Meanwhile, its top three executives were paid $3.2 million, $5.8 million and $14.8 million, and its profits for 2023 were $4.9 billion.

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And despite ballooning profits and sky-high executive compensation, Pathways Alliance is seeking taxpayer money to support its endeavours. The alliance plans to build a large carbon capture and storage network to capture emissions from oilsands facilities and send them down a pipeline to an underground storage area. The group has campaigned for extensive government financial and regulatory support to achieve the $16-billion carbon capture plan, including public subsidies worth up to 50 per cent of their operating costs.

Here’s what the top-earning executive at each Pathways Alliance member made

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To make these estimates, The Narwhal assumed annual salaries included paid statutory holidays and vacation, and used an eight-hour day to calculate rates. We did not incorporate overtime, taxes and other variables. The Narwhal chose to measure Canadians’ income between 25 and 54 in our central comparison because teens, young workers and people approaching retirement are often being paid less. 

These numbers are based on 2023 compensation for executives and 2022 salary data from Statistics Canada, the most recent years available. 

The Narwhal focused on the oil and gas industry since we cover resource extraction and the natural world, but some of the other top-paid executives in Canada work in industries like telecommunications, transportation and more. A 2023 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found Canada’s highest-earning chief executive officers received larger pay increases in the previous year compared to regular Canadians, with an average salary increase of 4.4 per cent — equivalent to $623,000.

Income equality in Canada has literally never been higher. The income gap between the richest and poorest Canadians is the widest it has been since Statistics Canada started collecting data in 1999.

— With files from Carl Meyer

At least 16 fossil fuel companies operating in Canada’s oilsands allegedly broke rules requiring them to pay for environmental monitoring by independent scientists, according to newly released data from the Alberta government.

Alberta’s Environment and Protected Areas Ministry released the data to The Narwhal in November, about a month after the government lost a three-year battle to keep the names of 16 oilsands companies secret.

The companies paid financial penalties for allegedly flouting rules surrounding a joint Canada-Alberta scientific monitoring program, according to the newly released data. Federal and provincial officials introduced the program in 2012 to measure the cumulative effects of oilsands development on air, water, land and biodiversity.

The names of companies with late or unpaid fees include firms that wound up under bankruptcy protection or had their operations shut down for serious environmental infractions, such as Everest Canadian Resources and Sunshine Oilsands. They also include some larger multinational companies, including Koch, Imperial Oil, ConocoPhillips and MEG Energy, which faced fines for paying fees late.

For some critics, the late and unpaid fees cast doubt on how seriously Premier Danielle Smith’s government is taking its responsibility to manage the monitoring program.

Shannon Phillips was the environment minister in the former NDP government during a period when some of the fees went unpaid. She said she asked public servants to use all the tools of the government to collect the money after they informed her about the problem.

But she noted there was an internal government culture to cut the industry some slack.

“The default setting was to lay down and die in the face of corporate whining and tantrums,” she said. “But the public service knew that might not be the response if they brought me a problem to solve.”

Oilsands companies ‘rip us off’: former Alberta environment minister

The government has written off debts owed by companies like Everest, which went into bankruptcy protection. Sunshine Oilsands, Koch, ConocoPhillips and MEG Energy did not respond to requests for comment.

Alberta’s Environment Ministry also did not respond to a request for comment.

Environment and Climate Change Canada, which is a partner in the program, told The Narwhal in a statement that it was not engaged in the collection of fees since Alberta is responsible for enforcing its regulations. The federal department also noted that while Alberta had failed to release annual reports for the program for five years, the province had just published the missing reports on Dec. 6, 2024, with support from its federal counterparts. 

Imperial Oil confirmed in an email to The Narwhal that it made a 2018 payment that “was delayed briefly due to a system problem,” but the company denied being assessed a penalty. According to the government data, the company was late making a $2.15-million payment that year and faced a $64,567 penalty.

Phillips said she believes the current provincial government is cowering in the face of pressure from oil and gas companies and failing to ensure they follow the rules like everyone else.

“If I don’t pay my mortgage, which is the condition of the approval of me living in my house, the bank takes away my house,” she said in an interview. “If oil companies don’t pay their monitoring fees, which are a condition of their approval to extract the resources that belong to Albertans, nothing happens.” 

“Alberta allows oil and gas companies to rip us off on our fair share of the revenues while leaving us holding the bag on the costs,” Phillips said.

While there were more than 30 companies operating in the oilsands 10 years ago, the data released by the government indicates there are now only 24 that collectively pay for the monitoring program’s $50-million annual budget. Koch is reportedly among the companies that sold or abandoned oilsands leases.

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Government’s refusal to release data triggered inquiry

The federal and provincial governments launched the program in response to international criticism and environmental campaigns accusing fossil fuel companies of producing “dirty oil” in the region. A panel appointed by the federal government recommended the framework for the program in a report released in 2010, proposing a “scientifically rigorous” approach to monitoring that is also “transparent and accessible.”

The Narwhal previously reported in 2021 on a redacted version of the data, released in response to a freedom of information request. At the time, the numbers confirmed some oilsands monitoring bills were going unpaid, but lacked specifics.

Subsequently, The Narwhal complained about the redactions, triggering an inquiry by the office of Alberta’s information watchdog. Although the government argued it would have more trouble enforcing the regulations if it released the data, an adjudicator rejected those arguments and ordered the ministry to release its spreadsheets tracking invoices and bill payments between 2015 and 2021 for the monitoring program.

The provincial government has refused to release additional numbers it tracked from 2021 to 2024, but a staffer responsible for responding to freedom of information requests told The Narwhal it is considering whether to release them, in light of the inquiry.

Critics see a ‘pattern’ of lenient rule enforcement in the oilsands

Jeff Brook, a former Environment and Climate Change Canada scientist who has been involved with research as part of the program, said the program is essential to ensure the best regulations are in place to mitigate harm caused by industry.

“Regulations will tell you to look under the light post,” Brook, a faculty member at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said in an interview. “But there’s a lot that’s not underneath the light post.”

But the apparent secrecy surrounding the fees contrasts with Alberta regulations requiring all the information it gathers in relation to the monitoring program to be public.

Some researchers say they believe the industry is sometimes playing games to block progress in improving the monitoring system.

David Spink, an environmental consultant whose work includes air quality monitoring near Fort McKay First Nation in northern Alberta, accuses industry stakeholders of trying to block some proposed research with claims that there is not enough money available to proceed.

“Overall, there’s no doubt industry wants to keep the costs of this program down so that there’s not pressure on them to increase their contributions to the fund,” Spink said in an interview.

The other companies fined for late or unpaid fees were Pengrowth Energy Corporation, Value Creation, Southern Pacific Resource Corp., Surmont Energy, Birchwood Resources, Connacher Oil and Gas Limited, Ivanhoe Energy, Grizzly Oil Sands, Greenfire Resources and Prosper Petroleum. Some of the companies no longer appear to be operating or active. In a few cases, their assets were sold following insolvency.

Aliénor Rougeot, senior program manager for climate and energy at Toronto-based Environmental Defence Canada, said she believes it’s part of a pattern of behaviour when it comes to enforcing rules for Canada’s oil and gas industry.

“Of course, one-off mistakes happen, and you wouldn’t want to be drawing a conclusion if there was a one-off administrative mistake,” she told The Narwhal. “The reality though is when it comes to the oilsands, we see a pattern of either a lack of enforcement of rules or very lenient enforcement, which is what we’re seeing here.”

Around the world, governments, researchers and companies are scrambling to reduce the sheer volume of carbon pollution created by modern life. Among the ideas gaining traction in Canada is carbon capture — collecting carbon dioxide before it is sent up into the atmosphere. 

The Pathways Alliance group of oil giants want to do just that, collecting carbon pollution from the Alberta oilsands and shipping it approximately 400 kilometres by pipeline to an underground storage site just outside St. Paul, Alta., where it will be injected deep underground — forever.

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Though the plan is anything but final, Pathways, whose six members control 95 per cent of oilsands production, did put in its first application for regulatory approval earlier this year and has said it has invested heavily in its plans. 

But the proposal doesn’t sit well with everyone along the pipeline route and the Alberta Energy Regulator recently confirmed the province will not be requiring the project undergo an environmental assessment.

Here’s what you need to know about some very tangible risks Albertans on the ground are talking about as a carbon pipeline might move in next door.

1. How likely is an explosion — and who would respond in an emergency?

Carbon dioxide pipelines are not new — they crisscross North America (mostly for use in extracting more oil from the ground, rather than permanent storage).

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Any major project comes with risks. In 2020, a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured in Mississippi, showing just how serious those risks can be. Within minutes, there were reports of people having seizures or falling unconscious. At least 45 people were hospitalized. The county’s emergency director likened it to “the zombie apocalypse.”

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “there is no indication that problems for carbon dioxide pipelines are any more challenging than those set by hydrocarbon pipelines.” That said, they may be more subject to what are known as “longitudinal running fractures” — a rapid and catastrophic unzipping, or splitting, of a pipeline — than other gas pipelines.

This leads to many questions for Albertans near the proposed Pathways Alliance carbon pipeline route, including about emergency response vehicles, which have oxygen-dependent engines that can fail if carbon dioxide leaks.

A spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator, which is responsible for evaluating the Pathways Alliance application, said by email that any carbon dioxide pipeline licensed by the regulator is required to have a corporate emergency response plan.

2. How might a leak affect the groundwater?

Albertans alongside the proposed path of the carbon pollution pipeline worry about how a potential leak could impact groundwater, citing similar concerns across the globe.

In Australia, the Queensland government announced it would prevent the storage of carbon pollution under a 1.7-million-square-kilometre area of the state. An environmental assessment found carbon storage would “likely cause an irreversible or long-term change in water quality” if carbon pollution were to migrate through the region’s aquifer, spreading contaminants such as lead and arsenic.

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The Alberta Energy Regulator said ensuring carbon dioxide doesn’t migrate into groundwater is a “critical focus area” and that it requires companies “to review the area geology to ensure a high level of confidence.”

3. Will Treaty Rights be impacted?

Several First Nations in the region, including Heart Lake First Nation, Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Whitefish Lake First Nation, Kehewin Cree Nation, Frog Lake First Nation, Cold Lake First Nations and Onion Lake Cree Nation, have been asking questions about the project. Some have expressed concern about their abilities to exercise their Treaty Rights.

“We don’t know how pumping carbon underground will affect our lakes, our rivers — even our underground reservoirs,” Michael Lameman, a councillor at Beaver Lake Cree Nation, told CBC earlier this year. 

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Pathways Alliance has not provided enough information about specifics, according to Moronkeji (Kg) Banjoko, who works in the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s Department of Dene Lands and Resource Management. 

“There is no information about what the project will do — as a whole and cumulatively with other industrial development in the area — to the environment, local communities and [Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s] Treaty Rights,” Banjoko wrote in an email.

4. Does underground storage of carbon pollution actually work?

Nearly 50,000 megatonnes of carbon pollution are emitted globally each year. The Pathways Alliance plan for the $16-billion project aims to bury 10 to 12 megatonnes of carbon dioxide deep underground each year — roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution emitted by the oilsands every six weeks.

Pathways says it wants to “produce some of the cleanest barrels of oil in the world” and that carbon capture is “safe, proven and reliable.”

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But experts like David Schlissel at the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis are concerned carbon capture is more “hype” than evidence.

“There’s no evidence that it will capture 90 to 95 per cent of the carbon dioxide it’s designed to capture,” Schlissel says, referring to an oft-cited industry standard for carbon capture rates — a baseline target that acknowledges the amount of carbon pollution that needs to be be captured to be worth the investment. Schlissel notes data shows real-world carbon capture rates range from 10 to 78 per cent. 

Others say the technology is an attempt at gaining “social licence” for continued production of fossil fuels — the U. S. House of Representatives’ central investigative committee is one such critic, saying the promise of a tech fix relieves pressure to pivot to energy sources that produce less carbon pollution. 

5. Is Pathways Alliance doing enough to inform and listen to affected communities?

“They were in Dubai, they were in Calgary and Texas and they’re all over the world,” one Alberta landowner says of the places Pathways Alliance representatives have publicly extolled the virtues of their carbon capture plan. But, she says, “They’ve spent about three hours here.”

Some residents along the proposed pipeline route feel shut out of the process, noting that landowners whose properties are directly affected might have a say, but the rest of the community does not. 

More than anything, they say, they want Pathways Alliance to answer their questions about the risks. (Pathways Alliance did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, nor a detailed list of questions about the project.)

The massive $16-billion carbon capture plan proposed by Pathways Alliance — a group of the largest oilsands companies — will not undergo a provincial environmental assessment, according to a letter from the Alberta Energy Regulator dated Oct. 25 and provided to The Narwhal.

Pathways filed its first regulatory application for the project, which will include a 400-kilometre carbon dioxide pipeline, to the Alberta Energy Regulator in March.

In May, a group of landowners, a First Nation and environmental groups requested an environmental assessment. The project aims to bury 10 to 12 megatonnes of carbon dioxide deep underground each year, roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution emitted by the oilsands every six weeks.

The group, which includes Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, the Alberta Wilderness Association, Climate Action Network Canada, Environmental Defence Canada and the No to CO2 landowners’ group, requested an assessment to “ensure that the project does not have significant adverse impacts on the regional environment and local communities, including on Aboriginal and Treaty Rights.”

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A letter from the regulator to the group, dated Oct. 25, says the agency considered details about the proposed activity such as its location, size and complexity, and other public concerns that have been expressed, and decided “that further assessment of the activity is not required.”

“Therefore, a screening report will not be prepared, and an environmental impact assessment report is not required,” the letter reads.

The Alberta Energy Regulator confirmed an environmental assessment for the Pathways Alliance project would not be required in an email to The Narwhal on Wednesday.

A spokesperson added the regulator’s decision was “based on the current information about the project,” adding it “reserves the right to review this decision should different or new information become available.”

The spokesperson also noted the environmental impacts of the project will be considered under the regular application and approval process, adding that carbon capture projects involve multiple separate applications, which they said “allows focused insight into the details of a project and increases regulatory oversight by reviewing the details of each activity.”

The regulator, the spokesperson added, “is required to consider the social and economic effects of the energy resource activity as well as the effects of the energy resource activity on the environment” during the approval process.

In response to previous questions from The Narwhal, a spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator noted the project does not automatically trigger a provincial environmental assessment. Regulations under Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, first put into force in 1993, make no mention of carbon capture technology.

Under those regulations, other major projects, like an oilsands mine, refinery or a large hydro dam, would automatically undergo an environment assessment. In the absence of an assessment, the spokesperson said the risks associated with the project would be evaluated under the standard application process.

Local residents told The Narwhal they are concerned groundwater is at risk and that an explosion or a leak could mean asphyxiation caused by odourless, invisible carbon dioxide. Some First Nations have also voiced concern about implications for Treaty Rights, including the ability to hunt, trap and fish.

“The communities that would bear all of the risks from the project deserve to have real answers about the dangers posed to their families,” Julia Levin, the associate director of national climate at Environmental Defence, said in a statement on Wednesday. The statement was sent by the organizations that requested the environmental assessment in May, and offered their reaction to the regulator’s decision.

“There’s a reason the [Alberta Energy Regulator] doesn’t want to put the Pathways project through an environmental assessment. It is because it will expose the environmental impacts, the poor economic viability and the risks to human health,” Chief Allan Adam of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said in the statement.

“With our Treaty Rights on the line you can guarantee that [Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation] will fight this tooth and nail,” he added.

Spokespeople for Pathways Alliance and Alberta Environment and Parks did not not respond to questions from The Narwhal by publication time.

Pathways Alliance lobbied to get out of a federal environmental assessment

The Pathways project would be one of the largest carbon capture schemes in the world.

Quest, a carbon capture and storage project by Shell Canada near Edmonton, was required to undergo a joint federal-provincial environmental assessment in 2010, something Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and environmental groups pointed out in their request to have the Pathways project assessed.

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According to the Alberta government, environmental assessments are required “where the complexity and scale of a proposed project, technology, resource allocation or siting considerations create uncertainty about the exact nature of environmental effects, or result in a potential for significant adverse environmental effects” and help to “determine if the project is in the public interest.”

It’s unclear if the project will undergo a separate federal environmental assessment — sometimes carried out in conjunction with the provincial process — if officials determine the project has the potential for significant impacts within federal jurisdiction, including fish, migratory birds, species at risk and Indigenous Rights.

“An environmental assessment is an excellent way to test whether the Pathways claims are actually true — not just about its ability to reduce emissions and help address climate change, but to do so safely and cost-effectively, particularly given all the taxpayer money they want to spend,” Matt Hulse, a lawyer at Ecojustice, said in the statement on Wednesday. “With Alberta unwilling to assess this project, we hope that the federal government will step up.”

In January 2023, Pathways Alliance president Kendall Dilling told the federal government the group needed an “assurance” that its proposal “would not require a federal review under the Impact Assessment Act.”

A few weeks later, staff at the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, the government agency responsible for federal environmental assessments, were assigned to a working group with oil and gas industry officials, including at least one representative from the Alberta government — a deputy minister.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault told The Narwhal in April he did not grant Pathways’ wish to skip a federal review — and that doing so “would circumvent our laws.”

Guilbeault also told The Narwhal in April “there’s no project to speak of right now.”

It’s also unclear if Pathways gave any additional details to government officials about their plans in the period after Guilbeault made those comments.

Jaclyn Sauvé, communications advisor for the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, said in an email that Pathways Alliance would be responsible for verifying whether its proposal would be subject to federal assessment, noting the agency “has not received any information to indicate this proposal includes any designated physical activities that would make it subject to the [Impact Assessment Act].”

Sauvé added Pathways “is encouraged to contact [the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada] so that we can assist in verifying [its] interpretation.” This portion of the statement was nearly identical to a statement sent by the agency in May. Guilbeault’s office said the minister didn’t have any further comment beyond the statement provided by the agency.

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Whatever extra information has been offered to provincial or federal government officials, the public has been unable to see it. Over the summer, Pathways scrubbed its website and social media feeds of much of the information it had provided about its project proposal, citing new federal provisions meant to crack down on greenwashing.

Meanwhile, some aspects of the government’s discussions with oilsands companies behind closed doors are possibly being shrouded in secrecy after federal officials agreed to a non-disclosure agreement.

Federal Conservatives plan to replace assessment law with process that ‘green-lights’ carbon capture projects

The outcome of the next federal election, which will occur within the next year, could eventually change how environmental assessments at that level are carried out.

The Conservative Party of Canada, currently the official Opposition, plans, if elected, to replace the federal government’s “anti-resource bureaucracy” with an approval process that would “green-light” carbon capture and storage projects, as well as fossil fuel projects that produce liquefied natural gas, or LNG, according to deputy leader Melissa Lantsman.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievere has made it clear that means he would repeal the federal environmental assessment law, previously known as Bill C-69, which he’s called an “anti-development law.”

Canada Growth Fund appears poised to support the project

Pathways Alliance has been lobbying the federal government for more legal, regulatory and financial support since soon after the group was formed in 2021.

The project would benefit from a federal investment tax credit for carbon capture and storage, but Pathways has said that isn’t enough and it needs more help.

The group has been negotiating with a federal financial agency, the Canada Growth Fund, for additional support. This week, the Globe and Mail reported the fund and the oilsands group are nearing a deal.

Some of the oilsands companies in Pathways are among the largest corporations in Canada, reporting billions of dollars in profits in recent years.

Updated Oct. 30, 2024, at 4:43 p.m. MT: This story was updated to include comment from the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Updated Oct. 31, 2024: This story was updated at 11:55 a.m. MT to include comment from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and again at 1:16 p.m. MT to include a statement from the groups that requested the environmental assessment.

The town of St. Paul, Alta., is the kind of place where you can buy a basket of homemade preserves and local beef jerky from the Chamber of Commerce on Main Street. It’s a farming community at heart, surrounded by fields and gently rolling hills. It’s not huge, just under 6,000 people, and the biggest tourist attraction is the world’s first UFO landing pad, which attracts “an average of 20 people per day,” according to the local newspaper.

“It’s not the centre of the universe,” Amil Shapka says with a smile. He’s a retired dentist who describes himself as being “born here, raised here, went to school here, left for the big city, hated it, came back and lived happily ever after.” 

Shapka lives not far from town down a gravel road. It’s “me and the bears and the squirrels,” he says. “Being Ukrainian, there’s a bit of the thousands of generations of farmers in me. Our connection — my connection — to the land is part of my well being.”

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But against this backdrop, change is afloat. 

If everything goes according to plan, the town will soon be part of one of the world’s largest carbon capture and storage networks. A $16.5-billion megaproject — much of which could be taxpayer money — is in the works from Pathways Alliance, a group of the six largest oilsands companies. Advocates say carbon capture is a high-tech antidote to the global climate crisis and a solution to reduce heat-trapping emissions created by producing and burning fossil fuels. Critics say it is untested, expensive and not feasible at scale. 

Here in northeastern Alberta, Pathways Alliance seeks a proving ground.

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The consortium is planning to build a 400-kilometre pipeline as wide as 36 inches (a little under a metre) to carry carbon pollution from the oilsands. Liquid carbon dioxide will be buried deep under the Earth’s surface, injected into the sandstone that lies more than a kilometre underground. Huge swaths of the province — thousands of square kilometres — are part of what are called evaluation agreements — contracts with the Alberta government that grant a company the right to conduct testing, including drilling wells and injecting substances deep underground, to find good places to store carbon pollution. 

Canadian Natural Resources Limited, a Pathways member, has an evaluation agreement that blankets St. Paul and the surrounding region. Pathways Alliance filed an application for the pipeline to the Alberta Energy Regulator in March — the first step in the approval process.

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This worries some local residents, who are concerned groundwater is at risk and that an explosion or a leak could mean asphyxiation caused by odourless, invisible carbon dioxide. They wonder who will respond in the event of an emergency — will it be the local volunteer fire department? Will leaking carbon dioxide interfere with the oxygen-dependent engines of emergency vehicles? Some First Nations are concerned about implications for Treaty Rights and the ability to hunt, trap or fish. Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam has asked the provincial regulator to require an environmental assessment of the project “to ensure the rights of [Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation] are protected.”

For others, a new pipeline is good news for the economy and could bring good jobs to the region. Will the project pit neighbour against neighbour? And, crucially, many wonder, will it even work?

“This isn’t really even proven technology. They’re going to roll the dice using billions of public dollars and potentially put our future, property values and access to water at risk,” Shapka says. “Does this serve the public interest?”

In an Alberta community familiar with oil and gas, carbon capture is ‘something totally different’

Penny Fox grew up in Ontario, married a “farm boy” and moved to Alberta in 1987. “If we were millionaires, we’d be farming,” she says with a laugh. As it is, they both have other careers — her in small business development, him in government — and live on a small farm just south of St. Paul where in their free time they sell hay, work in the vegetable garden and add to their sizeable collection of firewood. 

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Fox has lived in various parts of Alberta and is familiar with the impacts of oil and gas development. After all, the province already has more than 400,000 kilometres of pipelines criss-crossing under the surface. “We all depend on it,” she says, acknowledging the economic impact of the industry in Alberta and across Canada.

But when she heard a carbon dioxide pipeline was planned across the road from her house, she had a lot of questions. This, she says, doesn’t feel the same as an oil or natural gas pipeline. Although those also come with risks, they have what she views as a reasonable framework for regulation.

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“This is something totally different,” Fox says. She’s a member of a grassroots group that formed, as “farmer called farmer, neighbour called neighbour” when representatives of the project — called land agents — started knocking on doors in the region. 

It started with Shapka, who sprung into action when he heard about the land agent seeking access to a neighbour’s property in exchange for a cheque. He rented the local community hall and started making phone calls. 

Fox, Shapka and other community members call themselves the “No to CO2” group. Part of their mission, Fox says, is to get access to the project details — information is scarce, especially since Pathways Alliance scrubbed its website in response to new federal greenwashing regulations — and to understand the risks of the project to the people who live nearby. The alliance did not respond to The Narwhal’s multiple requests for an interview, nor to a list of detailed questions about the project.

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“What we were trying to do is not tell people what to do, but give them enough information for them to understand what it means,” Fox says. “We need to ask questions so that we can clearly understand what this is.”

“What happens if the North Saskatchewan gets polluted?” she asks, referring to the major river that flows just north of the community and on to Saskatchewan. “How many communities — how many people — rely on that for a water source? Because, I mean, it’s not just Alberta. It’s not just an Alberta problem.” 

“They should be able to answer those questions.”

Carbon plan could create 15,000 jobs during construction: Pathways Alliance

Some people in St. Paul are excited about the potential benefits of the project — they see it as a major investment in Alberta’s future. Bernie Poitras is one of them. He was a rodeo announcer who worked in the oilpatch before he became the District 12 commander of the Otipemisiwak Métis Government, formerly the Metis Nation of Alberta, last fall. 

Poitras’ family has been in the area ever since his great-grandfather came to Alberta in 1874 from Manitoba. He still finds time to be an announcer at local hockey games, but much of Poitras’ time is now taken up with politics — and that means talking about the carbon pipeline Pathways wants to build through the region. “It is very complicated,” he says over coffee at the local A&W.

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“It’s going to employ a lot, a lot, of people,” Poitras says. Many in the community look forward to either joining construction crews themselves, or earning the money the workers spend on restaurants, hotels and other services. 

In a briefing report submitted to a House Committee focused on the environment, Pathways said its project would create “15,000 to 20,000 high-paying jobs during construction, with approximately 1,000 permanent jobs post-construction,” adding it would “stimulate the provincial and national economy.”

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Not only that: some see it as an opportunity to be part of a solution to global warming. International organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency say carbon storage is part of a viable path to net-zero emissions — and needs to be expanded rapidly to have an impact. 

Poitras was recently at the Lloydminster Heavy Oil Show, where Pathways Alliance sponsored a fireside chat. There, after talking to people in the industry, he was reassured about the technology. “I don’t really think it’s gonna affect the groundwater,” he says. “It’s not an oil line, it’s a carbon capture line, and it’s going deep underground.”

From groundwater to asphyxiation, northeastern Alberta residents weigh risks 

Not everyone is so sure. Fox, Shapka and others are concerned about myriad other potential risks. Sure, the worst might not happen. But, they wonder, what happens if it does?

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When carbon pollution is injected deep underground there are two options: one, it can be used for what’s known as “enhanced oil recovery” — in essence, injecting carbon dioxide into a well so you can get at more oil. A 2022 report found nearly three-quarters of captured carbon pollution around the world is used to extract more oil which, as critics point out, leads to more profit and more carbon pollution. There are more than 8,000 kilometres of carbon dioxide pipelines in the United States, “virtually all” of which are used for enhanced oil recovery, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, which says of 15 carbon capture storage projects in the country as of December 2023, 13 are for enhanced oil recovery.

The second option is for carbon pollution to be “permanently stored” deep underground.

“This is waste disposal,” Shapka says. “This is an industrial byproduct and calling it storage, I think, minimizes what it really is. That stuff’s going to be pumped down there in perpetuity.”

That raises questions, among which concerns for groundwater are prominent. “Water is number one,” Shapka says. 

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He’s not alone in his concerns. In Australia, the Queensland government recently announced it would prevent the storage of carbon pollution under a 1,700,000-square-kilometre area of the state. Farmers had pushed for the ban, noting an environmental assessment found carbon storage would “likely cause an irreversible or long-term change in water quality” if carbon pollution were to migrate through the region’s aquifer, spreading contaminants such as lead and arsenic.

The Alberta Energy Regulator, which is responsible for evaluating the Pathways Alliance application, said ensuring carbon dioxide doesn’t migrate into groundwater is a “critical focus area” and that it requires companies “to review the area geology to ensure a high level of confidence” to ensure that. It also requires a hazard and risk assessment be conducted and that all risks are “fully mitigated” before the project will be approved. 

“All carbon dioxide storage projects require a monitoring, measurement and verification plan, to outline how the company will ensure the pollution stays put, and what “remedial actions [will] be taken if anything does go wrong.”

But the possibility something will go wrong remains, which is why several groups are asking for an environmental assessment. In response to emailed questions from The Narwhal, a spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator noted the project does not automatically trigger a provincial environmental assessment (like, say, an oilsands mine or a large hydro dam). If the regulator decides an assessment is not needed, the spokesperson said, the risks associated with the project will be evaluated under the standard application process. 

The spokesperson for the regulator said leaks of carbon dioxide from a pipeline “may briefly” turn surface water into ice “but it would not impact groundwater.” According to the regulator, carbon dioxide doesn’t present risks for groundwater when it’s in a pipeline and the risks exist only when it’s buried deep underground.

A Pathways Alliance land agent told Fox there would be test wells around injection sites — the spots where carbon pollution is buried — to check for leaks or changes to the water, but that doesn’t reassure everyone.

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Several First Nations in the region, including Heart Lake First Nation, Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Whitefish Lake First Nation, Kehewin Cree Nation, Frog Lake First Nation, Cold Lake First Nations and Onion Lake Cree Nation, have also been asking questions about the project. Some have expressed concern about their abilities to exercise their Treaty Rights. (None of these nations responded to requests for an interview.)

“We don’t know how pumping carbon underground will affect our lakes, our rivers — even our underground reservoirs,” Michael Lameman, a councillor at Beaver Lake Cree Nation, told CBC earlier this year. (Lameman did not respond to a request for an interview.)

Pathways Alliance has provided a high-level map of the proposed project, but not enough information about specifics, according to Moronkeji (Kg) Banjoko, government relations and consultation coordinator with the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s Department of Dene Lands and Resource Management. “There is no information about what the project will do — as a whole and cumulatively with other industrial development in the area — to the environment, local communities and [Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation’s] Treaty Rights,” Banjoko wrote in an email to The Narwhal.

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The nation has a number of concerns, Banjoko said, including “the addition of another pipeline to the landscape which will cross the Athabasca River in multiple places as well as other watercourses, cause construction impacts, destroy animal habitat and create easier sightlines for hunters and predators to hunt caribou and moose.” Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation would like Pathways Alliance to support an Indigenous-led assessment of the project — or, failing that, to request a joint provincial-federal environmental impact assessment. 

Carbon capture and storage “allows [Pathways] to talk a big game about action on climate change before they have committed any serious resources to building the project and reducing emissions — all while continuing to produce record amounts of oil,” Banjoko added.

Past carbon dioxide pipeline explosion in the U.S. likened to a ‘zombie apocalypse’

Ever-present concerns about a leak, or worse, an explosion, aren’t unfounded. 

In 2020, a 24-inch (0.6-metre) carbon dioxide pipeline in Mississippi — in the tiny town of Satartia, population 50 — ruptured after a mudslide. More than 31,000 barrels — nearly 5,000,000 litres — of carbon dioxide were released. Within minutes, there were reports of people having seizures or falling unconscious. The carbon dioxide “immediately began to vaporize,” according to a federal Department of Transportation investigation, and spread across the county. 

At least 45 people were hospitalized and hundreds were evacuated. “It looked like you were going through the zombie apocalypse,” the county’s emergency director told NPR in 2023, adding that people were laying on the ground, shaking and unable to breathe. The company behind the pipeline took two hours to tell the relevant authorities about the explosion (it has since paid nearly US$3 million in fines). Some residents said they spent more than an hour unconscious in a vehicle filled with carbon dioxide and had to have supplemental oxygen for months after the incident. 

In April of this year, another carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured in Louisiana. In September, carbon dioxide leaked from an injection well in Illinois. 

Carbon dioxide pipelines are not new — they crisscross North America, mostly for enhanced oil recovery. In the last 10 years, according to an analysis from the Great Plains Institute, there have been 63 instances of leaks or accidents. Since 1994, carbon dioxide pipeline accidents have released approximately 135,000 barrels — which amounts to more than 21 million litres — in the United States. 

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “there is no indication that problems for carbon dioxide pipelines are any more challenging than those set by hydrocarbon pipelines.” That said, they may be more subject to what are known as “longitudinal running fractures” — a rapid and catastrophic unzipping, or splitting, of a pipeline — than other gas pipelines and need adequate safety features in place.

This leads to many questions, including about emergency response vehicles, which have combustion engines that need oxygen to run, and can fail when heavier carbon dioxide displaces it.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” NPR reported a 911 caller said when the Satartia explosion happened. “My car stopped, it won’t move.”

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That pipeline was just over 1.5 kilometres from the small Mississippi town. In St. Paul, it is not yet exactly clear where the pipeline could run, but early plans suggest it could be a little more than a kilometre from the eastern edge of town. A spokesperson for the Alberta Energy Regulator said by email that any carbon dioxide pipeline licensed by the regulator is required to have a corporate emergency response plan.

“I don’t want to be next to that thing if that pipeline ruptures,” Shapka says, pulling apart a fresh apple muffin. “My roots are here, and everything familiar is here. But I’d really have to question that.”

Pathways Alliance says its technology is ‘safe, proven and reliable’

The potential impacts of the Pathways Alliance carbon pipeline and storage plan are being talked about at kitchen tables along the proposed route. Meanwhile, its potential benefits are being touted around the world, including at the annual United Nations meeting about climate change. 

The problem is real: there is just too much pollution. Nearly 50,000 megatonnes of carbon pollution are emitted globally each year. Around the world, “human activities have raised the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content by 50 per cent in less than 200 years,” according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). 

In Canada, 677 megatonnes were emitted in 2021. Two weeks ago, the federal government announced plans to introduce draft legislation to cap emissions from the oil and gas industry, something industry leaders oppose. Instead, they and other proponents say capture and storage projects are crucial to reducing carbon pollution and mitigating climate change in the immediate future. 

The Pathways Alliance plan for the $16-billion project aims to bury 10 to 12 megatonnes of carbon dioxide deep underground each year. That’s approximately one-eighth of reported carbon pollution from the Alberta oilsands annually, or roughly equivalent to the carbon pollution emitted by the oilsands every six weeks.

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Pathways, whose six members control 95 per cent of oilsands production, says it wants to “produce some of the cleanest barrels of oil in the world” and to be net zero by 2050. Carbon capture, it says, is “safe, proven and reliable.”

But that promise comes with caveats, especially if you ask David Schlissel at the U.S.-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. He’s been following carbon capture closely since 2007 and is concerned that the endeavour is more “hype” than evidence — not to mention the price tag. 

“There’s no evidence that it will capture 90 to 95 per cent of the carbon dioxide it’s designed to capture,” Schlissel says, noting data shows real-world carbon capture rates range from 10 to 78 per cent. When the whole life cycle of carbon capture efforts, which also release carbon pollution, are taken into account, he says, “it’s unlikely to have a major dent in greenhouse gas emissions.”

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Carbon capture is an attempt at gaining “social licence” for continued production of fossil fuels, according to the U. S. House of Representatives’ central investigative committee, which is among critics saying the promise of a tech fix relieves pressure to pivot to energy sources that produce less carbon pollution. Global oil production is at record levels in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency, and 2023 was a banner year for oilsands profits.

Both the federal government and the Alberta government have proven eager to financially support the oil industry’s carbon capture plans. 

Carbon capture is “a tool in the toolbox” of reducing carbon pollution, according to Matt Dreis, a senior analyst with the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program.

“Carbon capture and storage is going to be a big part of emissions reductions in Alberta,” Dreis says. “It’s one of the largest opportunities to reduce emissions from [the Alberta oilsands] sector specifically.”

But critics have balked at the cost — and the amount that could be subsidized by taxpayers. Behind the scenes, Pathways Alliance has been lobbying for tax breaks and incentives from governments, including an “assurance” from the federal government that no part of the project would require a federal review under the beleaguered Impact Assessment Act. 

The potential liability for Canadians doesn’t stop there. In Alberta, the government assumes liability for a carbon capture project after it is officially certified as complete: it asks companies to pay into a “stewardship fund” to cover or offset costs, but otherwise maintenance, monitoring and leaks are the government’s responsibility. In other provinces, like Manitoba, companies will retain responsibility for costs related to leaks or repair.

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“Make them financially responsible,” Schlissel says of future risks of leaks. “Let them put their money where their mouth is.”

Schlissel, who is 77, is curious if his doubts will be proven wrong. “I’ve asked one of my younger colleagues [to] do a seance in 30 years and let me know how it comes out,” he says with a rueful laugh. 

‘Just not convinced’: Alberta residents have lingering questions about carbon capture

At her home just south of St. Paul, where she has lived with her husband for the past 14 years, Fox surveys her garden and its late season bounty — tomatoes, pumpkins and some corn that survived a recent bear visit. She gestures across the road, where the pipeline is set to be. 

Right now, it’s just a field.

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“They were in Dubai, they were in Calgary and Texas and they’re all over the world,” she says of the places Pathways Alliance representatives have publicly extolled the virtues of their carbon capture plan. But, she says, “They’ve spent about three hours here.”

That leaves many in the community feeling neglected — and undervalued. Is their farming community something of a guinea pig? If something goes wrong, are they a sacrifice zone for a solution to a much bigger problem?

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Fox is well aware of the global conversation about carbon pollution and the high stakes for the planet — as well as for fossil fuel companies. “They’re being forced into coming up with a solution around carbon dioxide,” she says. “We’re just not convinced this is it.”

“I’m just not convinced all of this money and all this work is going to make a tinker’s damn of a difference.”