ESAA Weekly News – Week ending May 20th, 2022

 
 
 


The ESAA photo contest has returned.  Do you work for an ESAA Member company?  If so, they you are eligible to enter the 2022 ESAA Photo Contest.

The theme for 2022 is ‘Canadian Wildlife.’  No matter how big or small all of Canada’s wildlife is simply amazing.  Just remember to give wildlife space, don’t stress animals and don’t submit photos of any nesting wildlife.  Full details below.  Submission deadline – August 1st, 2022.

Prizes:

  • 1st Place – $250 Posterjack Gift Certificate
  • 2nd Place – $100 Posterjack Gift Certificate
  • The top 12 photos will be included in the first annual ESAA calendar.

Full contest details, rules, submission upload link and more can be found at: https://esaa.org/membership/esaa-photo-contest/

Get out and enjoy nature!

 

Fine issued for Coastal GasLink project

The Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) has issued a second administrative penalty to Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. (CGL) for non-compliance with conditions and orders related to erosion and sediment control under its environmental assessment certificate.

The fine of $170,100 was issued following several inspections by compliance and enforcement officers with the EAO. Inspections have found repeated issues with erosion and sediment control.

CGL’s 2014 environmental assessment certificate requires implementation of an environmental
management plan, including measures to protect sensitive wetlands and waterways from sediment caused by erosion that can negatively impact water quality and fish habitat.

The EAO takes very seriously matters of compliance with the conditions of all environmental
assessment certificates. More than 40 inspections have been carried out along the CGL pipeline construction route since the project began in 2019, with 37 warnings, 16 orders and two administrative penalties issued.

Several inspections between October 2021 and April 2022 in various locations along the construction right-of-way found ongoing non-compliance related to erosion and sediment control. The financial penalties mark an escalation of enforcement action to address the
issues.

A first administrative penalty of $72,500 was issued to CGL in February 2022.

The EAO continues to actively monitor the conditions of the environmental assessment certificate for the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline project to ensure potential impacts to the environment and wildlife are mitigated.

The Coastal GasLink Pipeline project is a natural gas pipeline approximately 650 kilometres long. It will connect natural gas facilities west of Dawson Creek to the LNG Canada liquefied natural gas export facility near Kitimat that is also under construction.

For information about the Coastal GasLink Pipeline project, visit https://projects.eao.gov.bc.ca/projects-list and search “Coastal GasLink.”

When a project goes through the environmental assessment process and receives an environmental assessment certificate, the certificate contains legally binding requirements that must be followed for the life of the project. The requirements help mitigate potential negative environmental, social, cultural, health and economic effects of a project. Ongoing compliance oversight – including compliance inspections and, where required, enforcement actions – ensure that projects are designed, built, operated and decommissioned/reclaimed in compliance
with these requirements.

For more information about the environmental assessment process, visit:  https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/natural-resource-stewardship/environmental-assessments/the-environmental-assessment-process.

 

Project intended to demonstrate wetlands’ greenhouse gas impact

 
 

(Source: Western Producer) “We need to pound on the ecological goods and services that wetlands, grasslands and healthy soils provide,” said Duncan Morrison, executive director of Manitoba Forage and Grasslands Association, one of the organizations involved in the project.

Sixteen other farms, with an additional four possible, are also working with the project, but without towers. They will allow Ducks Unlimited staff to observe how their various agricultural operations affect the emissions from their farming activities.

“Agriculture uses a significant amount of land in Western Canada and our study will help inform how different agricultural practices can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Pascal Badiou, Ducks Unlimited Canada lead scientist for wetland and waterfowl research.

“Scientific measurements are key in protecting and managing the remaining intact natural  ecosystems found on prairie farms.”

The two farms with flux towers are near Riding Mountain National Park and the other farms are scattered across the pothole region, from Manitoba to Alberta.

Wilderness preservation and waterfowl protective organizations like Ducks Unlimited are eager to show positive impacts from wetlands because that would encourage their preservation and an ability for farmers with wetlands to highlight the environmental benefits of their farming practices.

Farmer-based organizations like MFGA are keen to prove the benefits their members are creating and perhaps to gain credit for their activities.

“This is a way out-front look at some of the great values from a carbon perspective that these natural systems provide,” said Morrison in an interview. “Every time we can establish an evaluation or we can come down withsome really great science like this … that can help those of us who are supporting producers that are working on these lands to give another value to help the dialogue, the preservation/conservation (of the farm’s natural environment) and most of all profiting by producers off of these intact systems.”

 
The project is intended to produce data that can be used in national greenhouse gas and carbon emission sequestration reporting for a possible new revenue source on farms and establish the basis of along-term monitoring program.
 

Alberta’s carbon capture rollout plan criticized by industry over transparency, costs

(Source: CBC News) Industry leaders in Alberta have criticized the government’s rollout of a plan to capture carbon dioxide emissions underground as ineffective and lacking  transparency, saying it has delayed billions of dollars of investment and increased costs.

Several oilpatch and other industrial players want to reduce their emissions by investing in such facilities in the province, which is considered to have ideal geology for storing carbon, experts say, as gases can be pumped a few kilometres underground into a layer of rock filled with interconnected pores, similar to the holes in a sponge.

The Alberta government controls the underground space and has begun choosing projects that can proceed.

So far, the government has approved six proposals near Edmonton and is now reviewing bids for carbon capture and storage projects throughout the province. The government wants each project to act as a hub designed to collect emissions from neighbouring facilities and store the gases underground.

Some industry players say the provincial system is creating uncertainty since companies don’t know whether their project will be approved or when. And, if they have to use a hub operated by a different company, there aren’t any rules in place around costs or
access. 

There are also concerns about a lack of transparency about why some projects are chosen and others are rejected. 

“There’s no doubt it’s delaying it,” Craig Golinowski said of the government’s approach to carbon capture. He’s a managing partner of Calgary-based Carbon Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm that invests in many projects, including carbon capture and storage.

Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage was not available for an interview.

As part of the application process to operate a hub, companies are asked to provide a list of third parties who are committed to using the facility to store emissions.

Some companies say their industrial facilities aren’t located near other polluters, so they just want to be allowed to store their own emissions locally.

That shows how the provincial government’s hub system is too focused on large corporations and ignores smaller players, Golinowski said.

“The size of the emissions problems is huge,” he said. “Limiting the number of projects to just big projects will inherently limit the number of tonnes that can be captured and sequestered.”

Companies big and small should be allowed to store emissions, says Craig Golinowski, a managing partner of Calgary-based Carbon Infrastructure Partners.

Alex Puddifant, a spokesperson for Alberta’s energy ministry, said the “government is prioritizing the development of hubs” because “we believe this approach to be the most efficient use of the pore space.”

“Alberta continues to be Canada’s CCUS leader,” he said of carbon capture, utilization and storage in a four-sentence email.

Calgary-based Inter Pipeline was not chosen in the first round of approvals by the Alberta government; the company has subsequently announced a new facility that is contingent on receiving rights to underground caverns to proceed. The project is valued at over a billion dollars and would produce blue ammonia and blue methanol.

“Economic and certain access to adequate pore space for carbon emissions from this project is an essential part of the feasibility planning,” the company said in a release. The company declined an interview.

Calgary-based Entropy Inc., has more than a dozen carbon capture and storage projects  proposed in Alberta of different sizes and at various stages of development. Several of those projects are now delayed, the company said, because there is no certainty the government will allow the projects to proceed.

“The government has created a bit of a land rush,” said Michael Belenkie, Entropy’s president.

“Everyone’s afraid  of missing the ability to control the pore space they need. So everyone’s piling into that process to try and make sure that they’ve at least got an application and try to get the [underground space] that they may or may not need to have control of in the future,” he said.

Two of the company’s projects are ready for a final investment decision, Belenkie said.

“If you lose six months this year, that’s six months that will be delayed when the project is under construction. So everything’s getting pushed out,” he said.

 

Some proposed projects are being delayed because of uncertainty around how the provincial government is deciding which companies can use underground caverns to store carbon emissions, says Michael Belenkie, the president of Entropy Inc.

Alberta’s energy ministry said there will be more consultation with industry. “Our government will continue its engagement with stakeholders to ensure Alberta is well-positioned to deploy CCUS technologies in an effective, fair and efficient manner in the best interest of Albertans,” Puddifant said. 

Carbon capture technology has its critics, both in terms of how realistically it can be scaled and whether it makes financial sense for governments and industry to pursue. The International Energy Agency has noted carbon capture “has not lived up to its promise” yet as it has been slow to develop. But there is growing investment worldwide.

Many companies are keen to take part in carbon capture as a way to reduce emissions and reach climate targets. The federal government recently announced a new tax credit to spur more investment.

Instead of the provincial government picking which carbon capture projects can proceed, there should be more of an entrepreneurial system, said Jackie Forrest, executive director of the ARC Energy Research Institute, an industry-linked analysis group in Calgary.

“There’s a bureaucratic process to pick the winners and the losers,” she said, which takes too long and favours the largest companies.

The government should create an open system where any project can proceed as long as it meets certain rules and regulations, she said, similar to how new oil and natural gas wells are approved.

“The reality is not all these projects are going to get funded. So, by limiting the number of projects, you’re really limiting, I think, the total amount of investment in Alberta,” she said.

 

The current system is pushing some companies to explore developing carbon capture and storage projects outside of Alberta, she said, including in the United States.

Alberta’s government has received more than 40 applications for carbon capture projects and will announce the next set of approvals in the fall.

 

Ohio residents fight to get radioactive oil and gas waste off their roads

At least 13 states allow drilling waste to be used for road de-icing, dust suppression, and maintenance.

(Source: The Grist) Joe Mosyjowski has watched a decade-long boom in oil and gas drilling unfold in the region surrounding his 50-acre farm in northeast Ohio. Mosyjowski, a 71-year-old retired engineer who once spent his days designing stormwater infrastructure, was surprised to learn that a byproduct of all that drilling was being spread on roads and streets near his property, which contains a football field-sized pond that he swims in every summer. Mosyjowski grew increasingly alarmed as he read that the product, a salty brine used to keep roads ice-free, can be radioactive

“I don’t want this stuff spread anywhere near the roadways,” Mosyjowski told Grist in a phone call from his home in Portage County, a rural area about an hour south of Cleveland. “I don’t want it near my water, because the water runs into my pond. I just want to keep things clean.” 

At least 13 states — including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan — allow oil and gas wastewater to be put to “beneficial use,” a category that includes road de-icing, dust suppression, and maintenance. This is an advantageous arrangement for oil and gas companies, because it’s cheaper to give brine to local governments for free rather than paying to dispose of waste in a landfill. Cash-strapped towns and counties, meanwhile, are reluctant to look a gift horse in the mouth — to the detriment of their residents’ health, according to Cheryl Johncox, an organizer with the Sierra Club and member of the Ohio Brine Task Force, a coalition of activists, scientists, and concerned residents. 

“This is a way for the industry to push off their problems onto regular people and not be held accountable,” Johncox told Grist. 

As awareness of the widespread practice of brine spreading grows, organizers like Johncox and concerned residents like Mosyjowski have joined forces to try to limit or ban the practice. Community activists have pushed for local laws to prevent oil and gas waste from being spread on roads as part of a larger movement against drilling in the state. When initiatives that would have allowed more local control of oil and gas extraction were not even allowed onto the ballot in several counties, a coalition of local groups sued the state. A bill that would prohibit the application of radioactive brine to public roadways was introduced in the legislature in March, though it faces an uphill battle with a Republican majority that’s friendly toward fossil fuels, Johncox said.

 
 
 

 Upcoming Events


 
 
 

RemTech East

June 1-3, 2022
Fallsview Casino and Resort
Niagara Falls, ON

https://esaa.org/remtecheast/

Starts in 2 Weeks – Program Available – 20 Delegate Passes Remaining

ESAA is pleased to announce that the Program for the inaugural RemTech East is now available.  The program features 43 technical talks covering a number of topic areas.  The program also features keynotes by: Nik Nanos of Nanos Research, Robert Swan of the 2041 Foundation and Simon Jackson of the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition.   The conference also features 45 exhibits, numerous networking opportunnities and registration add-ons including a reception at Table Rock Restaurant and the Water’s Next Award Dinners.

Program details can be found at: https://esaa.org/remtecheast/agenda/

In addition, registering for RemTech East will give you access to the Canadian Water Summit program at no extra charge.  The Canadian Water Summit is being held on the same dates and in the same venue.

Full conference details at: https://esaa.org/remtecheast/

RemTech East Includes:
  • 3 Keynotes
  • Technical Sessions
  • Full Access to the Canadian Water Summit
  • Breakfast and Lunch each Day
  • 1 Reception
  • and much more

RemTech East Extras:
  • Reception at Table Rock Restaurant and Behind the Falls Journey
  • Water’s Next Awards Dinner – Celebrating Canadian Water Leaders and Champions
 

ESAA looks forward to seeing you at the Falls!

 

BEST 2022 – Program Now Available  – Early Bird Rates End April 4th

May 25 – 27, Fairmont Whistler

REGISTER Now

Join us for the eighth annual Bettering Environmental Stewardship & Technology (BEST) Conference!

The British Columbia Environment Industry Association’s BEST Conference attracts environmental professionals every May for two days of technical sessions, networking opportunities, and a sponsor exhibition.

Register now! You don’t want to miss out on the “BEST” opportunity to network and learn about the current environment industry in BC.

The Abstract Selection team reviewed dozens of abstract submissions and have put together an outstanding program of technical presentations. Preview this year’s program at: bceia.com/best/#program-timetable.

AER Training Event: Explaining and demonstrating new OneStop RoSC functionality

https://www.aer.ca/protecting-what-matters/giving-albertans-a-voice/events

The Record of Site Condition (RoSC) module in OneStop has been required for all contamination management submissions (with the exception of submissions required under an Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) approval for mining operations) since July 8, 2021. Since then, the AER has listened to industry feedback on aspects of the form and has made several changes as a result.

These information sessions will provide a refresher on submitting the RoSC in OneStop, but will focus on new OneStop functionality being released in the RoSC module on Jun 9, 2022.

You will also have the opportunity to ask questions with AER staff.

  • JUN 06 Mon, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM MDT
  • JUN 13 Mon, 9:00 AM -10:30 AM MDT
  • JUN 15 Wed, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM MDT
  • JUN 22 Wed, 9:00 AM -10:30 AM MDT


Registration

To register, sign
up through Eventbrite
.  

For more information about OneStop, visit
our website
 or contact the AER’s Customer Contact Centre by phone at 403-297-8311 (1-855-297-8311 toll-free) or by email to inquiries@aer.ca.

Save the New Dates – EPR Virtual Town Halls Schedule Update

Recent changes to the Alberta Environment and Parks EPR town hall schedule and topics. The next town hall will be held on Friday, May 27th from 1:30pm to 2:30pm MST.  The subsequent town halls will be held on the dates outlined in the table below at the same time from 1:30pm to 2:30pm MST.  

Date

Topic

May 27

Paper Products and Packaging (PPP)/ Single Use Products Designation

June 17

EPR Transition and Implementation Plan

July 8

Collection and Competition (PPP and HSP)

July 22

Municipal Contracts and Infrastructure Assets

August 19

EPR Oversight

 

The Zoom link for the virtual town halls has not changed from the original one which was sent out in March.

To update your calendar with the new virtual town halls schedule, please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) file to your calendar system to save the recurring schedule and access information:


https://goa.zoom.us/webinar/tJYtdu-rqjktHNYqXwY_-95ZR8_1vKwqJPc0/ics?icsToken=98tyKuCqrjosGdCXtx-FRowQAoj4M-nwiHpago1kjSfyOh8eO1bMBLp9Y6RUB8n6

To join the each session, you can use any of the following four options:

1. Click this link to join from your browser: https://goa.zoom.us/j/92016342762

2. Join by one tap mobile:

Canada: +12042727920,,92016342762#  or +14388097799,,92016342762#

3. Join by telephone:

Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location)

Canada: +1 204 272 7920  or +1 438 809 7799  or +1 587 328 1099  or +1 647 374 4685  or +1 647 558 0588  or +1 778 907 2071

Webinar ID: 920 1634 2762

International numbers available: https://goa.zoom.us/u/aclXwisTHp

Please save the access information above to join Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP) for the virtual town hall on Friday, May 27th to continue conversations on extended producer responsibility (EPR) in Alberta. This access information will remain the same for future town halls.

If you have any questions about these sessions, please contact: AEP.RecyclingRegulation@gov.ab.ca

 

 


On June 22, world-renowned environmentalist, Dr. Jane Goodall will be delivering an evening of inspiration to the Southern Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary, AB. For a limited time, you can see the legendary Dr. Goodall LIVE with a special 15% off discount for all ESAA Newsletter Subscribers.

Dr. Goodall‘s talks never fail to inspire people of all ages, from all walks of life, as she recounts her unique experiences as a young woman working alone in the rainforest and her hope for the future through her dedication to youth-led action for sustainable change.

To use your exclusive discount, please follow these steps.

Step 1: Visit https://www.ticketmaster.ca/event/11005C88998C4CBD

Step 2. Select the ‘Unlock’ section located on the right top corner of the ticket bar

Step 3: Enter Offer Passcode: ROOTSANDSHOOTS22

Step 4: The 15% discount will be applied and you may choose your tickets/section.


This special opportunity is only available until June 3rd, so don’t wait! 

All proceeds from ticket sales support Dr. Goodall‘s vision and the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada’s mission to build a better world for people, animals, and the environment we share.

We hope to see you there!

 

ESAA Job Board

Check out the new improved ESAA Job Board.  Members can post ads for free.


 
Current Listings:
  • Intermediate Report Reviewer – North Shore Environmental Consultants Inc.
  • Intermediate Environmental Scientist – Trace Associates Inc.
  • Environmental Scientist – Biology – SUMMIT, An Earth Services Company
  • Intermediate/Senior Environmental Specialist – SUMMIT, An Earth Services Company
  • Intermediate REM/REC Scientist – JMH Environmental Ltd.
  • Junior Environmental Scientist or Geologist – Ballast Environmental Consulting Ltd.
  • REMEDIATION AND RECLAMATION FIELD SUPERVISOR – Matrix Solutions Inc.
  • RCA Operations Manager – Recycling Council of Alberta
  • Environmental Engineers/Scientists/Technologists – Nichols Environmental (Canada) Ltd.
  • Project Technologist, Environmental Due Diligence & Remediation – Pinchin Ltd.
  • Environmental Specialist – SUMMIT, An Earth Services Company
  • Intermediate Environmental Specialist – SUMMIT, An Earth Services Company
  • Senior Ecologist – SOLSTICE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
  • Intermediate/Senior Environmental Scientist (Edmonton or Red Deer, Alberta) – SOLSTICE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
  • Wildlife Biologist – SOLSTICE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
  •  Intermediate Ecologist – SOLSTICE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
  • Environmental Specialist (Summer Student) – Summit. An Earth Services Company
  • Construction Foreman – Summit. An Earth Services Company
  • Environmental Protection Officer – Alberta Environment and Parks
  • Administrative Support – Summit. An Earth Services Company

 

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