Study: 95% Of Alberta's Old Oil & Gas Sites Certified As "Reclaimed" Have Never Been Inspected

[hatrack]

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Reclamation is no small business in Alberta. With the federal government’s infusion of $1 billion in 2020 to turbocharge the cleanup of the province’s 174,000 inactive and decommissioned well sites, the reclamation industry has seen something of a boom. But there are few assurances that funding will ensure the long-term ecological recovery of old well sites, even after they’ve been deemed officially reclaimed. Data provided to The Narwhal shows the vast majority of sites — around 95 per cent — that have been deemed reclaimed, through the issuance of what’s known as a reclamation certificate, have never been visited by government or regulator staff. With so many reclamation certificates issued without audits, scientists like Janz have been studying whether the process lives up to its long-term goals.

Janz was the researcher behind a government-led effort to track whether former oil and gas sites recovered in the long run. He says he tried to make his managers aware of the implications of his findings — which he found deeply concerning — to no avail. “I would be constantly at them, email after email, saying ‘you’ve got to do something,’ ” he says of the years leading up to his retirement. “I had to warn people within the government. This was my last chance to warn people.”

But in the end, he says, his research was stone-walled, his recommendations ignored and his pleas for the attention of managers resulted in him being told his concerned emails must come to a “full stop.” Shortly after he retired, Janz requested a meeting with Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon. He never heard back. (A spokesperson for the minister’s office did not respond to a request for an interview.)

Janz isn’t alone in his concerns. Bill Donahue, former head of monitoring and science at Alberta Environment and Parks, who was familiar with Janz’s work during his tenure, describes reclamation in Alberta as a “failure.” “Looking at Arnold and his colleagues’ studies, where there have been efforts to assess whether or not reclamation processes, standards and regulations work or not, the answer is always, ‘no, they fail, they fail to meet the goals and desired outcomes, which are established in law,’ ” he told The Narwhal.

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https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-oil-gas-wells-reclamation-scientist/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Thanks for the report from Texas North

They love the environment just like Ted Cruz.