Alberta Energy Regulator ignored law by not disclosing oilsands leak, lawyer says

CALGARY — An Alberta lawyer says the province’s energy regulator may have ignored provincial law by not publicly disclosing that waste from a large oilsands tailings pond was escaping containment and seeping into groundwater. 

Drew Yewchuk of the University of Calgary’s Public Interest Law Clinic is asking the province’s Information Commissioner to investigate how and why the Alberta Energy Regulator chose not to release information on the release at Imperial Oil’s Kearl mine.  

Yewchuk points out that Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act says any public body must immediately release information that involves significant harm to the environment or to the health or safety of the public. 

The regulator notified local First Nations as early as May 2022 about some sludge that had been found outside a tailings pond at Kearl.

But it said nothing else to anyone until Feb. 6, when it released an environmental protection order.

Two First Nations have expressed anger that they weren’t told about the extent of the release for nine months while their people continued to harvest from nearby lands. 

The Alberta Energy Regulator has not yet responded to Yewchuk’s concerns.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 6, 2023. 

The Canadian Press