Evidence of meeting #92 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was corson.
A recording is available from Parliament.
December 14th, 2023 / 11:55 a.m.
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
First of all, we regret that there is seepage that has gone a kilometre or more off our lease. That's why we're working diligently to mitigate that and ensure that it doesn't happen again.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Sir, the question was, according to your operating licence and government approvals, how far off-site are the tailings allowed to seep? Is it more or less than 1.3 kilometres?
You could just say what it is, more or less.
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
We expect those to be contained on-lease. Any process-affected water is supposed to be recycled back to the process and treated.
NDP
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
That would be less.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Can you tell me about the black bear that had to be euthanized because of a failure to recognize, with all of your monitoring, that there was a den in the area?
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
It was a very unfortunate situation. It is completely unrelated to the seepage incident that we're talking about.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
It allows us to question a bit your commitment to protecting wildlife and the environment.
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
We place a very high priority on protecting the wildlife. We went to great lengths, as we always do, to ensure that we would not impact any wildlife.
In this situation, we were preparing a drilling site. The area had been previously swept by an indigenous contractor to confirm that there were no bear dens in the area. None were identified. The area was then cleared safely, with no impacts. We were getting ready to move some additional equipment onto the site. We swept the area again with this indigenous contractor. We did not find any signs of a bear den or signs of habitat—
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Obviously, there were some. Obviously, that one was there and in place.
I think my time is complete.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Your time is up. Yes.
We'll go to Mr. Leslie for five minutes.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm just curious. Will we be starting with the minister at 12 o'clock sharp?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It won't be at 12 o'clock sharp, but very shortly after that. I want to finish this round with Mr. Corson.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate you being here today.
To continue, the statements on the seepage were anticipated. The design of the Kearl tailings system and the seepage interception system failed in what it was supposed to do. It was unsuccessful. It seems like a bit of a technological failure.
I'm curious. Obviously, the impacts can be significant. What, beyond the additional wells being drilled, is the company's plan to try to technologically prevent this from happening again in the future?
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
The basis for the wells is some extensive work we had done with subject matter experts on the geology, the hydrogeology, to understand the source of this additional aquifer, the source of additional groundwater, that was contributing to this seepage pathway to the surface.
We continue to engage those consultants, and that's the basis for the additional monitoring wells, the additional pumping wells and the additional trenches, all of which are intended to now address any new-found learnings around the hydrogeology.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
You mentioned the new-found learnings. Beyond the communications with the communities, which of course is important to rectify, are there any other approaches that you have learned thus far that you can share with us on how you will address this going forward, even if it's theoretical at this point? Are there any kinds of planned approaches, whether it be for this project or others, to try to prevent any other incidents from happening?
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
I think there are several learnings for us that go back to the original design. Again, that's what we're addressing with this expanded seepage interception system.
I think that in the future we'll want to take all those learnings on board. Again, we're sharing those learnings with others in industry, so if they're progressing tailings ponds projects, they're aware of the learnings we had with this seepage incident.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Could you expand on how that information is shared among industry partners or competitors? I think they're valuable and important lessons to make sure that whatever company is building a project, seepage is prevented. How do you go about sharing that information?
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
There are specific industry networks and consortiums that focus on the oil sands industry technical practices. There are formal networks. There are also informal networks. For example, Imperial, through me, is one of six founding members of the Pathways Alliance for oil sands. We, as CEOs, meet every single Friday to advance that project to reduce our emissions, and when things like this come up in industry, we also take time to talk about these sorts of incidents and what we are learning.
It's the same with safety incidents, because we don't view these things as competitive in nature. We all need to be excellent in our performance in these areas—safety and the environment—so we collaborate.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I can appreciate that.
Further to that intent of excellence, what other measures do you take as a company in the surrounding area to preserve wildlife habitat and natural landscapes above and beyond just the measures to try to limit the impacts of potential incidents regarding the tailings ponds? More broadly speaking, what other kinds of offset programs do you undertake to improve the local environment?
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Imperial Oil Limited
With respect to this incident, and more generally to our operations at Kearl and other places, we will install protective fencing if necessary to keep wildlife out of areas where it could be endangered. We have other systems in place to mitigate the landing of birds on ponds.
We are regularly doing surveys where we, again, hire indigenous contractors to come help us identify where there is risk of wildlife endangerment, and from those surveys we apply mitigations to ensure we avoid that.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
You mentioned the local contractors. On the question regarding the bear incident that happened very recently, what does that process look like? Why might there have been a failure to notice the den?