Tar sands industry is out of control in Canada

From an In-Depth Article by Drew Anderson, The Narwhal News, June 4, 2022

Mapping the growth of the toxic reservoirs shows just how far they’ve expanded since 1975, amid a surge in bitumen (tar) mining.

Picture downtown Toronto. All the condos, subways, roads, office towers and people. Now cover the whole thing with a toxic lake. Maybe you’ve never been there. Have you done the drive from Calgary into the Rockies? Imagine almost the entire 105-kilometre stretch from the city to Canmore as one continuous vista of oilsands tailing ponds.

According to a new report titled “50 Years of Sprawling Tailings” from Environmental Defence and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, those are just two examples of how large the tailings ponds in northern Alberta have grown.

And despite new rules introduced in 2016 around managing tailings, the ponds have continued to grow, according to the report. This growth represents an increasing ecological and economic risk that will cost billions of dollars to clean up and could leave taxpayers footing the bill.

So what exactly does that look like on the ground? And what impact do tailings ponds have?

Here’s a bit of background ~ What are tailings ponds?

First thing to note, and it’s something the authors of the report stress right off the top: the ponds are anything but ponds as most people understand them.

“To be calling them ponds when tailings ponds actually are far larger than anything you would ever describe as a natural pond — it’s deception,” Gillian Chow-Fraser, co-author of the report and boreal program manager for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, says.

“I don’t think it’s being very accountable to the level of destruction that’s happening in northern Alberta.”

One of the largest ponds, notes Chow-Fraser, is eight kilometres long. That’s almost as long as Alberta’s famed Sylvan Lake. Looking further afield, that will almost get you to the top of Mount Everest.

That said, the report uses the term pond to maintain consistency while expounding on the decidedly un-pond-like size of the waste reservoirs.

Inside those ponds is a toxic mix of byproducts from the mining of oilsands, including arsenic, naphthenic acids, mercury, lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — all of which can impact ecosystems, wildlife and humans.

The ponds also emit air pollution that extends for kilometres.

The purpose of the ponds is to allow the byproducts of mining to separate from the water and settle at the bottom of the pond, a process that can take decades or more. Once those byproducts are settled, the pond can be drained and capped with soil to achieve some level of reclamation.

Why are Alberta oilsands tailings ponds still growing?

The tailings ponds have been growing for nearly 50 years, increasing in size by nearly 800 per cent in the late 1970s, before continuing to grow at varying rates, depending on factors such as global demand for oil and the state of the economy. Most recently, the size of the tailings ponds grew by over 50 per cent from 2010 to 2015, and then by just over 16 per cent from 2015 to 2020, according to the report.

There are now 30 active ponds in the region, the report also says.

The authors used satellite imagery going back to 1975 to measure the physical growth of the ponds — including the fluids and the related impacts such as berms and areas where dry tailings are stored — but not the volume of tailings they hold.

For that they relied on Alberta Energy Regulator reports (more on that shortly).

Aliénor Rougeot, co-author and climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence, says they included things like berms and beaches created by the ponds — where you would not want to sunbathe — because all of it impacts the surrounding area.

“That’s the peatlands and boreal forest that were taken away, or that’s the area that the Indigenous communities can no longer have traditional practices on,” she says.

In total, the report says the footprint is 300 square kilometres, big enough to more than twice cover the city of Vancouver or a large chunk of Toronto.

“I live in downtown Toronto, and so I think I know what large means, I think I know what human activity taking over nature looks like,” Rougeot says. “And yet when I saw the scale when I saw those maps, especially the layovers of cities. I mean, that was just baffling to me.”

Ponds increase as new expansions or new mines are approved and the existing ponds fail to shrink.

The report did not trace the rise in the volume of the ponds, but that has also increased over the years, and the report notes current levels are 1.4 trillion litres of tailings based on Alberta Energy Regulator figures.

……. much more in the Article and the Report!

Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

From an Article by Dr. David Suzuki, EcoWatch.com, November 18, 2018

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Note: The Alberta province in Canada is unique in both its scenic beauty and natural resources. Banff is in the Rocky Mountains well known for mountain goats. Oil, gas and timber are abundant. The tar sands are being mined and processed into a thick (dirty) crude oil. In May of 2016 forest fires occurred that drove 88,000 people from their homes some near Calgary, their capital city. DGN

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Canadian climate change opinion is polarized, and research shows the divide is widening. The greatest predictor of people’s outlook is political affiliation. This means people’s climate change perceptions are being increasingly driven by divisive political agendas rather than science and concern for our collective welfare.

Over the past year, the Alberta Narratives Project gathered input from a broad range of Albertans (teachers, faith groups, health professionals, farmers, artists, industry, environmentalists, etc.) to better understand how they feel about public discourse on global warming. Participants said they want less blame and a more open, balanced and respectful conversation. Many don’t see themselves in the conversation at all. No one is speaking to them, using language that reflects their values and identity.

Albertans are deeply divided in their climate change perceptions. In 2017, just over half the population was doubtful or dismissive. When an issue is highly polarized, people find it difficult to discuss. The Alberta Narratives Project found people rarely, if ever, speak to others about climate change.

Climate disruption is a collective threat, not just an environmental issue. We must all see ourselves as part of the effort to prevent extreme impacts and ensure sustainable, resilient communities. But how can we take shared action when we can’t even talk to each other about the problem?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report calls for action to limit warming to 1.5 C to reduce the risk of increasing extreme weather events, prevent catastrophic species loss, decrease numbers of climate refugees and protect human health and resilience.

It’s an urgent warning. After examining more than 6,000 scientific studies, the IPCC was clear: We must cut harmful carbon emissions by at least 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reduce them to net zero by 2050 by cutting emissions and removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Rising populist politics are weaponizing climate action as a wedge issue for political advantage—with tragic implications. How can we reverse this?

Cities are responsible for 70 percent of global emissions. According to C40 Cities research, they can lead the way by acting across four key areas: energy supply, buildings, mobility and waste.

Recently, Regina’s council unanimously passed a motion to run on 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, a meaningful target in line with the international Paris Agreement and the most recent IPCC report. Victoria has adopted the same target.

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps wrote that “to solve the climate challenge, we have to weave a strong social fabric, to build on the gifts, assets and talents of our friends, neighbors and colleagues. It means we have to shift our thinking from me to we, from now to the long term.”

In March, Edmonton partnered with the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy for the Change for Climate Global Mayors Summit. They developed the Edmonton Declaration, asking signatories to recognize the urgent need for action that will limit global warming to 1.5 C.

The city’s video says, “Let’s come together and lead the charge against climate change. Let’s show the world how much we love our city and our planet. Let’s change our neighbors’ minds. Change our habits. Change the world. Each of us needs to do whatever we can. Whatever we do, we have to do it now. Because if we don’t change anything, climate will change everything.”

Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples is also crucial.

Dene elder François Paulette said, “First Nations are in a unique position to be leaders in climate change initiatives because of our knowledge of the sacred teachings of the land. We must not be situated as passive recipients of climate change impacts. We must be agents of change in climate action.”

To tackle climate change, we must heal the divide and act—as individuals, families, neighbors, communities and societies.

Wherever you see yourself on the political spectrum, whether you identify as rural or urban, youth or elder, the time for foot-dragging is over. Each of us must join together with others to address climate change, and demand meaningful action from political representatives. All parties must commit. We must call out those who stall or prevent solutions to serve their own self-interest and political agendas.

We can’t afford to wait.

Alberta Canada Earthquakes & Fracking

Groundbreaking Study Shows Direct Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, November 18, 2016

IMAGE: Seismicity of northwestern Alberta, Canada for the period 1985−2016. The size of the dot correlates to the magnitude of the earthquake. Xuewei Bao and David Eaton

Geoscientists have revealed a direct link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and earthquakes in Canada. The groundbreaking study found that earthquakes can even occur intermittently over several months after drilling operations end.

According to a new study published in the journal Science, seismic activity in northwest Alberta over the last five years were likely caused by fracking, in which chemically-laden water and sand is injected at high pressures into shale formations to release oil or gas.

The article, Fault activation by hydraulic fracturing in western Canada, was authored by Xuewei Bao and David Eaton from the University of Calgary.

For the study, the researchers mapped out more than 900 seismic events near Duvernay shale drilling sites around the Fox Creek area dating back to December 2014. This included a 4.8-magnitude earthquake in January in northern Alberta that’s likely the strongest fracking-induced earthquake ever.

They found that there were two main causes for quakes. The first was immediately from pressure increases as the fracking process occurred. “We were able to show that what was driving that was very small changes in stress within the Earth that were produced by the hydraulic fracturing operations,” Eaton told DeSmogBlog.

The second cause comes from pressure changes from lingering fracking fluid. According to the Globe and Mail, a fault shakes when fluids infiltrate tiny spaces in the porous rock and increases pore pressure. “If that pressure increases, it can have an effect on the frictional characteristics of faults,” Eaton told the Globe and Mail. “It can effectively jack open a fault if the pore pressure increases within the fault itself and make it easier for a slip to initiate.”

Per the study abstract, “Patterns of seismicity indicate that stress changes during operations can activate fault slip to an offset distance of >1 km, whereas pressurization by hydraulic fracturing into a fault yields episodic seismicity that can persist for months.”

Eaton told DeSmogBlog that a “majority of injection-induced earthquakes are actually linked to hydraulic fracturing” in Canada.

The new study is not related to the recent spate of induced earthquakes currently rocking midwestern states, most notoriously Oklahoma. Those quakes are not likely caused by fracking itself but from the injection of large volumes of oil and gas wastewater into deep underground wells.

“The key message is that the primary cause of injection-induced seismicity in Western Canada is different from the central United States,” Eaton told the New York Times, adding that their study could help regulators craft guidelines to avoid more human-caused earthquakes. 

>  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >

It’s Official: Injection of Fracking Wastewater Caused Kansas’ Biggest Earthquake

From Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, October 14, 2016

The largest earthquake ever recorded in Kansas—a 4.9 magnitude temblor that struck northeast of Milan on Nov. 12, 2014—has been officially linked to wastewater injection into deep underground wells, according to new research from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The epicenter of that extremely rare earthquake struck near a known fracking operation.

>  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  > >

Oklahoma’s Latest Fracking-Related Earthquake Sparks Demand for Withdrawal of Oil and Gas Leases

From the Center for Biological Diversity, EcoWatch.com, November 8, 2016

Sunday’s earthquake that damaged dozens of buildings near an oil and gas pipeline hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, is further proof that fracking and wastewater injection are too dangerous to people and property to be allowed to continue, the Center for Biological Diversity said Monday. In May, the organization called on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to withdraw 11 proposed oil and gas leases in Oklahoma because of earthquake risks. The BLM has yet to respond to that request.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Canadian forest fire hazard areas

Massive Canada wildfire spreads south forcing more evacuations

Update news report, BBC News Service, May 5, 2016

A massive wildfire is raging in Alberta and has grown to 210,000 acres (328.2 sq miles), with 88,000 people facing their second evacuation in three days.

The blaze has grown five times its initial size as it spreads south, prompting more than 88,000 residents of the Fort McMurray area to evacuations. But 25,000 of those people who left their homes on Tuesday and moved north may now have to be resettled again.

“Our focus right now is on getting those people south as quickly as possible,” said the Alberta premier. Urban areas in the south are better able to support the displaced, officials said.

The fire is growing in size due to high winds but it is “under control”, said Rachel Notley.

The fire started on Sunday in Canada’s oil sands region and many oil sands projects have cut production. There are still no known casualties from the fire but there was at least one vehicle crash with fatalities on the evacuation route.

Scott Long of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency called the blaze “an extreme fire event” and that rain would be needed to fight it. Cooler temperatures and rain are forecast, giving hope that it could become easier to contain the fire.

• 49 wildfires in total
• seven are ‘out of control’
• more than 1,100 firefighters
• 145 helicopters
• 138 pieces of heavy equipment
• 22 air tankers

The fire has knocked out nearly a third of the country’s daily crude capacity. At least 64,000 barrels of crude output is offline as a result of the fire, according to Reuters.

‘It’s catastrophic’ said a fleeing resident. Szymon Bicz had to leave most of his belongings behind in Fort McMurray.

“The smoke was really overpowering. It was a terrifying experience,” says Szymon Bicz, who fled his home. “Thick black smoke was closing in and surrounded the car. People were driving up on paths and grass verges just to get out of there. I’m hoping my rented house is still intact but I just don’t know. “The whole region is at risk. It’s absolutely catastrophic.”

‘It just doesn’t seem real’ said Fort McMurray residents as they flee their homes

Residents north of Fort McMurray are being told to shelter in place. The blaze grew close to the local airport on Thursday, with the CBC reporting that some buildings have been destroyed, but the main terminal is still intact. All flights are cancelled.

“It is a possibility that we may lose a large portion of the town,” Scott Long, an official with Alberta’s emergency management agency told Reuters.  Thousands have stayed in arenas, hockey rinks and school gymnasiums, some with little food and other resources.Authorities in Alberta have called the fire “catastrophic”.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that the federal government will match donations to the Canadian Red Cross to assist those affected by the fire.

“The outpouring of good will and compassion from Canadians right across the country has not only been inspirational, it has been entirely characteristic of who we are and the fundamental human values we share as Canadians,” Mr Trudeau said.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

A horrible decision against Jessica Ernst, Landowner, Rosebud, Alberta, Canada

Article by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

 Alberta, Canada, is a province lying in and east of the Rocky Mountains, north of Montana and up to the 60th parallel. In it lie Edmonton and Calgary, large cities, so that only 19% of the 3.6 million total population live in  rural areas.  It is the home of the fabulously beautiful location, sometimes called Superman Country, where part of the movie Superman was filmed.  It is also the home of vast deposits of hydrocarbons: coal, gas and the famous Athabasca Tar Sands.  Alberta is the largest producer of crude oil, synthetic crude, natural gas and gas products in Canada. Alberta is the world’s second largest exporter of natural gas and the fourth largest producer.

That is the background of our story (and incidentally sheds some light on the Keystone XL pipeline).  The hydrocarbon industry in Alberta is a political power that makes Texas look downright democratic.

The heroine of this story is Jessica Ernst, a substantial landowner near Rosebud, Alberta.  In 2003 EnCana, the second largest gas producer in Canada, used hydraulic fracturing in a coalbed under her land to stimulate production of coalbed methane.   Discernable changes began to take place in the local wells in 2004 and by 2005 Jessica’s well water “began dramatically changing, going bad.  I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower, and then my dogs refused to drink the water. That’s when I began to pay attention.” At least fifteen water-wells had gone bad in the little community.  Ernst says she heard from “at least fifty other landowners the first year” she went public, and she continues to get calls. Groundwater contamination from fracking “is pretty widespread” in Alberta, “but they’re trying to keep it hidden.”

Jessica Ernst is the wrong person to pick on.  She has a degree in Biology and a Masters in Pathology, and worked twenty five years for the oil and gas industry as an environmental consultant, plus she has a lot of the at old-fashioned virtue “pluck.”  Her company, Ernst Environmental Services, was consulting for EnCana at the time it began its shale gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations in Rosebud.

Persistent use of Freedom of Information found Alberta Province environmental officials had discovered hexavalent  chromium in Rosebud’s well  water!  And a gas well casing had lost it’s integrity – in other words, allowed contents of the gas well to escape. 

Hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, you will remember, is what Erin Brockovich found in Hinkley, Californina drinking water.  It is a very powerful poison, which has the capacity to change DNA and cause cancer.  It is toxic in the low parts per billion range.  Pacific Gas and Water paid $333M as a result of the law suit in California. 

Jessica Ernst says chromium-6 “is used in fracking and drilling.”

(Incidentally, Erin Brockovich is also involved with a mile-long plume of chromium-6 contamination of drinking water – apparently caused by fracking and drilling – in Midland, Texas.  A suit against Dow Chemical, Schlumberger, Schlumberger Technology Corp. and Lear Corporation were filed on behalf of 250 western Texas residents in 2011. )

The reaction of EnCana was what everyone by now expects of corporations: denial.  In January of 2011 the Energy Resources Conservation Board of Alberta released a report that recognized the possibility of hydraulic fracturing  contaminating usable aquifers.

A suit was launched about the problems of Ernst and her neighbors in 2007.  The Alberta court dragged its feet. Not only was the gas industry being attacked, but also the Provincial regulatory agency.  The first response was to require the claim to be re-written within 60 days.

On April 27, 2011 lawyers representing Jessica Ernst, filed an “amended” claim alleging EnCana broke multiple provincial laws and regulations and contaminated with natural gas and toxic industry-related chemicals a shallow aquifer used by a rural community.  It also alleges that the Energy Resources Conservation Board has repeatedly, despite numerous reports of suspected water contamination, assured the citizens there is no problem.  Also that it tried to suppress complaints and “has in fact served as a governmental cover-up of environmental contamination caused by the oil and gas industry.”

When the case had dragged on about as long as it could at this stage, the trial judge was promoted, causing further confusion and delay.

The most recent decision is the real horror, though.  The court rejected the Government of Alberta’s attempt to attack portions of the lawsuit, thus allowing the claim against the Government and EnCana to go ahead.  However, the court found the Energy Resources Conservation Board had been granted complete immunity by the Provincial government!  Thus the part of the suit against the ERCB was dismissed!

“Chief Justice Wittmann ruled the ERCB does not owe any legally enforceable duties to protect individual landowners from the harmful effects of fracking, after the ERCB argued in court it had total immunity for “not only negligence, but gross negligence, bad faith and even deliberate acts,” and therefore Albertans simply could not sue the ERCB, no matter how badly they were harmed by the ERCB’s acts. Ms. Ernst was ordered to pay the ERCB’s costs.”

So if the energy regulator won’t protect the citizens and the environment, who will?  Is the ERCB only to facilitate extraction, even by putting itself between what is done by the company and the health and welfare of the citizens?  Only the company has responsibility to the citizens where it operates?  Cm’ on, Canada!  The corporations are as predictable as tapeworms – they take all they can get.  You can do better than THAT for your people!

Alberta Province

The Canadian Province of Alberta vs. Resident Canadian Jessica Ernst

By S. Thomas Bond, Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Many of the readers of FrackCheckWV will be familiar with the extended legal fight of Canadian Jessica Ernst against the driller Encana and the corporate support from the Energy Resources Conservation Board in Alberta.

It started with a $33,000,000 lawsuit which effectively puts hydraulic fracturing on pubic trial. The suit alleges Encana drilled and fracked shallow wells between 2001 and 2004 near Rosebud, Alberta.

In addition to being a substantial landowner, Ms. Ernst is a petroleum geologist and a long-time employee of the petroleum industry. The claim was originally filed in 2007. Instead of upholding its own policies and investigating the contamination, the ERCB then violated Ernst’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by banishing the landowner from the board’s investigation and complaint process.

The court called for Ernst’s lawyers to rewrite the original claim that Alberta’s two key groundwater regulators, Alberta Environment and the Energy Resources Conservation Board, “failed to follow the investigation and enforcement processes that they had established and publicized.” The judge required Ms. Ernsts lawyers to file a new, briefer claim.

Why the establishment is upset is explained by Murray Klippenstein, her Toronto lawyer. “What the Ernst claim is saying to the Canadian public is that groundwater contamination by shallow hydraulic fracturing happens.” Our readers will understand what that means for the often repeated phrase “There has never been a proven claim that fracking has destroyed well water.”

The current phase of the dispute began January 13. In the course of a conversation Ms. Ernst casually mentioned a terrorist, Lebo Ludwig, so the board marked her a terrorist too, and would not communicate with her over a year. Now the board is saying it owes “no duty of care” to protect groundwater from hydraulic fracturing and that a regulator can violate the basic rights of citizens if it regards them as an “eco-terrorist.” The land and the neighbors are ignored.

Andrew Nikiforuk, in the article here,  relates the following about the case “Neither Encana nor the ERCB have yet filed statements of defence on incidents that took place nine years ago. At the time industry drilled and fracked thousands of shallow wells in a coal formation in central Alberta resulting in scores of groundwater complaints, protests and public meetings.

“Encana, whose CEO Randy Eresman abruptly resigned last week, is no stranger to controversy. The company, which is struggling with debt and an over-reliance on controversial shale gas production, remains the subject of a major U.S. government groundwater study in Pavillion, Wyoming, that has linked hydraulic fracturing to aquifer contamination.

“Michigan authorities are also investigating the company for allegedly colluding with Chesapeake Energy to keep land prices low. Encana, the target of a mysterious bombing campaign in northern B.C. in 2008, also received record fines from Colorado’s Oil and Gas Commission for contaminating water in 2004.”

Further, “Several recent court decisions also show that ERCB has a history of not upholding its own laws. “In 2010 the Royal Society of Canada, the nation’s top scientific organization, criticized the board for 2007 incident in which the regulator spied on landowners and damaged ‘its credibility as independent quasi-judicial board.’”

For a decade Ms. Ernst has been an outspoken opponent of fracking, speaking widely in Canada, the U. S. and Europe, and keeping a blog on the internet, even appearing in National Geographic News. She won the UNANIMA International Woman of Courage award October of 2011. It reads in part “one who embodies those qualities which we believe essential for the advancement of women everywhere – solidarity, a passion for human rights, commitment, and courage in the face of power which threatens life.”

For more you can read here  as well as her blog here .

And see videos here and here. The later is really good, but runs three-quarters of an hour.

Article by Andrew Nikiforuk in The Tyee of British Columbia in Canada on January 16, 2013

Alberta landowner Jessica Ernst lights methane infused well water from her property on fire in a photo by Colin Smith in the original article. In this now famous flaming water case, regulators are to argue that they have ‘no duty of care’ for landowners or groundwater.

Alberta’s main oil and gas regulators will argue in an Alberta court on January 18th that it owes “no duty of care” to protect groundwater from hydraulic fracturing and that a regulator can violate the basic rights of citizens if it regards them as an “eco-terrorist.”

In a landmark case that has attracted global attention, Jessica Ernst, a 55-year-old scientist and oil patch consultant is suing the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), the Alberta Environment and Encana for contaminating her water well with methane and other chemicals nearly a decade ago.

The $33-million lawsuit, which has attracted media attention around the world, effectively puts the practice of hydraulic fracturing on public trial.

The high-pressured injection of large amounts of water, sand and chemicals to shatter hydrocarbon-bearing rock formations can cause earthquakes, contaminate groundwater and result in significant releases of methane into the atmosphere.

Originally filed in 2007, the Ernst lawsuit alleges that Encana drilled and fracked gas wells into the local groundwater supply between 2001 and 2004 near Rosebud, Alberta and polluted her water well.

Instead of upholding its own policies and investigating the contamination, the ERCB then violated Ernst’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by banishing the landowner from the board’s investigation and complaint process, adds the claim.

“What the Ernst claim is saying to the Canadian public is that groundwater contamination by shallow hydraulic fracturing happens,” says Murray Klippenstein, the Toronto lawyer representing the landowner.

“The claim says that it happened to her and this injustice should be recognized and properly redressed in the public interest. The power and carefulness of the courts shall be the solution here. Her case has implications for many jurisdictions.”

Neither Encana nor the ERCB have yet filed statements of defence on incidents that took place nine years ago. At the time industry drilled and fracked thousands of shallow wells in a coal formation in central Alberta resulting in scores of groundwater complaints, protests and public meetings.

Encana, whose CEO Randy Eresman abruptly resigned last week, is no stranger to controversy. The company, which is struggling with debt and an over-reliance on controversial shale gas production, remains the subject of a major U.S. government groundwater study in Pavillion, Wyoming, that has linked hydraulic fracturing to aquifer contamination.

Michigan authorities are also investigating the company for allegedly colluding with Chesapeake Energy to keep land prices low. Encana, the target of a mysterious bombing campaign in northern B.C. in 2008, also received record fines from Colorado’s Oil and Gas Commission for contaminating water in 2004.

Plaintiff rejects energy board’s ‘ecoterrorist’ accusation

The board argues that its governing statutes provide immunity not only “for negligence but gross negligence, bad faith and even deliberate acts.”

“If indeed the legislature wishes to grant such sweeping and total immunity to a government agency that has such an important role in the lives of rural Albertans, it must do so specifically and with clear wording,” replies an Ernst legal brief. “It has not. The legislature has failed to include omissions.”

The ERCB legal defense brief also portrays Ernst as an “ecoterrorist” and says it ceased all communication with her out of concern of violence in 2004 after Ernst made an offhand comment about “the Wiebo Way.”

Wiebo Ludwig was a northern Alberta landowner who orchestrated a unprecedented campaign of industrial sabotage against the oil and gas industry in the late 1990s after five years of civil complaints and little regulatory response. Since then hundreds of landowners in Alberta and British Columbia have made comments about “the Wiebo Way.”

A legal brief submitted by Ernst’s lawyers argue that the ERCB’s allegations are not supported by public evidence and amount to character assassination.

A transcript of a taped conversation with an ERCB lawyer read and heard by this reporter seems to contradict the contents of this ERCB brief. In 2006 a board lawyer admitted to Ernst and a witness that the agency had no real safety concerns with Ernst, but disliked her public criticism of the board because it had become “humiliating.”

“The ERCB takes the prejudicial, vexatious, unsupported and wholly unsupportable position that the ‘expression’ the Plaintiff seeks to protect was a ‘threat of violence’ and that the ERCB ceased communication with Ms. Ernst ‘in order to protect its staff, the Alberta public and the Alberta oil and gas industry from further acts of eco-terrorism.’ This is a prejudicial and irresponsible accusation that is entirely without foundation.”

Adds the brief: “If the ERCB wishes to advance its patently absurd and irresponsible theory that Ms. Ernst’s offhand reference to Wiebo Ludwig was somehow a ‘threat of violence,’ and that an appropriate response to ‘protect against further acts of eco-terrorism’ was to cease communication with the Plaintiff, it must do so by forwarding cogent evidence. The ERCB has not, and frankly cannot, put forward such evidence.” 

Government wants words struck from plaintiff’s brief

Last year the RCMP charged a mother of three children in central Alberta, Kim Mildenstein, for writing a threat against an oil and gas company after a dangerous volume of fracking traffic threatened the safety of children at a local school.

Louis Frank and two other women from the Blood Nation Reserve were also arrested for blockading a fracking vehicle in southern Alberta in 2011. Mildenstein pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year of probation while the Crown dropped all charges against Frank last year.
In contrast Ernst has never been arrested or charged with uttering threats of any kind.

Lawyers representing Alberta Environment are asking for the removal of more than a dozen paragraphs from Ernst’s amended statement of claim. In particular the government wants any mention of other landowners and other water wells struck from Ernst’s claim such as the following sentence:

“By mid 2005 Alberta Environment knew that a number of landowners had made complaints regarding suspected contamination of the Rosebud Aquifer potentially caused by oil and gas development.”

Government lawyers say such statements are irrelevant and improper because the government might have to respond to “similar fact evidence.” The government also argues that the use of words such as “hazardous” and “pollutants” to describe groundwater contamination are “argumentative and should be struck.”

A 2004 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the fracking of coal formations warned that the practice could contaminate aquifers and well waters: “If fracturing fluids have been injected to a point outside of the well’s capture zone, they will not be recovered through production pumping and, if mobile, may be available to migrate through an aquifer.”
Water that combusts

A New York Times investigation found evidence of groundwater contamination by fracking as early as 1987 in coal formations. It also found that industry routinely covered up evidence of groundwater contamination by writing landowners a large cheque and then demand they sign confidentiality agreements.

A peer reviewed 2011 study by Karlis Muelenbachs, a world expert on identifying oil and gas drilling pollution, found extensive contamination of water wells in the Rosebud area due to cumulative oil and gas drilling and fracking combined with leaking wellbores. “Years of intensive resource exploitation in agricultural areas have left an impact on some domestic water wells,” concluded the study.

The Ernst lawsuit has dragged on now for years. Both industry and government first argued for a shorter statement claim. Then they petitioned to have the court case moved from rural Alberta (Drumheller) to Calgary, where fewer people are directly impacted by hydraulic fracturing.

“This kind of determined legal battling goes on frequently whenever someone challenges government or corporations who have lots of resources to fight with,” explains Klippenstein, one of Canada’s top litigation lawyers.

Prior to extensive CBM fracking in central Alberta, only four of 2,300 historic water well records within a 50-kilometre radius of Rosebud showed any presence of methane. But after Encana fracked the region, Ernst reported so much methane flowing from her kitchen tap that it whistled like a freight train and could be set on fire. Bathing burned her skin.

Her lawsuit, the first of its kind in Canada, has given Ernst, a shy and private researcher, folk hero status throughout rural communities in Ireland, New York, Michigan, New Brunswick, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Western Canada.

>>>Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk has been writing about this case since 2004. Find his previous Tyee articles here. >>>