Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 28th, 2006

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

In your paper, you mention some incentives, including a carbon emission rights trading system. Aside from tradable emission rights, what other types of incentives should the federal government be offering?

[Prof. Alan Young]

Partly it's work that can be done in recognizing the need for research and making it something that is recognized within the taxation or the granting system—the joint ventures that can be done to ensure that when one company takes on work, it is work that is enjoyed across the whole sector. There is work that can be done on technologies and particular technological innovations, and the respect that can be given to recognizing the costs involved in these things.

A lot of the incentives we have now are currently based on increasing the volume and speed of capital expenditures. We can be looking more at tying those sorts of tax breaks and royalty granting to the kind of investments that are going to lower the overall footprint and look at natural capital retention. I would look at research and technological innovation as things that need to be recognized within the system as core values and that really need to be supported as investments for the public good.

Additionally, I think the key thing is really clarifying what a trading system could look like, clarifying opportunities for specific offsets, and giving something that people can actually invest in.

The final bit, and this is something I'm more familiar with than the hard rock reclamation issues, might be that the amount of money involved in reclamation is huge, and there's a lot of that money that stays quite static while reclamation is ongoing. Recognizing the investments required for reclamation as a public good is going to be an important part in allowing companies to make additional investments and get the recognition they need within our fiscal system to ensure they are done right.

The quid pro quo is that it has to be performance-based, and ultimately we need to see that the reclamation outcomes are appropriately rewarded.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you.

Ms. Bell.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you all for your presentations and for coming to the committee.

I want to follow up on the vein that was started. Mr. Friesen, you said that land reclamation was a precondition of development and that you shouldn't start if you can't put it back the way it was. I'm happy to hear that. When we visited the oil sands project, we flew over and drove by a reclaimed area. Even with snow on it, it looks pretty good. It's hard to tell it from the rest of the land.

I have some questions about what's in the soil, because it's tailing ponds, it's material that's been injected with detergents and chemicals, things to get the oil out, and then it's put back into the ground. I know it's settled out, but I want to know how much.

You say you do research and you spend about $500,000—you said half a million dollars—on research. Is that enough? What timeframe is that? How long a period of time is that money spent over? Is that $500,000 a year or in the whole project? What's left in the soil? I'm worried about what's in the plants, in the vegetation growing in the soil.

The other question I want to ask is to Mr. Young. You used the word “extirpated”. That means to destroy totally. So if something is destroyed totally, if vegetation or animals can't or will not come back to that area because it's changed drastically, it may look the same, but if there's something that won't grow there because of the change in the soil—it used to be a peat bog or it used to be a wetland, now because of the change in the soil, it no longer is—is that full reclamation? As I say, it looks good on the surface, but is there something down the road?

My other question--because I never get enough time to get them all in--is who's responsible in the end? I know the land is turned back to the government after you've satisfied your requirements to reclaim and you've monitored for a period of time. If we find after several years of growth that the animals and the vegetation aren't returning, aren't staying, or if things don't grow as they ought to, who is responsible for that?

Finally, with carbon sequestration--I recently read an article and I can't remember where it was now. They found the carbon that was pumped back into the ground made the vegetation grow faster, which I suppose is a good thing, but at the same time they found it increased the level of poison in the poison ivy. What are the effects on the vegetation?

Is the research money enough? Is there ongoing and...? That's a lot of questions. Thanks.

[Bruce Friesen]

These are excellent questions, and very well expressed. I appreciate it; I'll try to do them justice.

First, with respect to the magnitude or quantum of research, Syncrude spent $1.5 million this year. Collectively, with other companies plus matching funding from NSERC, the scale of reclamation research in the oil sands today is about $5 million per year.

The nature of the research very much speaks to the concerns you've expressed. Is the soil quality sustainable, and in particular, is the land surface safe? Are there going to be things happening that result in a landscape that is not satisfactory in the sense of being safe for people and animals?

The way we approach that is through the concept of an instrumented watershed. The reclamation material—the top layer—when we first place it is natural. We harvest it from in front of mining and place it in the reclaimed areas. Then the question is, is it at risk of change? On day one it is in fact safe; that is known.

The concept of an instrumented watershed is a large enough patch of reclaimed land that we can understand the flows of water—surface water, subsurface water—and therefore the movement through the landscape of other things such as salts, or perhaps any contaminant that might be there. The intent is to confirm that our standard practices protect the soil layer. It all hinges on—you expressed it very well—the soil starting off satisfactory, and if the processes in the landscape are acceptable, then the long-term outcome will be acceptable.

Yes, it is a very long-term matter, so the question of custodial transfer back to the Crown and the timing of it and its completeness are important. We believe it will be a long time. We believe we will be documenting the behaviours of landscapes for many decades—for argument's sake, 50 to 100 years—before it's evident that the situation is acceptable.

Even there, it may not be a full custodial transfer; it may a custodial transfer supported with some ongoing funding or ongoing monitoring. As I say, we have about 30 years behind us. When I talk about 50 to 100 years, what I'm saying is that it could take another 20 years, or another 50 to 70 years, for us to fully demonstrate to the people of Alberta and the people of Canada that a custodial transfer back to the Crown is an acceptable risk for the public, for the people of Canada.

[Prof. Alan Young]

The question you raise around extirpation is, I think, if we're uncertain that we can get things back, then is it reclamation? In some cases I think we have to accept that this is a transformed landscape that, as you said, may not be in its original shape but should be in a safe and functioning state.

This really highlights the need for planning in advance to avoid those areas where there simply isn't a substitute for certain habitats. We draw attention to woodland caribou because it's in sharp decline in many parts of the country, and because all the science I've seen—and Matt can speak to this with more authority—suggests that they simply do not repopulate disturbed land, whether it's forestry or oil sands land. In those cases, we have to be very careful about where we expand and how we expand, because some things are simply irreplaceable.

This calls for needing to step back a little and look strategically at the ecosystem's services and the habitat level values that are still there, now while we have a choice, and to make choices that are for the social good in the long term. While we may be able to re-engineer some elements of the landscape to a safe place, there are some for which we simply have to agree that we cannot and will not. If we choose to make that sacrifice, we should do so with all the information and all the public debate that goes along with it.

Again, I call for a broader view on the values, and some humility in knowing that some values will not be replaceable.

[Matt Carlson]

You commented about the poison ivy. I hadn't heard that, but in some ways it doesn't surprise me. These bizarre results always appear out of ecological science. We just don't understand ecosystems well enough to know how they're going to respond to human activities, especially human activities that are as dramatic as oil sands development.

That uncertainty, to me anyway, just underscores the need to take a really precautionary approach and to admit that we don't know what the end result will be, and therefore we have to ensure that we have conservation offsets. So we have areas set aside that will remain intact to ensure that we maintain the natural capital of the region.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thanks, Ms. Bell.

Monsieur Paradis.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

First of all, you'll have to excuse my ignorance, but I'd never heard about the Canadian Boreal Initiative until today.

I'd like to learn more about your organization's history, about who you are, where you get your funding from, and so forth.

[Prof. Alan Young]

The initiative was formally launched in 2003 but was backed on a number of years of research that went back looking at a global assessment of intact forest ecosystems. So it was a number of years in the making.

The funding is a combination of U.S. and Canadian foundations. There's no government or corporate dollars in funding what we do. It's all charitable foundations. Again, we have an advisory committee that's based on NGO, corporate, and first nations...but we've tried to keep a balanced approach across those. We have a staff of about 14 people based here in Ottawa and partnerships in pretty much every region across the country, where we're funding research, we're funding traditional land use studies, we're funding community development work across the way, we're funding science through the University of Alberta. We're trying to take a holistic approach at understanding the solutions and bringing people together on better policy, better technology, better science.

I don't know if that answers your questions, but we're—

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I'm simply trying to figure out where you fit into the big picture.

Are you backed by organizations such as as Sierra Club, the Word Wildlife Fund and others of a similar ilk?

[Prof. Alan Young]

Yes. On our advisory committee there is the World Wildlife Fund, represented by Monte Hummel; there's Ducks Unlimited Canada, which is represented by Gary Stewart, who has recently retired--I don't know if you knew that; we have the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, national; we have ForestEthics, which is more of a market-based organization; we have the Nature Conservancy; and we will be adding a couple more NGOs. What we've done very deliberately in our approach is not just to take some of the more conservative groups like Ducks and WWF, but we've gone the full spectrum, because what we really want to try to do, as we bring forward solutions, is to bring forward the best breadth of solution that we can.

It's an odd group of bedfellows, but I think it's an effective and very Canadian approach.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is directed more to you, Mr. Young.

You stated that projects could become carbon neutral by the year 2020, that you are optimistic, albeit realistic, about reaching this target. Can you tell me what technical challenges will need to be overcome in order to achieve this goal?

Furthermore, as I understand--and you can correct me if I'm wrong--you believe that internationally, it will be difficult to meet this goal before 2020.

[Prof. Alan Young]

As I understand the goal—and again, this is an area in which we're supporting the good work of folks like Pembina, the World Wildlife Fund, and others who have thought this through at a much more technical level—we're relying on the analysis that they have done at that technical level to suggest that it is possible. It's not going to be any one thing. It's going to be energy efficiencies on-site. It's going to be fuel-switching measures to lower carbon fuels. It's going to be a combination of capture and storage technologies, which are a long way from being perfect.

A lot of work needs to be done to understand how this work is going to go forward. As some of you have probably been following in the news, the carbon dioxide pipeline discussions are getting a little more public airing these days. Things like that will certainly be part of a solution, but so will offsets. It's that combination of things, with a solid commitment to be neutral by 2020, that we think is possible.

Again, I'm relying on a level of expert analysis that goes well beyond my personal level of expertise, but our confidence in working with these partners is that they're well grounded. It's ambitious, but it's absolutely necessary.

So I'm sorry if I misspoke, but I think it is possible. Both from an economic and technologically feasible perspective, it will be possible to achieve that. People just need to make that commitment and work toward it.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mention was made of soil alterations, whether as a result of mining or other types of operations. We also heard about in situ steam-assisted gravity drainage. You stated that this process impacts the soil.

I'd like to hear your views on this matter, Mr. Friesen. Can you elaborate on this process and the implications of its use?

[Bruce Friesen]

As you note, the oil sands industry has two main approaches to recovery of the bitumen. One is mining, which is the very large-scale, open pit land disturbance, and the other is the in situ process.

There are numerous in situ processes, but as far as land disturbance and forest disruption are concerned, they are similar. They require corridors for the installation of pipelines and power lines to a distributed network of recovery sites. There will be several wells installed from one site and several from another, and several from another beyond that. The overall effect is that linking all those sites to a central collection point causes clearing and construction activity in numerous corridors. My friends in the conservation business would therefore emphasize the forest fragmentation associated with the in situ activity.

Those corridors also require reclamation and restoration as a starting point to the re-establishment of forest diversity.The land area affected by the in situ activity is lower as a percentage, but is probably equivalent in total. In a particular area, only a percentage of the land is affected, but the biggest implication is the fragmentation of the habitat from a wildlife perspective.

[Matt Carlson]

I'd reiterate Mr. Friesen's comment that oil sands mining is expected to affect 3,000 square kilometres, whereas the SAGD, the steam-assisted gravity drainages, could affect almost 140,000 square kilometres. There is a large area that could be affected by this type of development. The intensity of seismic lines, pipelines, roads, and well sites is much denser in SAGD development than in conventional oil extraction, so there certainly is concern that it will be a large change to the ecosystem.

There are best practices available to help reduce the intensity of disturbance. For example, there's a need for a lot of seismic lines for this type of development. If the lines are made quite narrow, such as 1.5 metres in width, then it's much more likely that they'll reclaim back to forest in due fashion. There's a need for oil companies to use these best practices that are available to help minimize the development.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Friesen, based on what I understood why I visited the Syncrude Canada Limited site, a company that decides to operate a new site is required to secure provincial certification and to pledge to restore the site to its original state. I would imagine that clear guidelines are in place. Mr. Young's presentation gave the impression that operating procedures could vary from one company to another.

Have partnerships been forged in the research field? What can you tell me about this?

[Bruce Friesen]

Yes, our research is collaborative. We have a lot of dialogue between companies, and perhaps individual companies would have their own areas of emphasis. Through dialogue, we work to ensure that the overall program makes sense and is sufficiently comprehensive. As I stressed a couple of times, by corporate policy, all the work we do of an environmental nature and particularly of a reclamation nature is in the public domain, both by the way we execute the work, working with universities, and through efforts to make the information available.

The increase in the number of participants in the industry has been leading us to a greater degree of formalization of this process of dialogue, and that is going quite well. So we have entered into an agreement now with seven companies agreeing to execute and fund research in an integrated fashion.

[Christian Paradis, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. St. Amand.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a brief comment and a question.

As you know, we had the opportunity to attend at Fort McMurray. The operation there is mammoth, and I don't use that word lightly. It's mammoth. I dare say it's virtually unprecedented.

As a lay person, of course, my impression was that the operations are pretty invasive of the environment. The topography, however many metres down, is pretty invasive. I was struck by the thought that the efforts to reclaim the land are diligent, are noble, are purposeful, etc., but at the end of the day, aren't we really left wondering what the long-term effects or consequences on the environment will actually be? Is that what we're left with, that there's no realistic way to discern what the long-term impacts are going to be?

[Bruce Friesen]

I think it's fair for me to note that both I as an industry person and the Canadian Boreal Initiative as a collaborative of various perspectives have come today and stressed the importance of good science.

We've heard a couple of views of the current status, the current quality of understanding, the consensus that science is useful, and we believe, speaking for the industry, that we have a lot of knowledge through serious effort over many years.

It is still a challenge to forecast, to predict the future. And I'll just stress, on the aspects raised by Ms. Bell, that the biggest challenge and the thing we must emphasize most in land reclamation is protecting the surface layers from significant change. The surface materials that we place are selected through a lot of science, a lot of care, and placed as the top layer. Our emphasis must be on ensuring that those materials, which contain all the biological capability and history, are protected. We do that through monitoring the behaviours of landscapes, particularly flows of water.

In summary, I believe it is possible to have an adequate understanding of what is going on in a landscape and to have confidence that the outcome will be acceptable. I've spoken for my company, that if we didn't feel we could do it, we would have no right starting.