Environment Committee on April 20th, 2023

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Are toxic tailings still being pumped into the reservoirs that have been leaking?

[Brad Corson]

The tailings ponds that we use are designed with recognition that some level of seepage could and can occur. As a result, we had installed, right from the beginning, an extensive—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Are you still using them, though? Are you still putting tailings into those ponds?

[Brad Corson]

Yes, we are. It's an integral part of our operation, but as I mentioned earlier, we've expanded that seepage interception system to address the seepage that we've identified.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Are you trying to say that there is some level of seepage that is acceptable and that is still happening?

[Brad Corson]

There is recognition that seepage can occur on an ongoing basis, but we have designed a system that has wells around the perimeter of the tailings ponds that will collect that seepage before it leaves our lease.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I think we can all agree that it should contain it before it leaves the lease. That didn't happen.

You initially estimated the overflow spill at 2,000 litres. You then revised that number to 5.3 million litres. Is that number of 5.3 million litres accurate, or did more toxic tailings still spill from that? Is that still an increasing number?

[Brad Corson]

No. We believe that's an accurate number.

The source of the—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Is that accurate as to the day, or accurate as of today? As of today, is 5.3 million litres accurate?

[Brad Corson]

Yes.

We didn't estimate it at 2,000 litres. The reason it was that to begin with was that the reporting guidelines require us to report something that is 2,000 litres or greater. When we made an initial notification, it was in recognition that we had a spill that was 2,000 litres or greater. It was registered as 2,000 in the system, but we knew right from the outset that we had to go through a quantification exercise, and that's why you see it as 5,300.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

You meant 5.3 million litres.

[Brad Corson]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Kurek.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you for coming to the committee.

As has been mentioned by everyone today, there are some concerns and certainly the need to see trust restored.

My question, Mr. Corson, is this: What is being done since we heard—and from what I understand you and your organization have heard—that the trust has been broken, damaged and needs to be restored? What work are you doing to ensure that trust gets restored?

[Brad Corson]

Certainly trust is much more than words and statements. Trust is defined by actions, so we are very much focused on actions with all of our indigenous communities. We have made significant adjustments in our communication of protocols. We're being very transparent and providing regular updates to the communities. We are meeting with members of those communities, across their organizations at all levels, including at my level, and we're going into the communities and offering, if you will, town halls and open houses.

Similarly, we've invited all of the communities to come to Kearl so that they can see the incidents first-hand. They can see the mitigation steps we're taking. We've offered for them to take their own water samples in order to help them build confidence, if that's what it takes.

Through all of those actions and a further demonstration of our commitment to this relationship, we hope we will rebuild trust. Trust is something that takes a long time to build. I use the analogy of a very intricate piece of crystal artwork that could take hours, days, weeks and months to build, and then in one misstep, you drop it and it shatters. It then takes day, months and years to rebuild. That's where we are. We dropped it and it shattered, and now we're going to invest all the time and commitment it takes to rebuild it. This is critically important to us as an organization.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

I want to dig down into your reference to the testing, which you also mentioned in your opening remarks, and ensuring that there is accountability and an understanding. This is because we hear—and I hear it, as a member of Parliament who represents a ton of energy production, mostly in traditional oil and gas—a ton of misinformation that comes out about the industry in general. However, I want to really dig down into the testing.

You mentioned just a moment ago that you're allowing indigenous communities and local stakeholders to do water testing. You mentioned in your opening remarks that you have contracts with indigenous organizations that are doing that testing. Can you dig down into some of the specifics of what that looks like? I think you mentioned 140 wells where you were able to pump out water to both test the water and mitigate some of the challenges.

Can you dig into exactly what that looks like, and whether or not communities in the area can trust that there is no contamination affecting their health?

[Brad Corson]

Yes, we added 140 wells, so now we have approximately 350 wells. Of those 350, I think about 55 are specifically designed to pump water out from the subsurface. As seepage occurs and approaches those particular wells that are intended to protect and ensure that groundwater that's affected by seepage does not leave our lease, those 55 wells pump it back into our system for processing.

The balance of those wells, just shy of 300, are used for monitoring. We have a very rigorous process to collect data from each of those wells on a very regular basis. I can ask Helga to comment on the frequency. I believe some are monthly and some are quarterly, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're a bit over time, so we'll go to Mr. Longfield. You can always provide the answer in response to someone else's question.

Go ahead, Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the representatives from Imperial for being here today.

Thank you also for following the testimony on Monday, which was incredibly powerful testimony, particularly relating to the health issues. In fact, Chief Adam has a father-in-law who is currently being diagnosed with a rare cancer. The impacts on those communities, both in physical health and in mental health....

Also on Monday, Minister Guilbeault proposed that a joint federal-provincial-indigenous working group with participation from the oil companies be established. This is not to replace the existing Crown-indigenous working group on the potential oil sands mining effluent regulations, which continues its important work.

Could you comment on its importance, or whether you would see this as a positive move to get everybody at the table? Chief Adam started his testimony by saying, “We're done with all the pointing of fingers. We need to solve the problem together.”

[Brad Corson]

Yes. I haven't seen all of the details of what Minister Guilbeault proposed, but the concept of bringing stakeholders together—government regulators, indigenous communities and industry—to work to improve the communication process, to improve the management of tailings for this industry, I think is a positive. I would support participating in such an undertaking.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Great. Thank you very much.

Beyond communicating, we have the existing physical locations of tailings ponds.

You have 27 operations in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. With regard to the process improvements on Kearl, is that going to happen simultaneously with the other operations so that we include the indigenous people? We heard in our testimony on Monday that the indigenous people weren't allowed on site during water testing. Now we're hearing that they are.

[Brad Corson]

They certainly have been invited on site, and many of them have participated.

Imperial participates in several industry organizations and industry networks so that we can share the learnings of this particular incident. We have one tailings pond that is the subject here. I'm not familiar with the details of all of them in industry. However, again, we are participating in several mechanisms to share the learnings.

I might ask Simon Younger, who is closer to those details, whether he wants to make some comments.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I appreciate that. If he could do it in writing, it would be helpful. I have only a few minutes left.

You mentioned other sites. In Sydney, Nova Scotia, 600,000 litres were spilled. It's not just Alberta, but it's also, as you said, an industry concern. To that end, I'm wondering about cleanup of the water using new technologies. The University of Guelph is working on nanoparticles and aeration systems. There is other work being done around electrodes.

How are you integrating the research from the universities into cleaning up the water that's in the tailings ponds right now?

[Brad Corson]

Technology plays a very important role for our industry. Imperial established the first research organization for this industry several decades ago. As a company, over the last 20 years we have spent roughly $2 billion on research. That continues to be a high priority for us.

We also were a founding member of COSIA, an industry organization that focuses on research and technology developments, with an extreme focus on tailings.

We are actively involved in the pursuit of better approaches to managing these tailings ponds.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Is there anything happening now? Can you see some progress? Is there any example that you can give us?