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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 10, 2017

Public Inquiry into Fracking Needed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Build it First, Ask for Permission Later

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dam Safety at Issue

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

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

Progress is then ordered to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self-reporting Doubts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 6, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among questions the group wants addressed are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article originally appeared on The Tyee.

At least seven of 51 large dams built by the province’s shale gas industry in northeastern B.C. were not safe and required “enforcement orders” to comply with the law.

Almost six months after an independent report raised serious questions about the legality and safety of earth dams built to hold water for the fracking industry, the province’s energy regulator now reports it is taking action.

The Oil and Gas Commission recently issued a bulletin saying it had inspected 51 dams northwest of Fort St. John last May and found “some issues” at seven different structures.

These issues included water spilling over their top, erosion at the base and potential failure representing a hazard to the environment, First Nations and energy workers, according to the orders issued by the commission.

The commission ordered Progress Energy to reduce water volumes by 50 per cent at five dams containing between 4.4 million and 26 million gallons of water.

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

The commission says it has identified 51 water storage sites holding more than 2.2 million gallons that qualify as regulated dams under B.C.’s Dam Safety Regulation. The dams are operated by 10 oil and gas companies.

The industry funded energy regulator also ordered ConocoPhillips to empty all the water from two dams deemed unsafe and insecure.

Both ConocoPhillips enforcement orders noted “that allowing the structure to fill with water above the native grade elevation creates a potential for failure of the dam and a large release of material downslope.”

Inspectors also found a variety of problems at five dams built by Malaysian-owned Progress Energy, including erosion, slumping and water overflowing the top of the dam.

In one case water levels came to within 50 centimetres of the top of the dam during a recent storm, “creating risk of overtopping.” In addition, “the existing closed-culvert spillway on the structure is insufficient to provide adequate outflow in the event of a large inflow from a storm rainfall event,” inspectors found.

In July the commission ordered Progress Energy to reduce water volumes in the structure because if it was more than half full there was “potential for structure failure.”

The OGC says the company has complied with the order at all five dams.

In 2015 Progress Energy triggered a 4.6 magnitude earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes attributed to the brute force technology of hydraulic fracturing, while injecting 35 million gallons of water, chemicals and sand over a three-week period in 132 stages. Each stage creates fractures in rock deep underground, allowing gas to flow to wells.

Increasing volumes of water have been used in fracking in the north Montney shale gas basin. Between 2012 and 2015 the mean amount used per well increased 62 per cent to 3.6 million gallons, the commission told The Tyee.

The regulator is also playing catchup in terms of providing legal authorization for the structures.

Location of 12 Progress Energy dams. Dams under review at the time of Ben Parfitt's original story on unauthorized dams in May 2017 are marked red. Yellow indicates existing Progress Energy dams that were constructed in advance of the company's water licence applications submitted in December of 2016.

The OGC’s recent bulletin asks “the operators of water storage structures to submit the necessary applications, including assessments and any necessary design modifications done by qualified engineers.”

As companies submit their designs, the commission says that it is “working to review all of them to ensure timely decisions are made in accordance with applicable regulatory and legal requirements.” It has hired more staff to address safety at the dams — a subject that now has its own OGC website.

But The Tyee has learned that OGC only released its bulletin and the enforcement orders to the public on Sept. 29, five days after Parfitt filed a freedom of information request on the same topic to the OGC.

“It is deeply troubling that orders to companies on structures showing signs of failure are not issued publicly at the time, but only five days after a freedom of information request,” said Parfitt in an interview.

“Why didn’t the OGC publish their enforcement orders when they issued them back in May? I think there is a problem with transparency and integrity here,” added Parfitt.

Parfitt’s original report on the proliferation of unauthorized dams to store water for fracking operations was released last May by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The document reported that many of the dams were unauthorized and that at least one had failed during extreme weather.

The OGC denies that its recent bulletin or publication of enforcement orders has anything to do with Parfitt’s reporting or queries.

“The Commission has been working on a compliance and enforcement webpage for a few months — it was ready to put in production in late September,” said Phil Rygg, director of public and corporate relations.

Rygg also denied that the CCPA report prompted the commission to inspect the dams.

“Once we were granted the authority to inspect dams under the Water Sustainability Act last year, we started working with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development to determine the number, location and owners of dams used in the oil and gas sector, and notified industry,” said Rygg in an email.

“Due to snowpack levels, we weren’t able to investigate each dam until the snow had fully receded in the northeast earlier this year, which was mid-May in the Montney region, and mid-June in the Horn River Basin area.”

But Parfitt says that’s not true.

“The suggestion that it was the enactment of the Water Sustainability Act that compelled the OGC to move is a smokescreen,” he said. “The dams were all built when the old water act was in place, and many of them were built in contravention of that act because many of them impounded freshwater.”

“Both the OGC and the companies and [the lands ministry] for that matter seem to want to hide behind the ‘oh, the legislation changed’ argument. That’s clearly false,” added Parfitt.

Parfitt also found it “stunning” that the OGC would claim that a flyover of the 50 dams was delayed because of snow.

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

His report came out on May 3. On May 10 the commission issued a statement warning companies of potential problems due to extreme heavy rains.

“A week later they do the flyover and find troubles at seven of 50 dams, or 14 per cent of all facilities investigated,” said Parfitt.

Seismic experts, such as Gail Atkinson, a professor at Western University, also expressed alarm at the ad-hoc construction of dams in an area experiencing a sustained rise in man-made earthquakes due to hydraulic fracturing.

Atkinson says earthquakes triggered by hydraulic fracturing can exceed the natural quake hazard, posing unanticipated risks to dams and other infrastructure.

“Any unauthorized dam of significant size is a source of concern,” Atkinson told The Tyee.

“Dams are supposed to be highly regulated for a reason,” she said. “The Canadian Dam Safety Association puts out extensive guidelines on the engineering requirements for such structures — though they note that the standards do not actually have the force of law.” (Water and dams are provincially regulated.)

“I would expect the province to take a firm stand on authorized dams of significant size that could pose a safety or environmental hazard,” Atkinson said. “To use an analogy, if you constructed a five-storey building without getting a building permit, how would that go over?”

In a related development the provincial Environmental Assessment Office announced that it is now considering an unusual request from Progress Energy to exempt two large dams, the Lily and Energy Town structures, that the company built in 2012 and 2014, from provincial environmental assessments.

The Lily dam is seven storeys high while the Energy Town structure is five storeys high.

The Environmental Assessment Act clearly states that the EAO must assess all major projects before they are built, and not after the fact.

BC Regulator Finds Numerous #Frack Water Dams Unsafe, At Risk of Failure https://t.co/93KXPLFJaV #bcpoli #fracking @BenParfittCCPA @BCOGC

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 17, 2017

The CCPA report found due to their size the two dams should have triggered an automatic review by the province’s Environmental Assessment Office before construction. But Parfitt found that the province failed to conduct a review before the dams were built.

In a recent submission to the Environmental Assessment Office Parfitt noted “the applications for an exemption from an environmental assessment were received in July 2017, more than five years after the Oil and Gas Commission gave relevant approvals for the projects, more than five years after the completion of the Town dam, and roughly three years after completion of the Lily dam.”

“B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Act does not contemplate a situation in which projects are illegally built and an exemption is subsequently sought,” he added.

In a Sept. 21 letter, Ecojustice, representing the Sierra Club of British Columbia Foundation, also argued that proper environmental certificates for the dams “should have been sought, environmental assessments conducted, appropriate conditions and mitigation required, and EACs [Environmental Assessment Certificates] granted prior to construction, if construction was allowed at all.”

Ecojustice has asked the Environmental Assessment Office to deny the exemption request and refer the matter directly to the environment minister. 

Image: Progress Energy Lily Dam is the largest dam in northeastern B.C. According to the company the dam has a berm height of 22.89 metres. Progress Energy has 29 dams in B.C, the average height of which is reportedly 5.33 metres. Photo: Progress Energy 

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