Most of the work I do in the oil patch is on cumulative effects, and alarmingly, as our developments are dramatically increasing in Alberta, the mitigation of and assessment of cumulative effects seem to be going down. We seem to be deregulating in Alberta instead of increasing our assessment of these effects.
From the global warming perspective, the leakage of these wells, as well as potential effects on groundwater, the cumulative effects of these shallow zone developments, the unconventional developments, I think could be dire if we don't take better protection.... As Mr. Cline mentioned, a lot of the older wells are being used to commingle and perforate and frac. When they come to do the CBM, they will often come back again and again to perf and frac again and again. The cement in the surface casing as well as the production casing leaks from many different ways. When the cement is setting, if there are air bubbles or gas moving through from the deeper zones, that can create channels. The cement degrades over time. With each one of these perfs and fracs happening, cumulatively, what is the integrity of the cement going to be?
Interestingly, too, on the EUB, the data collection is so behind, and we're increasing the cumulative effects, but we have less knowledge and data collection than we really should have for the groundwater mapping and the baseline testing. For example, in my area the experiments on the CBM happened before the baseline testing, even though this multi-stakeholder committee was saying, “We have to test first. We have to protect the groundwater; it's vital for life.”
It only took pressure through the press before the baseline testing happened. I believe we still would not have baseline testing if a number of concerned Albertans had not gone to the legislature and gone public.
The EUB did a study that just finished in 2006. This is the regulator. They actually said that seven out of seven of the produced water from the coal-bed methane wells had the contaminants that we found in our Rosebud drinking water—the benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, etc., the heavier hydrocarbons—but 11 out of the 12 water wells in the study did not, had no detectable levels. And 10 out of those 12 water wells had no detectable levels of methane, and they were all getting their water from coal. So even though CAPP has stated that 26,000 of our water wells getting coal supposedly have this natural methane, the regulator's very own study found that this was actually not true.
So hopefully, now, with the baseline testing, if we can improve on the testing.... In the baseline testing, for example, Mr. Rota, the industry is not even required to test for heavy metals or the BTAX, these contaminants that could get into drinking water. So right now we're not even able to assess the cumulative effects because the baseline testing standard isn't testing for the right things.