Environment Committee on May 8th, 2007

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is it your contention that there has been no contamination from CBM wells into the drinking water supply of Alberta?

[David Pryce]

I'm going to pass this to Mr. Cline, but the Alberta government has said in its analysis that they have not seen a case in which that has occurred.

[Cam Cline]

We're not aware in industry of any cases in which contamination has happened.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You're not aware of any cases where contamination has happened. It's remarkable.

One of the questions I have is about trying to understand the geology of these aquifers in British Columbia and whether they're contiguous or self-contained or migratory. If an aquifer gets contaminated--which it does, in terms of the injection of this water and the release of water and the gases that come up--does it have the ability to migrate over to another aquifer? Can it affect the drinking water supply further down the line in the seam? Is it your contention that that's not possible?

[Cam Cline]

I think an explanation of the shallow coals in Alberta might help with this.

The shallow coals in Alberta, which are the primary commercial target, do not produce water. They're dry coals, so we're not faced with the situation of having to pump water to get the gas to move. The fact that they're dry is a very strong indicator that these coals are totally isolated from the overriding aquifers, because if they weren't isolated, you would have water in the coals, which we don't see.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I think Ms. Ernst might have a comment.

This wet versus dry thing is very interesting, because when you boil down the issue, often it returns to the water. In British Columbia, water and fish are the two central issues, and asking citizens to incur a certain amount of risk on the wet wells as to how much certainty we have there will be no contamination into our drinking water or our rivers....

Ms. Ernst, if you could comment on this contention of non-contamination—

[Jessica Ernst]

Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

I'll try to be very quick, Mr. Mills.

There are a few things.

In the States, one of the contamination cases that EnCana suffered with their CBM was where the methane came up through a creek. I don't know if we've done studies on what...but I imagine it will change the oxygen. I think if a creek is bubbling like ginger ale, we may see a lot of dead fish.

I've done a lot of legislative work with my business in northern B.C. The concerns of the people are valid, especially the first nations. In the Horseshoe Canyon coal, I must admit I'm getting very tired of industry and CAPP's and the regulators' excuses that the coals are dry. EnCana was producing 8,000 litres of fresh water a day from this coal-bed methane well by my community, and they did this, in my expert understanding of the legislation, in violation of the Water Act, which is supposed to protect the water, because the rules in place at the time required that the company get a permit from Alberta Environment. This didn't happen. In B.C., I think the ODC is not strong enough to protect. I did work down in the Elkford area, and the CBM waste water, with high ammonia, was going directly into the watershed, to the point where the Governor of Montana was very upset because of the impacts on fish.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Just a quick question.

In terms of the environmental assessment that's meant to go on, is there a joint federal-provincial environmental assessment, which is a high-order assessment, of coal-bed methane projects?

[Jessica Ernst]

I don't think so. The regulations say that cumulative effects are supposed to be assessed—should be, but they're not. The best practices say “should be”; we need “must”.

I think we need to join together, federally and provincially, for B.C., Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick to really look at these issues and assess, with unbiased, independent researchers, what the cumulative effects to fish, but also human drinking water, will be.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Allen.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to be splitting my time with Mr. Warawa.

Thank you so much for all the presentations. There are so many questions I could ask, but I'm going to focus on slides 6 and 7 of Mr. Pryce's presentation.

One is on well construction. We talked about the steel casing and the cement. Just so I'm clear in my mind, Mr. Pryce, how has this construction process changed over the last number of years, and when did this process come into play, versus the old one, to compare what might have been done before on the construction of your wells?

[David Pryce]

I'm going to ask Mr. Cline to answer that.

[Cam Cline]

Basic well construction--the base process of casing and cementing has not changed since oil and gas production started in Alberta with Leduc. What has changed is that the technologies and the cements and the materials used have improved greatly. So in modern wells, we're very confident in the cement jobs we have. We have methods of assessing the cement jobs using things like rods and stuff. So although the basic construction has not changed much, the quality of the construction has improved significantly, particularly over the last 20 to 30 years.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

As a general question, and each person can answer this, do we have some risk from some of the old construction potentially contaminating the groundwater?

Ms. Ernst.

[Jessica Ernst]

I think we have risk with the old wells, but we also have risk with the new wells.

From the studies I have been looking at, even with the good cements, it's quite difficult to get a perfect seal from the well casing to the formation. The more you're going to go in and perf and frac, if you comingle your CBM with your conventional and then come in and perf and frac with the shales...I believe every time you do this you're compromising even a top-quality cement.

I think the best way to assess the cumulative effects of this is to measure the gas migrating through the soils. There are experts in Alberta who have done this research. In fact, many industry players are involved in it, so it could be carefully assessed. Possibly, we would see how good the new cements and the technologies are and improve where the weaknesses are.

[Robert Schwartz]

I'd like to make a comment on that. One CBM well that is within a mile of my place is 700 metres deep, perfed at 700 metres and also perfed all the way up to 320 metres deep, with 22 separate perforations.

I don't care what kind of cement job you have; you have a vertical communication between 320 metres and 700 metres down or up that well bore. It doesn't matter what kind of cement you have outside the casing: you have communication vertically through the well bore.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I have a quick follow-up question on that. It was clear in the statements you made, Mr. Pryce, in your presentation that it was intended to shelter it from upper aquifer zones. Mr. Schwartz's presentation shows that the industry does not protect groundwater below 600 metres from chemical injection, even though we have known areas of pristine groundwater as deep as 1.5 kilometres.

So is there any concern from the industry's side about potential impact on deep aquifers?

[David Pryce]

I'll turn that question over to Mr. Cline in a moment.

What I want to make sure people understand is that when we have these facilities out there, the companies are visiting these sites on a regular basis. The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board is visiting these sites on a regular basis too. So there is an ongoing evaluation of the condition of the sites, there are audits that are done, and there's information that needs to be submitted to the regulator that confirms the adequacy of the work that is being done—and it is reviewed. I think it's important to understand that there is a strong regulatory oversight here.

It's also important I think to make sure we don't draw conclusions that there are problems on the basis of what might be occurring, the “what ifs”. From a risk management perspective, the industry and the regulatory environment are well aware of the risk environment that's out there and have measures in place at the front end—the design end—of the process to mitigate those measures, and through the operations phase and indeed in the abandonment phase to deal with them. So while there may be concerns about potential risk, I think it's important for folks to understand that those potential risks are understood and are being managed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa, did you want to pick up?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Yes, thank you, Chairman.

The first question is for Ms. Ernst.

You showed some pictures of your water. As long as they're just pictures, if you could pass them around the table, I'd find it interesting to see those pictures, if that would be okay.

You began your presentation saying that you wanted your water back. But then you went on to share that you don't know what your water was, because it wasn't tested in the first place. You said there were some bubbles in the water, but you also said, “My water is in danger of exploding.” I think that's what you said.

I'm curious as to how you determine, when you say “I want my water back”, what you mean by it.

[Jessica Ernst]

That's a good point. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify.

What I meant by wanting the water back is having it the way it was before the CBM came, when my taps weren't whistling—my taps felt like a gas well, and I had so much gas blowing out, you could feel the gas—and when I used to be able to bathe without having my skin and eyes burn.

In fact, the gases coming out of my taps would burn my eyes in the house. When the government began bringing the trucked-in water, my skin no longer burned and my eyes no longer burned in the house. I think dogs are a lot more intuitive than we are, and when the water whistling began, they would pace incessantly.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I only have a few minutes. I understand that. It's based on personal experience, as opposed to having your water tested.

[Jessica Ernst]

Yes. I would like to be able to rely independently on my well and be able to bathe and not have my skin burn.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

I understand.

The next question is regarding noise. You mentioned that you couldn't listen to music. I think it was a comment in your presentation that you had difficulty listening to music because of the number of wells. What's the closest well that you had? You said it was near your house, and then you said it was about 300 metres.