Environment Committee on Nov. 28th, 2023

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Based on what you’re telling us, you’re still of the opinion that Deloitte did a good job and was the right firm to mandate.

[Laurie Pushor]

As I indicated, the board has managed this process. They used an open, public request for proposal process and selected Deloitte as the preferred vendor through that process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Bachrach now.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to start by noting that the last time this committee heard testimony on this issue, one of the witnesses was Chief Allan Adam from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

While Mr. Adam was here at the committee meeting, he received news that his father-in-law had been diagnosed with bile duct cancer. This is a rare cancer that has affected so many families in Fort Chipewyan. We recently learned that Chief Adam's father-in-law has passed away. I'm sure my colleagues will join me in expressing our sympathies to Chief Adam, his family and his community.

Much of the discussion on this topic has focused on communication, but that's only one of the issues of concern here. The other issue is one that downstream first nations have been raising from the start, which is the likelihood that toxic tailings water is seeping into the environment around the Kearl site and affecting not only the environment, but those people downstream.

My first question for Mr. Pushor is whether he can confirm that, indeed, downstream first nations have been expressing that concern from the very beginning.

[Laurie Pushor]

I think there are a number of factors.

Certainly, I have had the opportunity to visit Fort Chipewyan a couple of times since this incident and sit with community leaders. I have spoken with Chief Adam regularly throughout the last few months.

I, too, share concern and would pass along my sympathies to Chief Adam and his family for the loss of his father-in-law.

Our job as a regulator is to ensure that industry is meeting the environmental standards that are set forth by the government, and that is the role we play.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

The question was a very simple one. Have first nations been expressing concern since the very beginning that toxic tailings water is seeping into the environment around Kearl?

[Laurie Pushor]

What I was saying was that, yes, I have had discussions with communities there and have heard those concerns from some within the communities.

As I indicated, the standards that are monitored by Environment and Climate Change Canada and Alberta Environment and Protected Areas as well as communities through joint oil sands monitoring has shown no impact on the rivers—Muskeg and Firebag in this case—that both feed into the Athabasca River system.

As it comes to health determinants, I understand that Alberta Health and Health Canada have done some examinations into things and, in terms of sorting out the cause of various health problems in the region, I would defer to those agencies.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Pushor, when did the Alberta Energy Regulator first become aware that toxic tailings water was likely leaching into the environment surrounding Kearl?

[Laurie Pushor]

May 2022 was the first indication that there was some staining on the land and some vegetation damage. Then we have previously outlined, and it's contained in the environmental protection order, what occurred between then and the issuing of the environmental protection order.

I can happily go back and review that with you, if you would like.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Pushor, you will be familiar with some reporting by The Canadian Press that included an interview with Mandy Olsgard, who is an environmental toxicologist. She has consulted for area first nations and has reviewed the annual reports that Imperial provides to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

She told The Canadian Press that the Alberta Energy Regulator knew there was seepage to groundwater. Is she wrong?

[Laurie Pushor]

The report she's referring to is part of the containment system that any earthen dam is required to perform so, as we talked about in the last gathering, the earthen structures are expected to allow some movement of seepage through the dam structure. That is in place on any earthen structure across Canada, for sure.

What is important is that monitoring be done so that, as seepage moves through, there's an interception system, a series of wells or other interception devices, that can collect that seepage and move it back into the containment pond.

The results that I believe are being referred to in your comments are, in fact, the results within that containment system that were showing that it was moving. Therefore, the company began to intercept that through their containment system.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Ms. Olsgard has gone through the 2020 monitoring annual report and highlighted in yellow all of the exceedances, all of the test results that exceed provincial parameters. On some pages, the entire page is yellow.

Does this not indicate a problem?

[Laurie Pushor]

As I said, I believe that all of those results are within the containment system and where indicators said that it was time to turn on the wells and the bumping systems to ensure that seepage was intercepted and returned to the tailings pond.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

However, as we know, in May 2022, there was this discovery of discoloured water outside the containment system, which indicated that the water had breached that containment system, and it was likely that this had been happening for some time.

You have now required Imperial to drill a number of wells, I believe over 100, in addition to the containment system. Assumedly, those wells are outside the containment system.

How many wells have you required Imperial to drill?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Give a brief response, please, Mr. Pushor.

[Laurie Pushor]

To date, there have been in excess of 100 wells for both interception and monitoring purposes that have been installed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you.

We will move to the second round.

Go ahead, Ms. Goodridge.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you once again.

I'll go back to some of the questions I was asking earlier.

As a local member of Parliament, I don't remember getting any communication from the AER, but I do know that our constituency office had quite a few people writing in and asking questions. It just goes to show that communication with more people is always better, especially in situations like this.

What is your standard process for when something hasn't gone wrong and you are just working on something? How do you communicate with communities, with community leaders, outside of a serious incident? I think that is important to understand. Have your processes changed in the last seven months? What exactly were you doing seven months ago that you are not doing today, or what are you now doing that you weren't doing seven months ago? I think Canadians deserve to know the difference.

If you can, give as many specifics as possible. This is really going to help us.

[Laurie Pushor]

Maybe I can start by saying that an emergency management response includes communications, and all companies are expected to have those. As we look at emergency response protocols, we will review whether more needs to be done independently by us as a regulator in addition to what is expected in an emergency response.

When we get to incidents, incidents are a broad categorization. We have in excess of 1,700 matters that we look into on an annual basis. The conversation with the communities has been really helpful in the northeast. They've helped us sort out what it is that they need to see immediately, and they have helped us give some protocols and some structure so that we can identify those things.

We've certainly erred on the side of communicating more rather than less. Communities have also made it clear to us that they don't want to be overwhelmed, so the next part of our work.... We have an incident dashboard, but we need to make it much more accessible and much more visible. As we look at rebuilding our website, that will be one of the key priorities there. We not only are doing proactive communications to alert people about significant incidents that matter to them but also are making sure that they can access any and all matters they might be interested in.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

How long can we expect it will be before your website is updated?

[Laurie Pushor]

My preference would have been by today, but these things do take time. Over the course of 2024, we expect to have it fully implemented. In the meantime, we have been doing the interim communications protocols, and we'll continue to do them.

We've also been working with interested communities to help guide them to the current incident website and help them understand the information that is there. We can proactively do that with anyone who's interested in learning more in this interim period.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thanks.

There already has been a little bit of a narrative developed here in this committee surrounding the safety of the drinking water. From living in Fort McMurray and having lived here most of my life, I know exactly where to go to find out whether our drinking water is safe.

I am wondering if you could share with the committee where people would go in this region when they are concerned about drinking water quality.

[Laurie Pushor]

I may not be able to be specific about the address, but the rural municipality of Wood Buffalo has extensive information on its water testing at water intakes, as well as on its performance in operating its water treatment facilities.

I thought it was insightful to listen to the chief executive officer of the RM talk about the fact that it has safe drinking water in all of its communities, which I think is something to be acknowledged—the good efforts it's made there.

In addition to that, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Alberta Environment and Parks, and communities do joint river quality monitoring. That website is available, I believe, through the oil sands monitoring group. That would be the way to find it.

I'm happy to send those links to the committee to ensure that you get the specific locations.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Yes, if you could send them specifically, that would be great.

Because I am the local member of Parliament, I will share with everybody that it's actually the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. If you go to rmwb.ca and go to “Utilities and Water” and then “Water Quality”, it will share all of the information.

As well, there's the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association. It has all of the information being captured on water, air and land quality throughout this entire region. I think it's critically important to highlight that we do have a lot of this information available. This is why it is so important for an agency like yours to be communicating regularly with a variety of different stakeholders.

When this was happening, there was a lot of fear in the community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you. We're a little over time here.

We'll go to Mr. Longfield for five minutes.