ESAA Photo Contest Winners Announced
The voting is complete, the votes have been tabulated and the top 3 photos are:
Pika
Helen Maguire
Terralogix Solutions
Elk
Daniel Danehy
Langan International
Moose at Sunset
Kirk Elliott
Trace Associates
The Top 13 photos will appear in the first annual ESAA Calendar.
Thank you to everyone who entered this year contest.
ESAA Calendar: Sponsor a Month – 6 Remaining
20 calendars will be available for each sponsor to distribute as well.
AER: New Edition of Manual 002: Drilling Waste Inspections
Today we released a new edition of Manual 002: Drilling Waste Inspections, which replaces the 2012 edition.
Manual 002 is a reference document for AER staff when conducting drilling waste inspections. Industry may also use it as a reference for drilling waste inspections and as a guide for their own compliance management systems.
The manual is divided into six sections: Notification and Approvals, Storage, Cement Returns, Sampling and Analysis, Disposal, and Treatment. Within each section, noncompliance statements are provided, along with the relevant regulatory references.
We have updated Manual 002 as follows:
- Added or removed noncompliance statements to reflect the current edition ofDirective 050: Drilling Waste Management.
- Added or removed noncompliance statements to reflect other current AER requirements and energy resource enactments (e.g., Directive 058: Oilfield Waste Management Requirements for the Upstream Petroleum Industry, Oil and Gas Conservation Act).
- Removed the low- and high-risk ratings to align with our Integrated Compliance Assurance Framework and Manual 013: Compliance and Enforcement Program.
- Formatted the manual to meet our current publication standards.
Manual 002 is not an exhaustive inventory of all drilling waste management requirements. Industry is responsible for understanding and complying with all relevant requirements.
If you have any questions about the revised manual, please contact our Customer Contact Centre by phone at 403-297-8311 (1-855-297-8311 toll free) or by email at inquiries@aer.ca.
Manual 002 is available on the AER website, www.aer.ca, under Rules and Directives > Manuals.
First Nation sues Alberta over cumulative environmental impacts
(Source: FGN News) Northern Alberta’s First Nation has filed what experts say is the province’s first lawsuit claiming that the cumulative effects from industry, agriculture and settlement are so pervasive, they violate the band’s treaty rights.
Duncan First Nation, southwest of the Peace River, claims that the county allowed so much activity and sold so much crown land that the band members could only live their constitutionally guaranteed lifestyle with great difficulty.
“Alberta has engaged in a pattern of behavior … that has significantly diminished (the nation’s) right to hunt, hunt and trap as part of their way of life,” says the prosecutor’s statement filed in Edmonton in July.
“Habitats have been fragmented, land and waters have been degraded, materials causing legitimate concerns of pollution have been introduced, and pollution and land have been put to uses inconsistent with the continuing purposeful exercise of (the nation’s) treaty rights.”
The county has yet to file a defense statement and the allegations have not been substantiated in court.
Alberta requires assessment of cumulative effects in environmental impact studies.
However, critics have long complained that these ratings are quick and don’t give much weight. The band argues that Alberta has consistently allowed development and settlement in the band’s traditional land project by project, without considering how all of these activities might be added.
Legal scholars have reached similar conclusions.
“These (cumulative) effects cannot be resolved through piecemeal measures such as individual permitting decisions,” states a 2019 paper in the Alberta Law Review.
Jeff Langlois, an attorney for The First Nation, said the band participated in every regulatory hearing that affected them, but to no avail.
“The cumulative effects of all these projects have led to a significant downturn,” he said.
The band sent a letter to Prime Minister Jason Kenney in May listing their concerns.
“We have repeatedly faced Alberta’s appalling disregard for the challenges our members face in exercising their rights,” the report states. Our people have now relegated to a small island.”
Langlois said the prime minister had not responded and that legal action was Duncan’s only option left.
“If they don’t sit down with us, we have to take another step.”
A county spokeswoman declined to comment on the case.
Sean Sutherland, a Calgary attorney with experience in environmental and indigenous law who recently wrote an analysis of the Alberta case, said Duncan’s First Nation uses arguments similar to those used successfully last year by the Blueberry First Nation in British Columbia.
“(The Blueberry’s decision) essentially directed changes to the regulatory regime that was in place in the area, and it’s an extraordinary court-ordered remedy,” he said. “This claim is an attempt to provide a Blueberry First Nation type analysis to Alberta.”
Langlois said Duncan has seen Blueberry’s success and is trying to emulate it.
“They watched their cousins on the British Columbia side of the border from Blueberry present their case and get results from the court.”
As a result of this decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court, applications for permits in the northeastern province have been largely suspended since last summer. The court prevented the county from allowing further activities in violation of treaty rights, and imposed a six-month period on the parties to make the necessary changes.
That doesn’t make Duncan’s case a heavy blow, Sutherland said.
The facts on the ground have yet to be established. Also, a court in Alberta may rule differently on what constitutes a loss of treaty rights.
“The standard on which the British Columbia court has relied is that there is a breach (of treaty rights) when there is a significant or significant derogation of rights on the basis of cumulative effects,” Sutherland said. “We don’t know if the same legal standard will apply in Alberta.”
Because of the complexity of the allegations, Sutherland said, the BC case took years to work its way through the courts.
Duncan’s First Nation is seeking important cures. It wants legal and enforceable safeguards for counseling and research, as well as a permanent injunction preventing Alberta from allowing activities that harm the band’s ability to exercise its treaty rights.
While they may be the first squad to bring such arguments to court, they are not the first to be interested in continuing to chip away at traditional land through one-by-one development permits. Fort McKay Métis made such claims for years until the county agreed to protect an area of special value.
B.C. releases greenhouse gas numbers for 2020
CCME: Roadmap for Single-Use and Disposable Plastics
Environment Ministers have announced A Roadmap to Strengthen the Management of Single-Use and Disposable Plastics.
The roadmap provides guidance on prioritizing single-use and disposable plastic items for targeted management and selecting instruments that may be effective for managing each item.
In 2019 CCME approved the Canada-wide Action Plan on Zero Plastic Waste: Phase 1 (action plan). The action plan includes the development of a roadmap to address priority single-use and disposable plastics most commonly released into the environment.
The publication can be found here or through CCME’s searchable resource browser.
$100 million cleanup of Tulsequah Chief mine can proceed after leaking acid run-off for decades
(Source: Vancouver Sun) The end of long-running receivership proceedings in an Ontario court last month removed a key impediment for the B.C. government to take control of the remote mine site in northwest B.C. and start cleanup, according to First Nations on both sides of the B.C.-Alaska border.
The main obstacle has been removed to the start of a $100 million cleanup of the Tulsequah Chief mine that has been leaking acid run-off in B.C. and Alaskan waters for decades.
The end of long-running receivership proceedings in an Ontario court last month removed a key impediment for the B.C. government to take control of the remote mine site in northwest B.C. and start cleanup, according to First Nations on both sides of the B.C.-Alaska border.
The Taku River Tlingit First Nation in B.C. and the Douglas Indian Association and the 15-tribal member Southeast Indigenous Transboundary Commission in Alaska have called on the B.C. government to honour its commitment to end decades of toxic acid mine discharge into the Taku River watershed.
The mine is in British Columbia but the Taku River flows through both B.C. and Alaska.
“This receivership hindered B.C.’s efforts to stop the pollution from the Tulsequah Chief and clean up of the site, and was the major procedural hurdle to clear,” said Charmaine Thom, spokesperson for the Taku River Tlingit First Nation.
“(We) call on B.C. to start taking specific steps toward turning its commitments into action,” said Thom.
The most recent owner of the mine site, Chieftain Metals, went bankrupt in 2016 before being able to restart operations. The mine only operated in the 1950s when owned by Cominco, now Teck Resources Ltd.
The acid run-off from the mine into the Taku River has also been a long-standing sore point of environmental groups and the Alaskan government.
As part of the receivership proceedings in Ontario, the court had given the largest creditor, West Face Capital Inc., owed $62 million, until Aug. 11 of this year to reappoint a receiver on hopes a buyer could be found for the property.
In a public online posting, the B.C. government noted that West Face Capital did not file materials by the deadline and the province’s position is that this concludes the receivership.
The province noted the process to dissolve Chieftain Metals, however, has been put off by the Ontario court until after October of this year.
In a written statement during the weekend, B.C. ministry of energy and mines officials said the province “remains committed to holding all past and present owners of the Tulsequah Chief Mine accountable to address cleanup of the site.”
In an email, energy and mines spokesman Glen Plummer said the province is continuing to work closely with the Taku River Tlingit and is committed to “engaging with stakeholders” on a long-term approach to clean up and closure that will include addressing acid rock drainage.
In 2020, the B.C. government released a remediation plan that estimated clean up at more than $55 million with $2 million a year for maintenance and monitoring of the site in the coming decades, which included mine water discharge.
That puts the cost of cleanup to at least $100 million in the next two decades, with taxpayers on the hook as the province only holds a $1 million company security for clean up.
Cleanup, once started, is expected to take at least five years.
In 2020, B.C. chief inspector of mines, Herman Henning, said responsibility for the mine site could not be fully resolved until the receivership process was concluded.
The province has carried out some preliminary work including building and repairing stream crossings and protecting an airstrip, as well as water monitoring — and put up $1.6 million for that work in 2020.
Teck has also supported that work, voluntarily providing $1.575 million in 2021 and $1.685 million in 2022, according to the company.
How much money Teck might provide in total is not clear.
In a written statement this weekend, Teck spokesman Chris Stannell said: “Teck has a long history of working to remediate sites and is committed to working collaboratively to protect the environment.”
Upcoming Events
RemTech 2022
October 12-14, 2022
Fairmont Banff Springs
Program Now Available
90 Delegate Passes Remaining
- Alberta Environment and Parks Updates
- Alberta Energy Regulator Updates
- Bioremediation
- Business Growth and Support
- Emerging Contaminants
- Groundwater
- Indigenous Engagement and Consultation
- In-Situ Treatment and Management
- Interesting Projects
- Legal / Regulatory
- Natural Attenuation of Petroleum NAPLs (NSZD)
- PTAC Reclamation and Remediation Research Update
- Research and Technology
- Risk Management
- Mark Hineline, Author, How Editors, Booksellers, Publishers, and Other Bookish Types Helped Craft the Environmental Movement in North America
- Dr. Dave Williams, Former Canadian Shuttle Astronaut, ER Doctor and
Aquanaut - A conservation update from the Wilder Institute (Calgary Zoo)
- Peter Mansbridge, Former Chief Correspondent for CBC News and Anchor of The National
CBN Webinar: Strategies for Utilizing Brownfields in the Delivery of Affordable Housing
This webinar will use case studies to explore how municipalities and the private sector are working together to deliver affordable housing while supporting the reuse of brownfield properties, addressing two important public policy objectives. The lessons learned will benefit the spectrum of stakeholders working to deliver affordable housing, as well as, brownfield practitioners, including municipal leaders, developers, and the range of consultants that collectively work to achieve the desired outcomes.
Website Link To Register: https://www.
Brownie Awards 2022
November 14, 2022
The Brownie Awards recognize the builders, innovators and visionaries who are dedicated to the rehabilitation of brownfield sites that were once contaminated, under-utilized and undeveloped into productive residential and commercial projects that contribute to the growth of healthy communities across Canada.
Website Link To Register: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/
ESAA Job Board
Check out the new improved ESAA Job Board. Members can post ads for free.
Current Listings:
- Intermediate Environmental Scientist – Trace Associates Inc.
- Intermediate/Senior Environmental Specialist – Summit, An Earth Services Company
- Environmental Analyst (2) – Summit, An Earth Services Company
- Senior/Intermediate Emissions Specialist – North Shore Environmental Consultants Inc
- Project Manager – Summit, An earth Services Company
- Project Manager- Assessment, Remediation & Risk – Arletta Environmental Consulting Corp.
- Environmental Scientist (Biology/Biologist) – Summit, An earth Services Company
- Junior Environmental Specialist – Evotek Consulting Inc.
- Intermediate Environmental Specialist –Evotek Consulting Inc.
- Intermediate Environmental Specialist – Evotek Consulting Inc.
- Livestock Operations Environmental Inspector – Natural Resources Conservation Board
- Environmental Engineers/Scientists/Technologists – Nichols Environmental (Canada) Ltd.
- Intermediate Environmental Science/Field Technologist – Stantec Consulting
- Crew Truck Lead Hand (2) – Summit, An earth Services Company