special report
10 Obiter Dicta
A Plan Without Enforcement is no Plan at all
Alberta unveils new rules regarding tailing ponds and water
extraction in oils sands production
amy brubacher › contributor
A
lberta has released a new set of rules that
it says are designed to limit water use from
the Athabasca River. In addition, compa nies will be expected to diminish the
growth of tailings ponds (pools of wastewater from
bitumen extraction) and ensure that these ponds have
been reclaimed within ten years of the end of a mining
project. While these new rules are being trumpeted as
a way of improving the environmental sustainability
of the oil sands in relation to Alberta’s critical fresh
water resources, many are critical of this plan.
Kyle Fawcett, Alberta’s Minister of Environmental
and Sustainable Resource Development, stated that
the new water-use limits “are dramatic cutbacks for
all operators but they are essential in protecting the
lower Athabasca.” Yet the true challenge here is not
about setting limits or creating frameworks. The challenge for Alberta is to actually stand by them, develop
mechanisms for enforcement, and prosecute breaches.
The tremendous use of fresh water by oil sands producers has been well documented. In 2011, operations used approximately 1.7 million cubic metres of
water—a figure equivalent to the residential water use
of 1.7 million Canadians. In situ petroleum production used in the oil sands requires the use of heated
water. At present, these techniques use approximately
0.8 to 1.7 barrels of water in order to fully extract and
upgrade a barrel of oil. Processing bitumen requires
0.4 barrels of water for every barrel of bitumen produced. Members of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation
Alliance (including Suncor Energy Inc. and Royal
Dutch Shell plc) have pledged to halve freshwater use
in processing to 0.2 barrels per barrel of bitumen by
2022.
In addition, Alberta’s seventy-seven square miles
of tailings ponds have been one of the industry’s most