Placer mining kills fish, damages streams, poses a risk to drinking water and jeopardizes Indigenous rights, but the activity is virtually unregulated and brings little money into government coffers, says a report urging B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer to conduct an audit of the province’s failure to adequately regulate placer operations.

“Placer mining — the practice of mining for gold in and near streams and riverbeds — is expanding across B.C.,” the report states. “The province allows prospectors to stake claims in private property, salmon watersheds and Indigenous lands, leaving local communities to cope with potential mercury contamination and other hazards.”

The report, written by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre on behalf of the Fair Mining Collaborative, concludes that B.C.’s current regulations cannot prevent or mitigate harm caused by unregulated miners.

“Placer mining offers little in economic return to offset the environmental damage,” the report says.

A spokeswoman for Bellringer’s office said the request will be considered along with numerous other audit suggestions, and added that, if accepted, audits can often take more than a year from the day they are started.

“We aim to make the best use of our resources and choose audits with the greatest value to government and the people of B.C.,” Colleen Rose wrote in an e-mailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada.

The report’s authors, Calvin Sandborn, Environmental Law Centre legal director, articled student Renata Colwell and law student Erin Linklater, believe the problems with placer mining are causing health and environmental problems and are hoping for quick action.

“We are saying it’s urgent,” Sandborn said.

“This is an expanding industry. The large machine operations have almost tripled since 2005 and so it can’t be ignored any longer. We have to figure out how we can regulate this. There are a lot of jurisdictions we can learn from — starting with the Yukon.”

While the Yukon has rigorous rules, in B.C., hand-panning or using hand tools with a sluicer or shaker box — an activity that has more than doubled since 2005 — has little government oversight or tracking.

Miners do not have to obtain Water Sustainability Act authorization to excavate waterways. Adequate setbacks from stream banks are not enforced and some placer mines discharge tailings directly into streams instead of settling ponds.

Miners that use machinery for the excavation have little more regulation, apart from a requirement to apply for a Notice of Work permit.

An environmental assessment is triggered only if they have production capacity of more than 500,000 tonnes a year — a threshold so high that it excludes almost every placer mine in the province.

The Fair Mining Collaborative could not find a single record of a B.C. placer mine undergoing a federal or provincial environmental assessment since the mid-1990s although at least 50 environmental assessments a year are triggered in the Yukon.

“…it’s urgent.” https://t.co/avr4aueDXO

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) April 17, 2018

Tara Lamothe-Ammerlaan, Fair Mining Collaborative program manager, said about 550 open permits have been issued for placer mines in B.C. annually for the last three years and, while not all are active, they all have permission to mine.

“For the most part, they operate in or near riparian areas, which are arguably the most valuable ecosystems in a landscape. We need to have some kind of regional environmental assessments that set parametres around how much mining activity is compatible with First Nations plans for their territory and with healthy and resilient ecosystems,” she said.

Lamothe-Ammerlaan said another major problem is the free entry system that allows anyone to stake a claim for a minimal fee and miners then have rights — even if it is private property, an important ecosystem, an area important to First Nations or if land-use plans conflict with the mining plans.

Last year, Bev Sellars, chair of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining, illustrated how easy it is to stake a claim by staking the Cranbrook property of then-energy and mines minister Bill Bennett.

The report says regulation of placer mining is rooted in hopelessly outdated 19th century gold rush laws and some damage is historical, such as the 58-million cubic metres of sediment added to the Fraser River between 1858 and 1909, but modern mining is now stirring up sediment and dangerous substances such as mercury.

Other major problems started more recently, such as the deregulation of creeks around the Atlin area in 1985, allowing direct discharge into streams, after placer miners successfully lobbied their MLA.

The lack of regulation has resulted in sky high levels of aluminum which jeopardises the health of Taku River Tlingit First Nation members and other Atlin residents who use Atlin lake as a drinking water source.

“It’s an environmental law-free zone,” Sandborn said.

“Someone should let the fish know.”

Placer mining can kill fish by introducing sediments and metals into the water and improper excavation destroys spawning grounds, says the report, which uses numerous studies to support its claims.

A 1992 study found that unmined streams “support a standing stock of fish 40 times that of placer-mined streams.”

While the environmental damage mounts, B.C. sees little economic return with the province collecting only $253,248 between 2008 and 2015 on more than $50 million in reported gold sales.

“Since operators are taxed per mine, individual operators may pay no tax, even if they are producing more than $50,000 of gold a year across multiple mines,” the report says.

Lamoth-Ammerlaan believes the report has built a strong case for an audit by documenting the lack of regulation and the high environmental stakes.

“The government collects very low royalties on the gold that placer mines extract from our rivers and streams,” she said.

“I think this industry, with its significant potential for environmental harm and recorded gold sales tanging between $2 million and $15 million per year over the past decade, is perfect for this kind of scrutiny.”

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A potent, heat-trapping gas is being released into the atmosphere from B.C.’s oil and gas wells at a much higher rate than shown in industry and government reports and immediate action is needed, a new study by the David Suzuki Foundation confirms.

The findings, released Wednesday, follows on the heels of a previous peer-reviewed study by the Suzuki Foundation and St. Francis Xavier University, which found methane emissions from B.C.’s oil and gas industry are two-and-a-half times higher than reported.

The study revealed that wells in the Montney region, in northeast B.C. near Fort St. John, released more than 11,800 tonnes of methane into the air annually — the equivalent of burning 4.5 million tonnes of coal or putting two million cars on the road.

ICYMI: Scientists Find Methane Pollution from B.C.’s Oil and Gas Sector 2.5 Times What B.C. Government Reports

The new study investigated 178 sites in the same area and looked at origins and causes of the harmful emissions.

Researchers found that more than 85 per cent of actively producing gas wells vent methane gas directly into the environment every day, with an average flow rate of 27.1 cubic metres a day for each well tested. The vented gas is not being captured or flared and measurements showed it was almost pure methane.

Researchers also found that about 35 per cent of abandoned and inactive wells in the Montney region have significant flows of methane and hydrogen sulphide gas amounting to between nine and 11 cubic metres a day.

“While we could not determine the cause of these vent flows, we suspect much of the escaping gas is a result of issues related to well integrity. It is also apparent from our data that producers are identifying and repairing few of these leaking wells,” says the report.

B.C. Oil and Gas Commission figures show about 25,000 wells in B.C., with 12,771 reported as active gas wells and the remainder abandoned, suspended or used as water-disposal wells.

Venting at the inactive wells is continuous and there has been little effort to control the gas release, the report found.

“Every citizen in this province already pays carbon taxes to help combat climate change, so why shouldn’t the biggest polluters be required to do the same?” https://t.co/sHC8BNrkag

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 31, 2018

Solutions exist. So why don’t we use them?

John Werring, David Suzuki Foundation senior science and policy advisor and lead researcher on the study, said there is no doubt the oil and gas industry has a problem.

“A carbon tax on these fugitive methane emissions would hold emitters accountable, forcing them to pay for their massive contributions to our overall greenhouse gas emissions or preventing them altogether,” he said.

“Every citizen in this province already pays carbon taxes to help combat climate change, so why shouldn’t the biggest polluters be required to do the same?” said Werring, who added the Foundation will be looking for announcements in next month’s provincial budget.

In the memorandum of understanding signed between the B.C. Greens and NDP, the parties committed to broaden the carbon tax to capture “fugitive” emissions.

The study also recommends that:

• All oil and gas companies operating in B.C be ordered to immediately undertake leak detection and repair, starting with sites identified in the report.
• The province should develop regulations for mandatory quarterly leak detection and repair on all wells, including abandoned wells.
• Regulations be developed requiring industry to replace oil and gas powered pumps and compressors designed to vent fuel gas, with non-emitting devices.
• Regulations be developed for mandatory and transparent reporting of emissions and steps taken to address them, with the power to demand wells be repaired.
• Industry should be required to provide adequate resources for on-the-ground monitoring and enforcement of the measures and prioritize hiring locally affected First Nations to help with independent monitoring.

Methane emissions among most important climate problem in Canada

“These underreported methane emissions from B.C.’s oil and gas companies are among the most serious greenhouse gas problems we face in Canada, especially as our governments consider expanding the export of fracked and natural gas via the LNG industry,” said Ian Bruce, David Suzuki Foundation science and policy director.

Researchers say methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas and estimate it is responsible for 25 per cent of already observed climatic changes.

In 2016 the provincial and federal governments committed to reducing methane emissions by 45 per cent with the federal plan slated to come into effect between 2018 and 2020. But the start was pushed back to 2020 with full implementation by 2023 and regulations, now undergoing public consultations, are expected to be completed later this year.

“We are concerned that industry pressure will result in watered-down regulations when we desperately need strong leadership and strict enforcement from our federal and provincial governments,” Bruce said.

“Given how large the industry’s methane pollution footprint is, action is needed more than ever.”

Karen Tam Wu of the Pembina Institute, a clean energy think tank, said B.C. could show leadership in controlling methane emissions by improving leak detection and broadening the carbon tax to include methane leakage.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement there,” Wu said.

“Realistically, with or without LNG, natural gas will be part of B.C.’s economy and there are some real opportunities to improve our methane management in the upstream development of natural gas,” she said.

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Alberta oil and gas companies are wasting so much natural gas each year that Albertans are losing out on up to $21 million a year in provincial natural gas royalties.

Oil and gas companies let an estimated $253 million worth of natural gas escape through undetected leaks and the practice of venting annually.

According to Progress Alberta, a progressive advocacy group, the lost royalties could pay for five new schools, 84 new playgrounds or 36 new nurses.

“This is a valuable resource that Albertans own and it’s money that should be going to things Albertans want and need that’s just being lost to the atmosphere forever,” said Duncan Kinney, executive director of Progress Alberta, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

In addition to the lost royalties, the potent greenhouse house is leaked into the atmosphere without paying the province’s $30/tonne carbon levy, which results in a further loss of up to $1.4 billion in revenue, according to a new analysis by the Pembina Institute. When that carbon price increases to $50/tonne, as Premier Rachel Notley has indicated it will, those lost revenues rocket to $2.25 billion.

So why is this valuable resource disappearing into thin air?

ICYMI: Canada-U.S. Plan to Nearly Halve Methane Emissions Could Be Huge Deal for the Climate

Alberta underestimating methane leakage by 25 to 50 per cent

Reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector is considered to be one of the easiest ways to quickly reduce emissions. Methane has 34 times the “global warming potential” as carbon dioxide over a century.

And Alberta’s oil and sector emits a lot of it, with 31.4 megatonnes of methane entering the atmosphere in 2014 — although a recent study by Carleton University suggestedthe province is underestimating pollution by between 25 and 50 per cent, meaning annual emissions are more likely around the 45 megatonnes per year mark (which is about how much we thought all of Canada was emitting in 2016).

Fouty-five megatonnes a year is the greenhouse gas equivalent to 240,899 vehicles on the road.

Oil and gas companies have resisted changes that would require them to limit the leaking and venting of natural gas, arguing that it would result in job losses.

However, the federal government has committed to reducing methane emissions by 45 per cent below 2012 levels by 2025. Those reductions can be achieved through things like limiting the intentional “venting” of methane, using optical gas imaging cameras to detect unintentional leaks and installing flares to combust methane into carbon dioxide.

Federal draft regulations were released in May 2017, and proposed delaying full implementation of new rules by three years to 2023, instead of 2020. It was expected that Alberta would release its own version of regulations in November.

Industry  won a major concession from government in not having to pay any carbon tax on fuel used in the production of conventional oil and gas until 2023, including vented and flared gas.

The delay of action on reducing methane emissions ultimately impacts the entire country.

“What Alberta does will really make or break the ability to meet that [methane] target at the end of the day,” said Andrew Read, senior analyst with the Pembina Institute and report author.

Alberta oil and gas companies are wasting so much natural gas each year that Albertans are losing out on up to $21 million a year in provincial natural gas royalties. https://t.co/g0ExC0coTF

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 26, 2018

Improved leak detection and data collection critical

The federal government anticipates companies will need to spend $3.2 billion in between 2018 and 2035 to comply with the new regulations.

However, the government calculates the economic value of avoided climate change impacts will be more than $13 billion, with another $1.5 billion in conserved gas that can be sold by companies. That combines to a net benefit of $11.7 billion. In addition, a report by the Blue Green Alliance suggested methane regulations will create 1,500 jobs per year.

But for methane regulations to work, there  needs to be robust monitoring of leaked and vented methane.

ICYMI: Five Handy Facts About Alberta’s New Carbon Tax

“Having specific requirements for monitoring the leaks and trying to address them is also very important, so that we can actually tell if this is working,” said Brenda Heelan Powell, staff counsel at Alberta’s Environmental Law Centre, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

Alberta could be ‘reducing class sizes, or hiring more nurses’ with lost revenue

It’s already taken a long time to get to this point.

The regulator-led Methane Reduction Oversight Committee was formed in September 2016 by the province and included representatives from industry and environmental organizations. But as reported by the Financial Post, talks broke down in the summer of 2017. Discussions with remaining stakeholders were set to conclude by last December.

We’re now less than two years away from when the federal regulations are proposed to start taking effect — and time is running out quickly to get industry ready.

These delays matter.

Environmental Defence estimates that pushing back the full implementation of regulations from 2020 to 2023 will result in an additional 55 megatonnes of methane being released.

That will have serious climate impacts. But it also deprives provincial coffers of potential royalty revenue, which is a pretty big deal for a province facing down a $10 billion deficit.

“We could be reducing class sizes, or hiring more nurses, or building more schools or playgrounds,” Kinney said. “These are things that people want and are demanding.  We’re in this self-imposed austerity in Alberta, and it’s somewhat unnecessary if we were just to follow through on these methane regulations.”

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In recent months, there’s been a re-emergence of one of the oil industry’s most adored tropes: that without new pipelines, companies will ship oil by rail and threaten entire communities with derailments, explosions and spills.

The jury’s still very much out on whether shipments will actually increase by much more than what we’ve seen in the past. Regardless, there’s one thing that strangely never gets mentioned by proponents of the argument.

Transporting oil by rail doesn’t have to be nearly as dangerous as it currently is.

In fact, there are many rules and regulations that could be implemented by the federal government to help avoid another disaster like what happened in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, or Gogama, Ontario.

ICYMI: How the Spectre of Oil Trains is Deceptively Used to Push Pipelines

“We live within metres of the transcontinental CP line,” Patricia Lai, co-founder of Safe Rail Communities, told DeSmog Canada. “This is very real for us on a daily basis, and we know this exists for communities across the country. It’s fantastic to say that you’re committed, but we really need some action to happen more quickly.”

Here are just a few things the federal government can do to dramatically improve oil-by-rail safety.

Require Proper Assessments for Oil-By-Rail Projects

As MP Linda Duncan put it in an interview with DeSmog Canada, rail is the only industrial sector that’s effectively exempt from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

To be sure, there are provisions in the legislation related to rail. But the way that environmental assessments work is that a “physical activity” such as building a new pipeline or dam of a certain length or capacity will trigger an assessment.

An assessment will get triggered if a new railway of 32 kilometres or more is built. Same with a rail yard with “seven or more yard tracks or a total track length of 20 km or more.” But the trigger doesn’t have anything to do with what’s actually being shipped on existing CP or CN railways.

“It doesn’t matter if one of the two major rail lines increases by a thousand-fold the transport of dangerous goods,” said Duncan, who introduced a private member’s bill in 2016 to improve oil-by-rail safety.

“They can transport whatever they want, at any time, in an overloaded many-mile-long train and continue not to maintain their tracks or trains properly.”

Duncan’s bill would require two related changes.

The first would amend the Railway Safety Act to restrict the shipment of dangerous goods to certain volumes unless the transport minister authorizes an exemption. Secondly, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act would require the environment minister to trigger an assessment if the activity poses a “potentially significant risk to the environment, human life or public health.”

“What I’m proposing is the tip of the iceberg,” said Duncan, who previously served as opposition transport critic.

While Transport Minister Marc Garneau has repeatedly stated that rail safety is a top priority for him and the federal government, he hasn’t yet voiced support for the bill.

Charles Hatt, staff lawyer at Ecojustice, said he’s seen something similar in his communications with Environment Minister Catherine McKenna on the subject. Ecojustice has requested the federal government to order assessments on all oil-by-rail terminals regardless of size.

“We know the rather appalling gap in the legislation for these kind of activities was pointed out directly to the minister and we suggested actions she could take, and she chose not to,” Hatt told DeSmog Canada. “There’s no doubt what this government thinks about this issue.”

Six Simple Ways Canada Can Make #Oil-By-Rail Way Safer https://t.co/jJGYuHzchh #cdnpoli #oiltrains #neatbit #lacmegantic #gogama

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 15, 2017

Accelerate Phase-Out of Older Train Models

In July 2016, the federal government announced the accelerated phase-out of the DOT-111 railcar for transporting oil.

That was the same model of railcar used in the Lac-Mégantic disaster, long criticized for being susceptible to puncture and explosions due to insufficiently thick walls and lack of full heat shield. Now, crude oil is transported by models such as the CPC-1232 (a modified version of the DOT-111) and the new DOT-117, which will replace all models by 2025.

ICYMI: What Have We Learned From the Lac-Megantic Oil Train Disaster?

But that’s many years away.

According to Bruce Campbell, former executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of an upcoming book on the Lac-Mégantic disaster, about 86 per cent of tank cars that transport crude oil are the modified versions of the DOT-111. Those only represent a slight improvement and have already been involved in multiple explosive derailments.

“It’s great that tank cars will have improved by 2025,” Lai, from Safe Rail Communities, said. “But we don’t even know for sure if those tank cars are strong enough.”

Reduce Volatility of Oil Before Shipment

An associated issue is that companies could easily reduce the volatility of oil by a process called “stabilizing,” which sees the flammable natural gas liquids removed from the product.

But that would cost money, around $2 per barrel according to North Dakota regulators.

“Oil companies have resisted strenuously doing anything to stabilize oil before it goes into the tank cars, removing its most volatile components,” Campbell said in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

ICYMI: Fiery Saskatchewan Train Derailment Raises Fresh Questions About Oil-By-Rail Safety

“There’s a way to transport bitumen in its raw form, which is not volatile. But that requires special heated cars.”

Raw bitumen, also referred to as “neatbit,” would greatly reduce the amount of diluent used in shipping bitumen and in turn decrease the risk levels of oil-by-rail. The process would require a significant amount of capital investment, and hasn’t been explored much by industry.

End Self-Regulation, Increase Government Enforcement

In 2001, the government introduced a new approach to regulating rail, called “safety management systems.” Essentially, it means that rail companies craft and implement safety protocols and the federal government audits them.

But critics don’t think it’s nearly sufficient.

“It’s self regulation if it’s the companies doing it,” Campbell said.“The whole idea was that it was supposed to be an additional layer to conventional direct oversight. Of course, it isn’t, because they didn’t give Transport Canada the resources or the money.”

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada specifically identified a lack of safety culture, oversight and enforcement by Transport Canada as contributing factors for Lac-Mégantic, recommending that the department must make sure “not just that [safety management systems] exist, but that they are working and that they are effective.”

Yet in a December 2016 speech at a conference about Lac-Mégantic, Union of Canadian Transportation Employees president Christine Collins said that there still hadn’t been a significant change in the number or quality of inspectors, resources dedicated to the task, or any indication that newly announced federal funding for rail safety would actually improve safety standards.

Campbell added the actual number of rail safety inspectors and dangerous goods inspectors hasn’t increased since at least 2004, despite oil-by-rail shipments skyrocketing in volume.

“On-site unannounced inspections have just shrunk and it’s more and more just a paper exercise,” he said.

Listen to the Public

Then there’s the challenge of actually being able to influence how things are done given that almost all the major decisions made behind closed doors.

“It’s an internal conversation between the railway companies and the ministry,” Campbell said. “There’s no public consultation process. Nominally, they consult with the unions but they’re under no obligation.”

A related impediment to understanding the issues is that there’s very little information out there on the actual amount of oil being transported in Canada. While the National Energy Board reports the monthly volume of exports by rail to the U.S., there’s no similar numbers for internal shipments.

In addition, risk assessments and evaluations conducted by the companies are protected by commercial confidentiality, meaning that the public doesn’t have access to them. Combine that with lack of consultation, and it’s obvious there are improvements to be made when it comes to transparency and consultation.

“We really need to have more input on a regular basis,” Lai said.

“There has to be a better mechanism for moving things forward rather than saying ‘come and share with us what your concerns are and we’ll take it away.’ I think there really has to be some kind of working group or network struck that really does include stakeholders like the public who are really affected by this kind of thing.”

More Solutions At Hand

These solutions could massively increase the safety of oil-by-rail and even then, there are many more waiting to be implemented.

The government could require companies to reroute tracks to avoid heavily populated areas, or implement a new fatigue management framework, or order a strategic environmental assessment of all oil-by-rail shipments, or implement advanced rail safety technologies.

And, according to Duncan, the idea of dangerous oil-by-rail should no longer be used as an argument to push for pipeline projects.

“I get really tired of oil companies arguing they should be able to build pipelines because rail is more dangerous,” Duncan said. “That’s a really specious argument. We need to be making sure that we’re properly reviewing all means of transport of dangerous materials.”

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.

Environmental organizations, labour groups and technology companies are calling on Alberta Premier Rachel Notley to take decisive action on methane emissions from oil and gas activities.

Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, with 25 times the global warming potential as carbon dioxide over a 100-year period. Methane is a huge component of natural gas, so Alberta generates a lot of the stuff because it gets vented in all sorts of ways once you start digging around beneath the earth’s surface.

In an open letter the groups call on Alberta to go above and beyond the draft federal regulations on methane.

“Alberta can lead the country’s methane reduction efforts and keep good job opportunities in the oil and gas sector from going to waste,” the letter reads.

Sounds nice, right?

Well, as alluded to in the letter, the proposed federal regulations are in need of some serious strengthening (which we’ll get into in a sec).

“Alberta can have the greatest impact on methane reductions,” said Jamie Kirkpatrick, program manager at Blue Green Alliance, in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “For them to come out strong means that we’re going to achieve our targets.”

Here are five things the Alberta Energy Regulator should consider while crafting its own set of provincial regulations.

1. Accelerate Timelines

The Pan-Canadian Framework included a commitment to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 per cent from 2012 levels by 2025.

Yet under immense pressure from industry, the federal government decided to delay the implementation of its methane regulations. The original plan was to introduce some of the regulations in 2018, with the remainder in 2020. Now, that’s been pushed back three years to between 2020 and 2023, saving industry around $1 billion over a 17-year period.

According to Environmental Defence, that will result in the unnecessary release of a massive 55 megatonnes in methane emissions. The Canadian government has calculated that the “social cost of methane” is $1,165/tonne in 2012 dollars.

Alberta can accelerate the implementation of regulations that will dramatically cut methane emissions. It doesn’t necessarily have to return to the original dates of 2018 and 2020, but the sooner the better.

2. Ban Venting and Flaring

Duncan Kenyon, director of the Pembina Institute’s responsible fossil fuels program, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada that a huge problem with methane emissions is that industry is  still allowed to intentionally leak natural gas — of which methane is the main component — in a process also known as “venting.”

He said that venting is actually most often done by oil producers, as any gas that comes up is seen as “worthless” compared to petroleum.

“If you have a high amount of intentional leaking going on, there is almost no way to differentiate between intentional and unintentional leaking when you visit,” Kenyon said. “Basically, what it does is give industry a huge out for their unintentional leaking.”

To be sure, there are a few policies in Alberta that attempt to reduce venting. Most have to do with an economic test: if it’s not profitable for a company to capture and ship the gas to market, then it’s allowed to “flare” it into the atmosphere.

Kenyon said that flaring — a form of controlled burning that converts methane into carbon dioxide — is a marginal improvement over venting on the climate front, but less beneficial from an air quality perspective. He added that economic test is determined by industry and “everyone knows how gameable that is.”

In other words, industry is currently allowed to release or burn off massive amounts of gas into the atmosphere, making it very difficult to ascertain how much methane is being consistently released (operators obviously won’t vent gas when inspectors are on site).

That’s why a key demand in Environmental Defence’s recent report is to “eliminate routine venting” and “not permit new routine flaring, and phase-out existing flaring practices.”

The federal government’s draft regulations won’t prohibit current practices, and won’t even begin to restrict them until 2023. While it will cost industry around $1.2 billion between 2018 and 2035, the reduction in venting will result in $5.4 billion in savings from climate change damages.

The new Alberta regulations could seriously raise the bar by accelerating a full ban on venting and flaring.

Five Ways Alberta Can Raise the Bar on #Methane Regulations https://t.co/PR7c4CAfMz @envirodefence @Pembina @ProgressAlberta @UniforTheUnion

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 1, 2017

3. Increase Frequency of Monitoring

Then there’s the issue of “fugitive emissions” or legitimately unintentional leaks.

Kenyon said that “right now, the option for unintentional is to get on site and look for your leaks. The solution, nine times out of ten, is simply tightening some bolts and fixing some things while you’re there.”

The proposed federal regulations do include a requirement for “leak detection and repair” by a professional using an “optical gas imaging” camera to take place three times per year, starting in 2020.

That’s certainly a good start.

But as pointed out by Environmental Defence, states including Colorado, Wyoming and California already require that inspections happen four times per year. The logic is quite simple: the more inspections, the more methane leaks identified and dealt with. Industry isn’t exactly a fan of the idea, even though it will cost them a mere $374 million over 15 years for a massive $3 billion in societal savings from greenhouse gas damages.

“They’re definitely opposing the idea of having people drive out there,” Kenyon said. “I think they understand the risk with actually catching the leaks is that we’ll actually start to realize how big a problem we have.”

But if done right, Kenyon suggested that within two to three years there will be enough of a marketplace that developing technologies for on-site detection will be deployable. That means there won’t be any humans involved in the actual monitoring: detectors will go off if there’s a suspected fugitive emission, and people will visit the site to repair it.

In the meantime, it’s critical that monitoring and enforcement is dramatically expanded in order to create a culture of compliance. Alberta could lead the way by increasing the number of times that a site is visited every year, and by preparing companies for the new technologies to come.

4. Expand the Scope of Regulations

One of the stranger aspects of the federal regulations is that they will only apply to around 20 per cent of crude oil facilities in Canada, which the government estimates are responsible for 75 per cent of vented emissions.

There are a wide range of other exceptions that have been proposed: the government won’t require inspections during winter, operators can wait more than 30 days to repair the leak if it’s not possible without shutting down equipment and only facilities that vent more than 40,000 square metres of gas per year need to comply with the already weak regulations.

Single wellheads and many heavy oil facilities are also exempt from the leak detection and repair program. These are all pretty stunning omissions for a government ostensibly concerned about climate change.

To reiterate: methane boasts 25 times the global warming potential than carbon dioxide over the span of a century. Smart regulations could almost entirely eliminate methane emissions from the largest source of methane in the country.

Alberta can get out ahead of the game by applying methane regulations to all oil and gas facilities in the province, with monitoring happening year-round and repairs required as soon as a leak is identified.

5. Talk About Huge Potential for Jobs and Cost Savings

The component that almost always gets left out of talk about aggressive climate action is the possibility for new jobs and enormous cost savings.

While a job forecast hasn’t been done specifically in Canada, Kirkpatrick said a recent Blue Green Alliance report in the U.S. can be used to estimate that at least 1,500 new jobs per year would be created if robust methane regulations were implemented.

In an interview, Kirkpatrick said that jurisdictions in the U.S. are already seeing all these benefits and beating out Canada and Alberta on methane management. Specifically, he noted that it would require a lot of local workers as they would need to be near the actual sites to conduct inspections and detection work.

“In that sense, there’s the potential benefit to some of the communities hit [by the price crash],” he said. “I don’t think it’s full recovery or anything, but it is another positive thing and there’s no reason not to do it.”

In addition, robust regulations could actually result in significant long-term financial savings for industry. While the new rules are expected to cost companies $3.3 billion over 17 years, the actual gas that’s captured and sold could amount to $1.6 billion in value. Then there’s the climate change costs, which the federal government estimates will reach $13 billion by 2035.

That combines to $11.7 billion in net benefits.

The challenge, as with many related issues, is rebuffing industry pressures to minimize new regulations. After all, the proposed rules will indeed cost companies $1.7 billion over almost two decades. But it will also result in massive reductions in emissions and associated climate impacts.

At this point, it’s entirely about priorities for the Alberta government: will it focus on appeasing the oil and gas industry or avoiding the worst impacts of climate change?

What’s Next?

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is responsible for drafting provincial regulations. A spokesperson from the regulatory body told DeSmog Canada via e-mail that they will be posted for public feedback this fall.

They also noted that the “multi-stakeholder process will continue as we work on addressing the feedback we receive on the draft requirements.”

It’s a point that’s inconsistent with what Kenyon said, who noted that the multi-stakeholder group broke down and that “the AER has fundamentally written their own conditions.”

Either way, we’ll have to simply wait and see what happens in the fall. Many of the technical issues are easily deployable, with Kenyon noting there are about 170 companies in Alberta alone who have solutions for methane leaks. It’s now just about the AER developing smart regulations and releasing the massive potential energy.

“For the Alberta government to now take a step back from that wouldn’t seem to be the wise move,” Kirkpatrick said. “Why show that courage that was displayed early on to say we’re going to be a leader on climate change and then adopt a direction that puts you in the middle or back of the pack?”

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This piece originally appeared on the West Coast Environmental Law Alert Blog.

Revelations about the amount of corporate money coming to the B.C. Liberals — not to mention RCMP investigations — have many people asking: what are these companies getting in return?

It’s a good question. After all, corporations are not supposed to spend their shareholders’ money without a reasonable expectation of a return. The different political parties are increasingly aware that voters have these questions.*

At a general level, it does seem that B.C. Liberal donors have done well in terms of government contracts.

And there have been specific calls to set aside the approval of the Woodfibre LNG project in Squamish (based on donations from Woodfibre that seem to have been illegally funneled through individuals), to re-examine logging in endangered caribou habitat by B.C. Liberal donor, Canfor, and calls on the B.C. Liberals to return funds received from Kinder Morgan and its allies (given the controversial decision to approve its pipeline and tankers project).

Corporate Donations and the Culture of (Environmental) Law Enforcement

But corporate benefits received in return for donations do not have to be about a particular government approval or a contract. Companies can also believe that their donations will result not in a particular decision, but in a more favourable regulatory culture — one that doesn’t ask hard questions or impose harsh consequences.

Over the years we have devoted many of our Environmental Law Alerts to looking at a major drop in the Province’s enforcement of environmental laws, with convictions under environmental statutes at a fraction of what they were prior to 2003.**

We have applauded the government for rolling out some new enforcement tools, but we remain very concerned that polluters in B.C. believe there are few consequences for failing to comply with our province’s environmental laws.

Arguably, one major beneficiary of that lax environmental enforcement is the number one B.C. Liberal donor: Teck Resources Ltd. Since 2008 the company has donated more than $1.5 million to the B.C. Liberals (and $60,000 to the B.C. NDP), thanks to B.C.’s loose laws on corporate donations.

Premier Christy Clark and Lt. Gov. Steve Point award Norm Keevil (centre), chair of Teck Resources, with the Order of B.C. Since 2010 Keevil has personally donated $65,585 to the B.C. Liberals. Photo: Government of B.C.

Teck Resources Compliance Issues

At first blush, it may seem surprising to suggest that Teck Resources is benefiting from a decline in environmental enforcement. After all, in early February 2016, Teck Metals Ltd. pled guilty to a number of charges related to polluting fish bearing waters, and was fined $3 million for Fisheries Act offences and a further $400,000 for Environmental Management Act offences.

However, this is just the tip of the company’s environmental non-compliance iceberg. Recently the B.C. Ministry of Environment released data on its 2015 efforts to monitor compliance under the Environmental Management Act (B.C.’s main law dealing with pollution). Two Teck-affiliated companies feature prominently.

Teck Coal Ltd. was inspected 58 times, and was found to be acting illegally in 46 of those inspections (i.e. 79 per cent of the time). Unfortunately, the data released does not tell us much about what type of non-compliance was occurring (although most of the inspections were considered “medium” or “high” priority, and we know from the Auditor General report discussed below that Teck’s non-compliance is a major concern for Ministry of Environment staff). Since we only have the data for 2015, we cannot say much about trends over time.

Of the identified non-compliance, the Ministry of Environment staff responded with an “advisory” (essentially a note to file) 67 per cent of the time, and provided a more detailed written warning 22 per cent of the time.

The remaining 11 per cent (5 incidents) were referred for further action, but at time of writing the government’s environmental violations database gives no information about what happened as a result. We know that between 2006 and the beginning of 2016 Teck Coal Ltd. has had just four tickets for $575 each issued against it (totaling just $2300).

Teck Metals Ltd. was inspected 12 times, and was out of compliance with its permits on seven, or 58 of those inspections. Five inspections resulted in advisories, and two in written warnings. In the past (and since 2006), Teck Metals has had previous convictions under the Fisheries Act and Environmental Management Act (2013) and avoided a third conviction (under the Environmental Management Act) in 2011 by participating in a restorative justice process through which it agreed to pay $325,000. It also had a single ticket issued against it in 2006 for $575.

Not all Teck companies had such a poor track record in the inspections. Teck Highland Valley Copper Corporation was inspected four times in 2015 and was in compliance at all four inspections. Teck’s Galore Creek Partnership also had four inspections, all of them clean.

Teck Resources is a huge operation, of course, so it’s not surprising that it has far more inspections than any other company in the government’s 2015 data. But Teck Coal’s non-compliance rates are well above average (on average the Ministry inspections found 60 per cent non-compliance). Indeed, it appears that the number of inspections carried out of Teck Coal reflects Ministry concern about this fact.

Auditor General Concerns

In 2016 B.C.’s Auditor General issued a damning report on enforcement of environmental requirements related to mines by the Ministries of Environment and of Energy and Mines. She wrote about the enforcement culture of the Ministries (which assumes voluntary compliance by mining companies) and the underfunding of compliance efforts:

We understand that [the Ministry of Energy and Mines’] collaborative strategy is viable in some circumstances, but it assumes that the majority of mining companies are willing to comply voluntarily. As we found for most of the mines we reviewed for this report, this is not the case. For the inspections reports we reviewed, there were incidences of non-compliance in most cases.

Based on her figures and our own research, we estimated that from 1990-1994, almost 10 per cent of pollution permits issued under what was then the Waste Management Act had some kind of compliance and enforcement action each year. From 2010-2014 that figure, for permits under the Environmental Management Act, was just above 2 per cent.

Auditor General Bellringer*** also provides an example of the clout that Teck Resources seems to have with the current B.C. government. The report used Teck Coal Ltd.’s permit to expand its Line Creek Mine in the Elk Valley as a case study.

After Ministry of Environment staff noted that the expansion would exacerbate a serious selenium contamination issue in the region, and refused to authorize the permit, Cabinet stepped in:

Subsequently, a decision was made by government to approve the permit under section 137 of EMA. This clause, which allows Cabinet to approve a permit where it is in the public interest to do so, had never been used before…

We also found that the Line Creek Expansion Permit has a site performance objective for selenium that allows five times the amount set in B.C.’s water quality guidelines for aquatic fish.

We concluded that government, in granting the permit, did not publicly disclose the implications these permit levels will have in this area where the expansion will extend the life of this mine for an additional 18 years and produce an additional 3.5 million tonnes of coal annually.

As well, we expected MoE’s permits to reflect the polluter-pays principle. We found, however, that under the Line Creek Expansion Permit, the mine company is charged only about $5,000 a year for emitting selenium pollution. This is not reflective of the known environmental impact of selenium. [emphasis added]

What Teck Resources Gets

Clearly, Teck Resources does not get a “get out of jail free” card (metaphorically speaking, since environmental offenders almost never actually go to jail). Teck Metals has been convicted and has paid fines. Teck Coal has been subjected to a high level of scrutiny by Ministry of Environment inspectors (but no major penalties as yet).

However, the evidence suggests that non-compliance with environmental regulations is business as usual for Teck Resources, and that is troubling. And on one occasion the government used an unprecedented power to override its own staff and allow the company to expand its operations dramatically, despite an ongoing pollution problem.

It’s important not to suggest that this is corruption. Donations in this case were given to the B.C. Liberal Party, not to individual politicians, and not in return for any particular decision. I believe that B.C.’s elected politicians, of whatever party and including the B.C. Liberals, want to do what they think is the right thing and do not believe themselves to be influenced by the fact that their party received a generous donation from Teck Resources.

However, the careers and campaigns of B.C. Liberal politicians have benefited from the powerful companies that the government is responsible for regulating. They have personal relationships with officials from those companies, formed through personal access at expensive fundraisers.

It is a fundamental legal principle of fairness that a government decision-maker should be unbiased, having no interest in the decision before him or her. Indeed, this requirement is so fundamental to the law, that a decision-maker must avoid even a credible appearance of bias. The fact that a large resource company with a poor environmental compliance record has made significant donations (i.e. more than $1.5 million since 2008) to the political party currently forming the government invites questions.

The courts have not generally applied the principle of bias to elected officials, instead accepting political donations as a legal part of the electoral system. In the U.S., where some judges are elected, a judge who has received campaign contributions may need to step down (or “recuse” his- or herself) from hearing a case involving that donor. However, that is because of the nature of judges — that they are supposed to apply the law without favour — and politicians have not been held to the same standard.

But I don’t think there’s any doubt that these types of large corporate donations do give rise to an appearance that some corporate interests have more influence over cabinet Ministers and the resulting government regulatory culture than individual voters. That’s a big problem — raising fundamental questions about our basic democratic institutions and our notion of equality before the law.  Are decisions about our lands, air and water, about the sustainability of our communities, being made in the interests of the public, or of large corporate donors?

In the end, the fact that many of us are asking these questions — and that there are no ready answers — is probably a good enough reason to get rid of corporate donations.

*  The B.C. Greens are ahead of the curve on this one, having pledged to go without corporate or union donations. The B.C. NDP has pledged to ban corporate and union donations if elected. And the B.C. Liberals are playing catch-up, with a panel appointed to investigate possible legal changes, but no specific promises.

**  The Ministry of Environment disputes our figures for convictions (but not tickets, so far as we understand), but has not provided alternative figures. 

***  As an aside — isn’t that a great name for an Auditor-General?  Very Dickensian (but more subtle than “Whistleblower”).

Image: Christy Clark during a tour of the Copper Mountain Mine. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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Back in 2007, when Alberta landowner Jessica Ernst filed her lawsuit over water contamination from the hydraulic fracturing of shallow coal seams near her property, most Canadians had never even heard of “fracking.”

Ten years later, nearly everyone has at least heard of the controversial process of accessing oil and gas deposits.

To some, it’s an economic saviour. To others, it’s a threat to fresh water and yet another step toward climate change catastrophe. But many others don’t know what to think, especially when some provinces embrace fracking while others put a freeze on the practice.

To help you sort it out, we’ve put together this primer on what fracking really is, where it’s happening in Canada and what’s known (and not known) about the risks to the environment and human health.

What Is Fracking?

Fracking is a technique to blast a mixture of water, chemicals and sand into a well to break apart the rock formations and release previously inaccessible oil and natural gas deposits. Most fracking today is done in conjunction with horizontal drilling.

The ascent of fracking put an end to speculation that oil and gas reserves in North America were mostly tapped out (remember Peak Oil?) and led to a fracking boom in parts of the U.S. and Canada from about 2006 to 2013.

Fracking uses large amounts of fresh water — in B.C., the average frack uses between 5 million and 100 million litres of water. This can easily require more than 2,000 truck trips to deliver water, which becomes contaminated after the fracking process and must be disposed of somehow — either in tailings ponds or by being injected deep underground.

As documented in a recent five-year EPA study, leaks and spills of frack fluid have created long-term water concerns (more on that in a moment).

Fracking in Canada

In Canada, more than 200,000 wells have been horizontally fracked for shale gas or oil, primarily in the western provinces. It is now estimated that 80 per cent of new oil and gas wells in Canada are fracked. Such “unconventional” reserves exist elsewhere in Canada, but for now, a mix of geology, geography and public opposition has kept them mostly untapped.

The past few years have seen a slowdown in fracking due in large part to the drastic drop in oil prices in 2014. Yet, it wasn’t the death knell that some expected; the industry determined that by increasing efficiencies (cutting costs and getting better at picking locations to frack), fracking could still be economically feasible at $45-$50 a barrel. Some critics allege, however, that the industry is heavily indebted and is barely staying afloat.

The industry is cautiously optimistic that things are picking back up. There are currently 100 active drilling rigs in Alberta, 23 in B.C. and a small amount in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, although numbers fluctuate regularly.

The industry estimates that each rig creates about 135 jobs — 20 involved directly with fracking and 115 indirectly such as equipment suppliers and truck drivers. Critics of fracking say that the benefits to local communities are often overblown and don’t offset risks to human health and the environment.

Where is Fracking Happening in Canada?

The shale gas phenomenon in Canada has been concentrated in Alberta and northeastern B.C.

Particularly in Alberta, it’s not all about drilling new wells, as companies are increasingly fracking older wells to access what they couldn’t previously in areas such as the Duvernay formation. In 2015-2016, the Alberta government collected $493 million in revenues from natural gas activities, the majority of which involved fracking of unconventional wells. After a review of royalty rates, the provincial government decided last year to keep rates low, thus continuing to incentivize fracking.

Despite its distance from B.C.’s major population centres, the fracking zone (Montney, Horn River and Liard basins) in northeastern B.C. has been a hotbed of controversy. There have been battles over the issuing of illegal water licences, the cumulative impacts of rampant industrial development, the controversial Site C dam that has been touted as a source of power for fracking operations, and the approval of LNG plants, terminals and pipelines. If Premier Christy Clark’s dream to export liquefied natural gas in vast quantities is ever realized, the amount of fracking in B.C. could double or triple.

As opposed to the shale gas further west, fracking in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba is for shale oil, also referred to as tight oil. The Bakken oil field, which made North Dakota a global energy giant, extends into southeast Saskatchewan and a bit into southwest Manitoba. As new formations continue to be found, fracking has spread to the southwest of Saskatchewan in the Viking and Lower Shaunavon formations. As of 2015, Saskatchewan had 7,500 horizontally fracked wells.

The approach to fracking there has been likened to the “Wild West.” Unlike in British Columbia and Alberta, for example, there is no requirement in Saskatchewan or Manitoba to disclose the contents of the chemicals in the fracking fluids. There isn’t much active public opposition to fracking in either province, although last summer’s Husky Oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River has led to calls for better oversight.

Where is Fracking Banned?  

There are no outright fracking bans in Canada; instead there is a mix of explicit and de facto moratoriums due to either public outcry or lack of economic feasibility due to geology.

(Fracking is banned in New York, Vermont and Maryland as well as in a number of U.S. counties and cities; Bulgaria and France have also banned the practice, it is largely banned in Germany, and Scotland is in the midst of a public consultation over whether to turn a moratorium into an outright ban.)

After long, heated campaigns, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia announced fracking moratoriums within months of each other in 2014.

In New Brunswick, the October 2013 clash between the Elsipogtog First Nation and the RCMP — resulting in six police cars torched and 40 people arrested —became a national story and galvanized the opposition. In order to lift the moratorium in New Brunswick, five conditions would need to be met, and a recent report indicates that the conditions are not close to being met.

In Nova Scotia, regulations that had been scheduled to come out in 2015 have yet to be released, so everything fracking-wise is on hold (although not for too long if Kevin O’Leary has his way).

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a fracking “pause” was set in 2013 and a government-commissioned report last year recommended specific conditions and research be required before any exploratory permits for tight oil be issued. The report also noted that fracking isn’t economically viable in that province at any price below $85 U.S. per barrel.

PEI and Ontario governments have thus far rejected calls to ban fracking, citing a lack of applications for fracking permits. Environmental groups had hopes that a draft of the new PEI Water Act released in March would include a moratorium or even a ban, but it doesn’t have either. The Ontario government has pledged to conduct a review of the practice, but that has yet to happen.

Quebec’s fracking moratorium may be the most precarious. In 2014, a de facto moratorium set two years earlier was extended indefinitely. But the passage of Bill 106 in December 2016 appears to open things up for oil and gas exploration, including fracking, although most of the regulations are yet to be announced. In addition, the Quebec government last summer announced it would allow fracking on Anticosti Island, contending that it was due to a pre-moratorium commitment.

Meantime, in the Northwest Territories, where there is a large deposit of shale oil located very far from any pipeline or road, a motion calling for a moratorium was voted down by the legislature in 2015.  However, in 2014 Husky Energy withdrew its application to frack wells in the Sahtu region, so no fracking seems imminent.

Fracking was a hot topic in the Yukon during last fall’s election. The victorious Liberal Party ran on a pledge to institute a fracking moratorium which is currently in place. Environmental groups are concerned that government approvals for conventional oil and gas exploration will lead to unconventional as the majority of oil and gas reserves in the Yukon are in shale beds (that require fracking) although the government has recently confirmed no fracking will be allowed if and when oil and gas operations go ahead.

Despite calls for a national moratorium on fracking by some groups (including: Unifor, The Council of Canadians, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, numerous First Nations), prospects for it seem dim.

Is Fracking Safe?

In 2014, Environment Canada commissioned a report on fracking and the primary finding was that more research and information on potential environmental impacts are needed.

Similarly, the American Public Health Association updated its stance last year to emphasize that there is empirical evidence showing fracking causing harm to nature and people and “we have no idea what the long-term effects might be.”

With concerns over drinking water, fracking-triggered earthquakes and impacts on the landscape, a majority of Canadians oppose fracking. An Insights West poll in March 2016 found that opposition rose from 47 per cent to 61 per cent over a 30-month period.

David Gowland, manager of Alberta operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, says the industry doesn’t want to discount such fears, but needs to do a better job of informing the public about the “best practices” companies are deploying to mitigate risks. He says that regulations in B.C. and Alberta for well-bore construction, water management and pipeline construction serve as a model for other countries. Critics, however, call for tighter regulations across the fracking zone, including better baseline testing of groundwater.

Concerns About Water Contamination

Fears of water contamination have driven the opposition to fracking in Atlantic Canada and elsewhere. The concern is the mix of chemicals used in fracking — last month, researchers in Alberta found that, even when diluted considerably, fracking fluids can harm fish.

These days the biggest risks aren’t from the actual drilling, because drilling generally happens at least 1.5 km underground. Rather, the concerns are primarily over leaks of fracking fluids in cement well casings; the discharge and disposal of fracking wastewater, which has been found to contain cancer-causing chemicals and is often injected into other wells; and spills during collection, processing and transport.

These concerns were confirmed in a recent U.S. EPA report, which found examples of drinking water contamination at various stages of the fracking process, despite a recent study that found the EPA report vastly undercounted the number of fracking-related spills.

The EPA noted that “data gaps and uncertainties” limited a full assessment of the risks due in part to insufficient baseline monitoring as well as nondisclosure clauses as part of financial settlements between companies and landowners who report water problems.

Fracking-Related Earthquakes

The latest research indicates that fracking can trigger small-to-moderate earthquakes. The vast majority of quakes over 3.0 magnitude in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin are caused by fracking or the injection of fracking wastewater into wells. A 4.8 magnitude quake in January 2016 in the Fox Creek area of Alberta is the largest one in Canada to date.

The industry contends that because the quakes occur so far underground, they present minimal damage risk. On the other hand, there is indication that the more than 1,000 earthquakes that have shaken B.C.’s fracking zone since 2006 have changed the region’s seismicity. There are calls for more research to assess the risk of these quakes to pipelines, dams and other infrastructure as well as how they affect the flow of groundwater and migration of gases into the atmosphere.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Fracking

While the oil and gas industry likes to tout natural gas as a cornerstone of the transition to a lower-carbon economy, fracking emits a lot of methane, via “fugitive emissions” from the fracking itself — the venting and flaring of natural gas, and pipeline leaks as it’s shipped.

In addition to it not being a good thing to have in your water, methane is many times more potent in the short term (86 times more over a 20-year period) as a planet-warming greenhouse gas than CO2, though it doesn’t last as long. This is why critics believe that any expansion of fracking (e.g. via approval of LNG terminals and plants) is incompatible with provincial and federal government climate targets.

The federal government has committed to reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 per cent below 2012 levels by 2025.

What’s Next

The future of fracking in Canada is tied in part, as it always has, to the price of oil and gas.

A big unknown is whether U.S. President Trump’s embrace of the “shale oil and gas revolution” will lead to a glut in supply that could lower prices and make fracking less financially viable in Canada. Already, the scale of fracking in the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania is pushing western Canadian shale gas out of Ontario and Quebec; as such, the industry is looking toward markets in India and other parts of Asia.

Another wildcard is the possibility of a “border adjustment tax” imposed by the U.S. on imports, although that seems increasingly unlikely to happen, at least for the oil and gas sector.

Politics will also be a factor. Fracking moratoriums made by executive orders, such as in New Brunswick, are more fragile than those that are legislated, and the very nature of moratoriums makes them much more precarious than a ban.

As the science begins to catch up with the technology deployed for more than a decade, gaps in data and knowledge about the health impacts of the technology will increasingly be filled.

For instance, indigenous energy researcher Caleb Behn, subject of the documentary Fractured Land, is involved with an academic study that researches long-term impacts of fracking on indigenous health — specifically reproductive health and cancer potential — in northeastern B.C., an issue he says that has been “inadequately” studied.

Another long-term issue is who pays for post-fracking cleanup. While cement seals tend to degrade in all wells, fracked wells are particularly prone to leaks. Because repairing a leaky well is very expensive, some companies find it cheaper to keep paying lease fees for inactive wells instead of paying to reclaim them. The number of abandoned (“orphaned”) oil wells is on the rise, raising concerns that as fracking companies go out of business, taxpayers will end up footing a sizable bill.

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B.C. was recently labelled the “Wild West” in a New York Times article for our lack of financial rules or limits around political donations. While mining companies and their executives regularly fall within the top donors’ list to the B.C. Liberal Party, they have benefited from this notion of the Wild West for well over a century. 

In fact, B.C.’s mining laws were created more than 150 years ago during the gold-rush era of the 1850s. These laws were largely created by miners themselves to help guarantee unfettered access to new lands by creating the right of “free entry,” and were part of the strategy to help settle the colony. Today, mining activity is still given priority over virtually all other land uses in B.C.

In fact, the process for staking a claim has only gotten easier. Are you 18 years old, have $25 and access to a computer? Click and you have a claim staked anywhere — on private property, First Nations hunting grounds, key tourism areas, important salmon habitat or wildlife management areas. Mining activities are off-limits only in parks, under buildings and at certain archeological sites. In other words, mining exploration can take place in over 82 per cent of the province.

This is the core of the problem. The right of free entry hasn’t evolved with environmental and societal norms. Mining gets a free pass from zoning bylaws and land-use plans that apply to other sectors. Until we change the free-entry system and stop giving privilege to the mining industry, we will see conflict.

A farming family learned the hard way when their property just outside of Kamloops was staked and they could do nothing to stop their property from turning into a strip-mine for kitty litter. Despite the family’s ownership of the land, they are indefinitely excluded from entering, using, occupying or enjoying their property while it’s being mined and received a mere $60,000 in compensation.

The municipal government, First Nations and several community groups in Kamloops have expressed concern about the proposed Ajax mine within the municipal boundaries. Community members are predominantly concerned about health and water-quality issues, but B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act provides no power for local governments to prevent mineral claims from being staked, mining leases from being granted or to stop a mine from being developed within city limits.

Similarly, proponents aren’t required to engage with First Nations before staking a claim or entering the land. The B.C. government has taken the position that the staking of mineral claims doesn’t trigger a constitutional duty to consult. The result is a number of conflicts and multiple policies as First Nations push back and demand otherwise. Ironically, this has led the Association of Mineral Exploration for B.C. lobbying for tax credits at both the federal and provincial levels (of which they enjoy many) to now cover costs incurred from “engaging with aboriginal communities.”

In 2017, the rules and regulations stemming from the beginnings of the “Wild West” no longer work. We need to establish common-sense restrictions on where mineral claims and mining leases are allowed. Establishing certain areas, such as key salmon habitat, as no-go zones for mining will go a long way to avoid opposition from First Nations and local communities.

The Association of Mineral Exploration for B.C. is gathering in Vancouver this week and lobbying for more and easier access to public lands. But increasing limits and an end to free-entry legislation will be what substantially reduces risks to the industry. Ensuring First Nations, private landowners and the public have a more meaningful role in decisions about mineral tenure has the potential to bring more balance to land-use decisions and increase the likelihood that future mining projects are located in places, and carried out in a manner, that have the social licence to proceed. It’s time for B.C.’s outdated laws to go.

Nikki Skuce is director of Northern Confluence, an initiative based out of Smithers that aims to improve land-use decisions in B.C.’s salmon watersheds. 

Image: Coal mining in B.C.'s Flathead Valley. Photo: Garth Lenz, used with permission

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Thursday marks two years since the Mount Polley mine disaster in Likely, B.C. where a tailings pond collapse spilled 25 million cubic metres of mining waste, laced with contaminants like arsenic, lead and copper, into the once-pristine Quesnel Lake, a major salmon spawning ground and source of drinking water.

To mark the occasion, B.C. Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett issued a press release praising the government’s world-class mining standards, saying the province is now “at the forefront of global standards for the safety of [tailings storage facilities] at mines operating in this province.”

“We’ve taken a leadership position and have done all we can to ensure such a failure can never happen in B.C. again,” Bennett said.

B.C. Mining Still Far From ‘World-Class’

But experts and victims of the spill say the province has all but ignored the impacts of the spill, which to this day remains the largest mining disaster in Canadian history.

And rather than taking a precautionary approach to mining in the province, the government is doing everything it can to put British Columbians and Alaskans at risk of another Mount-Polley style disaster, according to Robyn Allan, economist and risk analysis expert.

“All the discussion about world-class and changes that are going to avoid these problems in the future is nothing more than rhetoric,” Allan told DeSmog Canada.

“It’s shocking to me that a disaster of this nature could take place and our regulatory bodies spend more time covering up what’s going on than ensuring a proper cleanup and remediation.”

Allan said government and industry have discussed small changes to mining rules but more is required to ensure British Columbians are protected from another Mount Polley.

“There is very good evidence that says we can expect two of these every decade,” Allan said, adding a recent investigation by B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer found serious, chronic and unresolved problems with mining regulations.

“Even under these facts the provincial government is doing nothing to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Allan said.

“We’re in a situation where we’ve seen what can happen and what will happen and nothing meaningful is being done to stop it but all the government rhetoric that is being used is providing a false sense of security for the public.”

“It’s not getting better. It’s worse than it’s ever been,” Allan said.

Government Painting Rosy Picture of Mining Regs

Jacinda Mack, member of the Xat’sull First Nation and coordinator of the First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining, echoes Allan’s sentiments.

“Right from the beginning Minister Bennett has tried to sweep this under the rug and minimize it,” Mack told DeSmog Canada.

“The province says they have the best [tailings pond] regulations in the world when really all they’ve done is come up to a minimum standard of where they should have been years ago.”

Mack said B.C., compared to other jurisdictions around the world, is way behind on mining regulations. For example, she said since Mount Polley there is now a requirement that a qualified person be responsible for managing tailings facilities.

“I would have assumed a qualified person was in charge of those dams,” Mack said.

“If meeting only the basic minimum requirements means they’re world class, that really shows how bad the situation is in B.C.”

Mack said she didn’t want the two-year anniversary of the Mount Polley disaster to pass marked by only a positive government press release.

“The rosy picture the province and mining industry have been painting, it’s really not the situation in the communities and we want to speak truth to power.”

Taxpayer Funds Subsidized Cleanup

In the wake of the Mount Polley disaster, the government was quick to assure British Columbians that Imperial Metals, owner and operator of the Mount Polley mine, would take responsibility for the cost of clean up.

The ministries of environment and mines assured the province “cost of the clean up of the breach is the responsibility of Imperial Metals, and is not a cost borne by B.C. taxpayers.”

This past June the province reiterated the claim that a robust a polluter-pays system is in place for mines: “The Environmental Management Act ensures that those that pollute are held responsible under a polluter pay principle so the taxpayer does not have to assume these clean up costs.”

But that talking point just doesn’t hold water, according to Allan, who recently reported in an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun that an Imperial Metals shareholder report shows B.C. taxpayers subsidized Mount Polley clean up to the tune of $23.6 million.

“On top of everything else we’re being misled about the polluter pay system that doesn’t exist,” Allan said.

“To layer onto an incredibly dangerous situation deliberate misinformation is reprehensible.”

Still No Government, Industry Accountability

Richard Holmes, fisheries biologist and resident of Likely, B.C. said despite what the government says in press releases, the clean up and response to the spill has been disappointing.

“I thought we would have been a lot further ahead of where we are by now.”

Part of the frustration of local residents, who live with the knowledge that the millions of cubic metres of spilled mining waste remains in Quesnel Lake, is the difficulty of dealing with a company that is first and foremost concerned about the bottom line, Holmes said.

“These companies don’t carry enough money to respond to these disasters,” he said. “And Imperial Metals is getting a ride on this whole breach because of the government.”

Holmes said despite the damage to the lives of local residents and business owners — some of who are pursuing litigation against the company — neither Imperial Metals nor the government have taken responsibility.

“There is no ownership of this disaster. Neither of them will say sorry,” he said. “That’s something that would go a long way to easing relationships in the community.”

“But with them it’s always the same: deny, deflect, defend.”

Holmes said despite multiple government reports and investigations no one has laid any blame or assigned responsibility. Yet, he said, there has been plenty of finger-pointing.

“Now Imperial Metals is suing the two engineering firms it contracted to manage the tailings pond. That suggests to me that the Mount Polley legal team recognizes now they may be in a little trouble so they’re trying to put the blame somewhere else.”

Quesnel Lake Remains Dumping Ground for Mine’s Waste

Christine McLean, member of Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake, said trying to hold the government accountable has been a “daunting task.”

No compensation has been paid out to local property owners like McLean or to affected businesses that have suffered a decline in customers since the spill.

“We’re really disappointed in how the government and the mine have moved forward,” McLean said, adding this summer the province granted Mount Polley a waste discharge permit that allows the company to resume full operations and release more mining waste into Quesnel Lake.

“As concerned citizens it’s bad enough that all that waste went into the lake,” McLean said. “Now it’s made so much worse by the fact that the government has given the mine the rubber stamp to directly dump their waste into the lake.”

“I don’t feel like anyone in our province is working for us,” she added. “They are working for the mine to make it as easy as possible to resume operations.”

McLean, who sits on the mine’s public liaison committee said she fears the discharge permits will create a new normal, where the lake is used as a perpetual dumping ground.

“These permits are like taxes: once they’re in they’re hard to get out.”

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Environment Minister Catherine McKenna earlier this month said the federal government does not have a preferred carbon pricing system. Whether the provinces and territories go with cap and trade or a carbon tax, McKenna simply wants to see Canada produce less greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

“I just care about how do we reduce emissions at the end of the day,” McKenna said during a panel discussion on Canadian climate action in Ottawa. “That is the most important piece.”

Unlike the previous federal government, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has made putting a price on carbon pollution a priority. A recent meeting between premiers and the federal government on a national climate strategy nearly broke down last March because of the Trudeau government’s insistence on a national minimum carbon price.

“The carbon pricing lobby sucked all the air out of the room,” leading Canadian energy economist Mark Jaccard told DeSmog Canada. “What we should be doing is looking at those jurisdictions that have made progress and learn from them instead of closing our eyes saying ‘I want a carbon price and don’t bother me with the evidence.'" Jaccard is not opposed to carbon pricing. In fact, he believes given Canada’s current political climate a national cap and trade system is feasible.

What concerns Jaccard is policymakers pushing for emissions pricing as the centerpiece of a Canadian climate plan are overlooking the success regulations have had in reducing GHG output.  

“You can meet our Paris Agreement targets strictly with emissions pricing whether cap and trade or a carbon tax. You can also do it strictly with regulations,” Jaccard said. “What looms large in the discussion is political acceptability.”

Jaccard’s and his research team at Simon Fraser University have put together a rather convincing case showing regulations are responsible for cutting more GHG emissions than carbon pricing systems in Canada and elsewhere in the world.

The evidence is not that hard to find either.

“The policy that had the biggest effect in B.C. was the electricity regulations I helped design for Gordon Campbell’s government in 2007, not the carbon tax,” Jaccard told DeSmog. “It forced BC Hydro to tear up two proposals for coal plants and abandon its own plans for a large natural gas plant.”

Halting the construction of three fossil fuels powered electrical facilities prevented four times more emissions than B.C.’s world famous carbon tax will cut, according to Jaccard. The carbon tax is expected to reduce B.C.’s annual emissions by 3 to 5 megatonnes in 2020. The province’s clean electricity regulation on the other hand will keep between 12 and 18 megatonnes out of the atmosphere by the same year.  

Ontario eliminating coal-fired power plants remains the “single largest regulatory action” in North America to reduce GHG emissions, the equivalent of taking seven million cars off the road.

Nova Scotia does not have a carbon price and yet the province is expected to lead all provinces and territories in future GHG reductions. Regulations like adopting North America’s first “hard caps” on GHG emissions in the electricity sector, setting ambitious renewable energy targets and tightening up energy efficiency standards have all put Nova Scotia in position to shrink its carbon footprint by 37.5 per cent in 2020.

“Is a carbon price more economically efficient? Of course it is more economically efficient,” Jaccard said. “All I am saying is can’t we — we so-called experts like me — learn a little bit from evidence from around the world, from what’s gone on in Canada and that’s the reason I might talk about regulations.”

Regulations and Carbon Pricing: A Fair Comparison?

Promising GHG regulatory actions are on the horizon in Canada as well.

The Alberta government last year pledged to phase out coal-powered electricity by 2030, which will take a 17 per cent bite out of the province’s large carbon footprint. Alberta produces more emissions than Ontario and Quebec combined.

Last March, Canada and the U.S. agreed to introduce national regulations halving methane emissions in their respective oil and gas sectors. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas packing a global warming punch far more potent than carbon dioxide.

Measuring Canadian carbon pricing systems against Canadian GHG regulations may not seem like a fair comparison. For an entire decade, the previous federal government went out of its way to slam the mere idea of making polluters pay from their emissions.

Carbon pricing has only recently recovered from this unwarranted attack.

But the success of regulations in reining in GHG emissions can be seen outside of Canada as well. Jaccard says analysts in Sweden and California — two carbon pricing pioneers — have told him regulations are responsible for reducing the majority of their emissions. Sweden adopted a carbon tax in 1991 and California has had a cap and trade system since 2012.

Joseph Pallant, manager of Brinkman Climate, said regulations do have a role to play in addressing climate change although they may not be enough on their own.*

“The question is not regulation or carbon pricing – we must clearly do both. Governments should regulate greenhouse gas emitting activities where doing so is efficient, but regulation alone can be a bit of a blunt instrument. We find it much more effective to spur innovation and implement new, clean technologies across the whole economy by putting a price on carbon,” Pallant told DeSmog Canada.

“Otherwise,” Pallant added, “we set 10 year targets and then wring our hands in year eight because we're off track and need to set another distant goal. Can’t stop climate change with discipline like that.”

Pallant argues regulations are not always a slam dunk. He points to the promised oil and gas regulations of the Harper government, which were years in the making, and never saw the light of day. Emissions from oil and gas grew substantially during the Harper years and now the sector is Canada’s biggest contributor to climate change.

Regulations can take more time than carbon pricing systems to be crafted and implemented as well. It took Ontario roughly five years to produce province-wide coal phase out regulations, but only a year to table legislation for a cap and trade system.

With Canada and the rest of the world in a race against the clock to curb emissions in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, delays on climate action have the potential of exacerbating an already dire situation.

“Carbon pricing is at its best where we implement a cap and trade system, making it more expensive to pollute by creating a specific limit on emissions. The carbon price then automatically rises to the level needed to pay for the required emissions reductions,” Pallant said. “Transparency is a key feature, as we can draw a line between our emissions today, and what we've committed in the future and know that we’re hitting our target year on year.”

“People interested in stopping climate change should be wary if pundits or governments try to pivot from carbon pricing and concrete emissions reductions because of some perceived difficulty in implementing such systems,” Pallant told DeSmog. “Nobody said this would be easy — but if we can’t do it in today’s socio-political climate, when will we ever be able to?”

But for Jaccard, ‘trying’ might mean finding more creative ways of understanding new roles for regulations in the energy marketplace.

Jaccard said he sees great value in what he calls “niche market” regulations. These regulations create space in the economy for the technological solutions to the climate crisis like electric cars or solar panels.

“What you want is a growing share of vehicles, for example, that have the desired characteristics of the future penetrating your market,” Jaccard said. “Regulations tell manufacturers that if you want to keep selling Hummers or big Ram trucks you can still do that, but you need a growing share of sales in low, ultra low and zero emission vehicles.”

“With niche market regulations the retailer has to pay a penalty per car if they miss their target. What they do or what they must be doing even though they don’t talk about it is cross subsidizing,” Jaccard told DeSmog Canada.

An example of cross subsidization is a California car retailer adding an additional $70 per vehicle on big sellers like SUVs and then using that money to decrease the price of lower emissions vehicles like Teslas, and hybrids. Increasing the affordability of low emissions vehicles could in turn help boost sales and meet the quota. A new, clean energy industry can expand without being utterly dependent on government subsidies.

“With a cap and trade you are trying to limit a bad like carbon dioxide,” Jaccard said. “With regulations like the renewable portfolio standards and the vehicle emissions standard in California instead we have decided we want more of something.”

California’s Zero Emissions Program requires 10 per cent of vehicle sales to be zero emissions vehicles. By 2025, the quota increases to 15 per cent or 270,000 new vehicle sales.

Canada does not have zero emissions vehicle quotas for cars. Close to two million vehicles were sold in Canada last year and an estimated 5,700 or 0.33 per cent were zero emissions vehicles.

The transportation sector is Canada’s second largest producer of GHG emissions.

*Correction: This article has been updated to reflect Joseph Pallant is manager of Brinkmann Climate, not president of the Carbon Solutions Project as previously stated.

Image: Kris Krug

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At the Canada-U.S. bilateral talks last week President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an ambitious plan to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 per cent below 2012 levels by 2025. 40-45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025 from the oil and gas sector – See more at: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/03/10/us-canada-joint-statement-climate-energy-and-arctic-leadership#sthash.wStj0LFd.dpuf 40-45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025 from the oil and gas sector – See more at: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/03/10/us-canada-joint-statement-climate-energy-and-arctic-leadership#sthash.wStj0LFd.dpuf

The announcement came as welcome news to many environmental groups concerned about the high global warming potential of methane. The gas is 25 to 34 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a century.   Methane is a component of natural gas and the recent fracking boom in both Canada and the U.S. has dramatically increased methane emissions from gas production and transportation as well as fugitive emissions leaked from processing stations and pipelines.   Scott Vaughan, executive director of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and former Canadian environment commissioner, said the cross-border plan to limit emissions is “really impressive.”   “The announcement, if implemented, will lead to reducing [absolute] emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector by about 20 per cent,” Vaughan told DeSmog Canada.

A recent analysis by the research firm ICF, commissioned by the Pembina Institute and the Environmental Defense Fund, found a nationwide 45 per cent reduction in methane is the equivalent to taking every passenger car off the road in both British Columbia and Alberta. 

The reductions would equal the removal of 27 million metric tonnes of Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions.   The recent ICF analysis found industry could cut 45 per cent of methane emissions easily and cost-effectively by simply adopting available best practices.   The joint Canada-U.S. climate strategy indicated regulatory bodies in both countries will move as “expeditiously as possible” to develop national regulations for methane emissions. Environment and Climate Change Canada committed to releasing the initial phase of proposed regulations by early 2017.   Both countries will require industry to report on existing methane sources.   Canada currently has no national framework for reporting methane emissions from all industrial sources. Consistent underreporting of methane emissions has plagued the oil and gas industry, leading international experts to conclude regions with high volumes of fracking, such as northeastern B.C., likely have much worse climate impacts than reported.   A 2014 DeSmog Canada investigation revealed B.C.’s methane emissions are likely seven times greater than reported, meaning the CO2 equivalent of the industry is around 25 per cent higher than estimated.   The B.C. Ministry of Environment estimates 0.3 to 0.4 per cent of fugitive emissions are lost to the atmosphere during natural gas fracking, processing and transport. Recent studies in the U.S. found that figure is likely closer to the four to nine per cent range.   The high fugitive methane emissions associated with fracking has led experts to conclude natural gas is equivalent to or worse than coal as a source of energy when it comes to climate impacts.   According to Vaughan, the high climate impact of methane is what makes the Canada-U.S. collaboration on emissions so significant.   “The question of how we account for fugitive emissions is really important, and urgent,” Vaughan said. “What we really need to see now is a strong political commitment to move together jointly."   Vaughan added both Canada and the U.S. are signatories of the Paris Agreement to limit temperature increases to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible.   “Debates about ideology are over and this is a question now of arithmetic: how much can we as global community stand to emit and still hit that target?”   Andrew Gage, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, said although the plan to reduce methane emissions is significant, the overall agreement keeps the door open for continued oil and gas development.   Gage said the agreement takes what Canada and the U.S. call a “science-based approach to oil and gas” development.   “It’s interesting because science supports more or less full decarbonization by mid-century, if not sooner,” Gage told DeSmog Canada.   The agreement relies on “the idea that — if we can just regulate methane emission well enough — we can continue on with developing fossil fuels,” he said.   “I think it’s fairly clear that the trajectory of that is wrong,” Gage added.   “If we’re talking about science, it’s talking about decarbonization by 2050 at the latest and here we are ramping up and banking our economy on an industry that is completely out of alignment with that.”   Without clear plans for implementing the joint climate strategy and how meaningful methane emissions reductions will be achieved, high-level agreements such as this are mere “lipservice,” Gage said.   “The methane stuff seems to be relatively positive but… you don’t just announce a target, you lay out how you will achieve it.”

Image: Justin Trudeau 

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