ESAA is Hiring!
Application Deadline May 31st
Accountability. Innovative. Community Involvement. Environmental Integrity.
The Environmental Services Association of Alberta (ESAA) was established in 1987. With over two- hundred-member organizations, we have grown to become one of Canada’s leading environment industry associations. ESAA has provides its members with educational publications and conferences; much needed in the ever-changing environmental industry, as well as providing important networking opportunities. ESAA is committed to promoting its many members and their services and is proud to serve its member organizations.
We are looking for our new Manager, Strategic Relations to join our team. This position is responsible for fostering relationships that will promote ESAA and the industry with other industry sectors and levels of government. The role is also responsible for building and fostering relationships, supporting the messaging of key trends, and communicating the changes in the regulatory areas which directly impact the ESAA membership. This position is also responsible for member retention and recruitment activities.
Full details and how to apply available at: https://esaa.org/job/manager-strategic-relations/
Please, no phone calls.
B.C. introduces new legislation for high-risk industrial
Ministry consultation included Indigenous Peoples, industry, local governments and non-profit organizations to help define the proposed legislative changes. This added to extensive research, which included a review of existing programs in other jurisdictions.
If passed, comprehensive engagement and assessment will follow these legislative amendments to establish regulations that protect B.C.’s natural landscape and support its economic future. Any new regulations will include a transition period to give industry time to adapt.
To follow the progress of this bill through the legislature, click here.
BC: Pipeline company ordered to stop work near Prince George for polluting fish-bearing stream
(Source: CBC News) The B.C. government has ordered Coastal GasLink to stop work on a section of pipeline near Prince George after officials found sediment-laden water being “pumped into an area that ran into tributaries of the Anzac River.”
In an email to CBC News, B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office said there were “negative impacts” to a fish-bearing stream, a matter it takes “very seriously.”
High levels of sediment in the water can be deadly to fish and their eggs and destructive to fish habitat.
This incident is the latest in an ongoing pattern of CGL environmental violations.
Many of the violations involve the pollution of sensitive waterways and wetlands through erosion and sediment as CGL builds a natural gas pipeline in northern B.C.
CGL’s construction project crosses about 625 lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, and wetlands, many of them fish-bearing.
The most recent violation was discovered during an onsite inspection on April 24 by the Environmental Assessment Office and the office of the B.C. Energy Regulator, the province’s energy watchdog.
The stop work order was issued to CGL on April 28.
In a written statement, CGL said it had “paused” construction work on a three-kilometre stretch of the project near the Little Anzac River outside of Prince George.
No exact location was specified.
In an email to CBC News, the EAO said its compliance and enforcement branch would assess whether to recommend an administrative penalty against CGL.
Coastal GasLink has been fined just over $450,000 for environmental violations since 2022.
In an email to CBC News, CGL’s parent company TC Energy said its crews are “working hard ” to protect waterways from erosion and sediment amidst “high volumes of snowmelt and rain” this spring.
The company said the stop work order “is not expected to affect the overall project schedule” to complete pipeline construction by the end of 2023.
Two weeks before this most recent environmental violation, CGL reported two spills of clay lubricant while tunnelling under the Morice River.
The bentonite clay is a fine particulate slurry used to install pipeline in the tunnelling process being used at the Morice River crossing.
CGL called it “non-toxic.”
The spill location by the Morice River has for years been the site of conflict between Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose the pipeline and Coastal GasLink.
The salmon-bearing Morice River, on Wet’suwet’en traditional territory, is considered a sacred headwater called the Wedzin Kwa,
When it’s finished, the $11.2-billion CGL pipeline will carry fracked natural gas destined mainly for Asia along a 670-kilometre route to an LNG export facility in Kitimat.
CGL said the pipeline is now 87 per cent complete.
CGL said more than 5,500 people were at work on pipeline construction in March.
Remediation and Reclamation: Going green at Gunnar Mine and Mill
This remediation work is directed by the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) and its Environmental Remediation team with execution by local contractors. SRC is Canada’s second largest research and technology organization supporting innovation and industrial commercialization for clients around the world.
Gunnar is part of Project CLEANS (Cleanup of Abandoned Northern Sites)—a multi-year project focused on remediating 37 uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan that were abandoned by the companies that operated them in the 1950s and 1960s.
A cover system was constructed for Gunnar’s largest tailings areas over a five-year period. This cover, made of local material, was designed to contain the 4.4 million tonnes of tailings left behind from uranium processing. In September 2021, the cover was seeded with a custom mix of vegetation to prevent erosion.
In Spring 2022, SRC observed seed germination—a sign that new growth is coming back to the area for the first time in 60 years.
Environmental consulting and remediation work was of utmost concern during the demolition and cleanup of this site, which consisted of hazardous materials. During operation, the Gunnar Site consisted of:
- An open pit mine (over 100 m deep, 250 m x 300 m in size)
- An underground mine (600 m deep)
- A uranium mill (capacity of 2000 tonnes/day)
- Two acid plants
- Uranium processing buildings
- A community (including a number of residential, public, administrative and technical buildings)
- Approximately 4.4 million tonnes of tailings
- Approximately 2.2 to 2.7 million tonnes of waste rock
When the mine closed a narrow trench was blasted in the rock between the pit and Lake Athabasca to flood the pit and the underground workings. In 1966, the channel was filled with waste rock as a barrier between the pit and the lake.
The Fond du Lac Nuna Joint Venture (FDLNJV) undertook the construction of the cover system for the largest tailings area, as well as the complete their demobilization. QMPoints and SRK also regraded and covered the waste rock piles, completing the hazardous waste landfill and capping mine openings. Proper planning and scheduling was critical throughout the process.
Michael Bendzsak is a Registered Professional Forester and Research Scientist in SRC’s Environment and Biotech Division. Over the years, Bendzsak has worked on various remediation projects for SRC.
“My background is a silviculture forester, and I’m very interested in working with natural processes to restore ecosystem function, while providing societal benefits,” says Bendzsak.
With over 20 years of experience, Bendzsak’s background has mainly been in forest management and applied forest research. His work in forest renewal has recently expanded to reclamation efforts.
Revegetation is one important step of the remediation process. Re-establishing local vegetation growth is critical to maintaining the protective tailings cover, while also facilitating the return of wildlife and encouraging plant diversity.
The Project CLEANS team consulted with local Indigenous Elders on selecting plant species and techniques and spent time in the field together. Elders provided input on plants that grow in the region and are used by Indigenous people. This information helped guide the selection of native plants to seed. For example, hardy plant varieties are key to stabilizing the Project CLEANS sites and rehabilitating the ecosystem.
“In the case of Gunnar, emphasis is placed on promoting early successional plant communities—grasses in particular—to stabilize the site and allow other native vegetation to naturally re-populate the area,” says Bendzsak.
To establish the regrowth of native plants, SRC needed to cultivate the right environment at Gunnar. Once the soil cover was established, it was seeded with different varieties of native grasses. This was done before the first snowfall of 2021 to give the seeds ample moisture and time for germination in the spring.
After lying dormant for the winter, these seeds successfully sprouted in 2022—marking an exciting first step in the revegetation process.
SRC will continue this work for several years.
“As remediation work is completed, new areas will be ready for revegetation,” says Bendzsak. “This past fall, revegetation work focused on seeding the mine’s former waste rock piles and infrastructure areas.”
Revegetation provides a continuous green cover of the engineered surfaces, preventing cover materials from eroding. The root systems of the seeded grasses will help keep the soil and gravel in place, extending the lifespan of the covering that encapsulates the tailings area.
Bendzsak says these hardy grasses are capable of incredible work.
“Seeded grasses actively anchor the cover with their root systems and are dynamic in that they can ‘self-repair’ in the event of an unforeseen future soil disturbance,” says Bendzsak.
Over time, the Gunnar Site will be naturally re-populated by shrubs and trees, bringing it closer to its former natural state.
The Gunnar Mine and Mill Site consists of anthroposols—soils that have been drastically changed by human activity. Construction of the uranium mine profoundly disrupted the natural ecosystem and altered the soil profiles in the surrounding area.
Bendzsak says it’s not possible to undo all the past disturbances and restore the area to its pre-mining days. However, the remediation process introduces new soil profiles that cover the damage.
“We have also tasked these novel soils to mimic and support ecosystem function. It’s a tall order,” says Bendzsak.
The grasses and other plants chosen for the revegetation process help to kick-start new life into the area. The deep-rooted grass initiates soil carbon cycling while other plants, like legumes, fix atmospheric nitrogen to help future plant communities grow and thrive.
In time, the soil carbon and available nitrogen will increase and support a diverse and developing ecosystem.
SRC needed to take a creative approach to the revegetation project. Since the Gunnar Mine and Mill Site is located in a very remote area of northern Saskatchewan, the site can only be accessed by a winter road. Without that road, all supplies and personnel must be flown or barged in.
Gunnar’s isolated location poses several challenges to the remediation effort and makes it difficult to tackle revegetation using traditional methods.
“One of the more common revegetation methods, called hydroseeding, focuses on using specialized heavy machinery to blanket a given area with a hydraulic slurry of mulch and seed,” says Bendzsak. “It’s a popular method, as the mulch provides a good germinating environment, and plant responses to it are well known.”
But using this method at Gunnar would’ve required massive amounts of mulch and large volumes of water. Transporting machinery and supplies would have been incredibly difficult and quite costly.
SRC decided to use a different approach based on Bendzsak’s previous work.
Bendzsak and the team used two small plot seeders to revegetate the tailings area. First, they applied a top dressing of fertilizer. The fertilizer was incorporated into the soil to lock it in place and reduce runoff. A seed mixture was applied on top of the fertilized cover and tamped down into the soil.
SRC’s direct seeding approach was successful, and early observations have Bendzsak optimistic.
While most of the large tailing areas have been covered and seeded, and show successful growth, there is still work to be done. Abandoned infrastructure—that supported the old uranium operations—is still being remediated.
As work progresses, the team will follow with revegetation treatments until the entire site has been completed.
Over the next few years, Gunnar will slowly begin to support an ecosystem again.
Bendzsak says that vegetation surveys will help evaluate the long-term success of the project. These surveys will ensure that the area is stabilized and confirm that erosion has not occurred.
The team will also be able to monitor the new plant systems and measure the established vegetation communities.
“I’m immensely satisfied, both personally and professionally, when I visit an area we successfully revegetated,” says Bendzsak. Hopefully the successful regrowth of this mining site will inspire many more.
US Supreme Court Limits E.P.A.’s Power to Address Water Pollution
(Source: New York Times) Experts said the decision would sharply undercut the agency’s authority to protect millions of acres of wetlands under the Clean Water Act, leaving them subject to pollution without penalty.
The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to police millions of acres of wetlands, delivering another setback to the agency’s ability to combat pollution.
Writing for five justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said that the Clean Water Act does not allow the agency to regulate discharges into wetlands near bodies of water unless they have “a continuous surface connection” to those waters.
The decision was a second major blow to the E.P.A.’s authority and to the power of administrative agencies generally. Last year, the court limited the E.P.A.’s power to address climate change under the Clean Air Act.
Experts in environmental law said the decision would leave many wetlands subject to pollution without penalty, sharply undercutting the E.P.A.’s authority to protect them under the Clean Water Act.
“This is a really disastrous outcome for wetlands, which have become absolutely vital for biodiversity preservation and flood control,” said Patrick Parenteau, a professor at Vermont Law School.
Kevin Minoli, who worked as a senior E.P.A. lawyer from the Clinton through the Trump administrations, overseeing the enforcement of Clean Water Act regulations, said the decision would have enormous practical consequences and estimated that it would affect more than half the nation’s wetlands.
“If you’re in an area with a lot of wetlands, but those wetlands are not directly connected to a continuously flowing water body, then those wetlands are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act,” he said.
The decision was nominally unanimous, with all the justices agreeing that the homeowners who brought the case should not have been subject to the agency’s oversight because the wetlands on their property were not subject to regulation in any event. But there was sharp disagreement about a new test the majority established to determine which wetlands are covered by the law.
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, joined by the three liberal justices in a concurring opinion, said the decision would harm the federal government’s ability to address pollution and flooding.
“By narrowing the act’s coverage of wetlands to only adjoining wetlands,” he wrote, “the court’s new test will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”
In a second concurring opinion, Justice Elena Kagan, referring to the court’s decision in June to curtail the E.P.A.’s ability to restrict power plant emissions, criticized the majority’s interpretation of the law.
“There,” she wrote, “the majority’s non-textualism barred the E.P.A. from addressing climate change by curbing power plant emissions in the most effective way. Here, that method prevents the E.P.A. from keeping our country’s waters clean by regulating adjacent wetlands. The vice in both instances is the same: the court’s appointment of itself as the national decision maker on environmental policy.”
The ruling was also another example of the court’s skepticism of the authority of administrative agencies, said Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University. “The current court,” he said, “is clearly unwilling to defer to an agency about the scope of that agency’s own power.”
Damien Schiff, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the homeowners in the case, praised the Supreme Court’s decision. “Courts now have a clear measuring stick for fairness and consistency by federal regulators,” he said in a statement. “Today’s ruling is a profound win for property rights and the constitutional separation of powers.”
President Biden expressed dismay with the ruling and said his administration would consider next steps. “It puts our nation’s wetlands — and the rivers, streams, lakes and ponds connected to them — at risk of pollution and destruction, jeopardizing the sources of clean water that millions of American families, farmers and businesses rely on,” he said in a statement.
The case, Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 21-454, concerned an Idaho couple, Michael and Chantell Sackett, who sought to build a house on what an appeals court called “a soggy residential lot” near Priest Lake, in the state’s panhandle.
After the couple started preparing the property for construction in 2007 by adding sand gravel and fill, the agency ordered them to stop and return the property to its original state, threatening them with substantial fines. The couple instead sued the agency, and a dispute about whether that lawsuit was premature reached the Supreme Court in an earlier appeal. In 2012, the justices ruled that the suit could proceed.
In a concurring opinion at the time, Justice Alito said the law gave the agency too much power.
“The reach of the Clean Water Act is notoriously unclear,” he wrote. “Any piece of land that is wet at least part of the year is in danger of being classified by E.P.A. employees as wetlands covered by the act, and according to the federal government, if property owners begin to construct a home on a lot that the agency thinks possesses the requisite wetness, the property owners are at the agency’s mercy.”
On Thursday, all nine justices agreed that the agency had gone too far in seeking to regulate the Sacketts’ property.
“I agree with the court’s bottom-line judgment,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote, “that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property are not covered by the act and are therefore not subject to permitting requirements.”
That suggested that the court could have issued a far more limited ruling, Professor Parenteau said.
“They could have rendered a narrow decision based on the facts of the Sackett case and said, in this case, where a wetland is this small and is not connected to the lake, it should not be subject to federal control.”
Instead, he said, the majority “fashioned a policy for the entire United States based on this one particular set of facts of this property in northern Idaho.”
The two sides on Thursday differed principally on the Clean Water Act’s coverage of wetlands that are “adjacent” to what the law calls “waters of the United States.”
That second term, Justice Alito wrote, “was decidedly not a well-known term of art” and a “frustrating drafting choice.” He said it included “streams, oceans, rivers and lakes.”
But what does it mean for wetlands to be “adjacent” to such bodies of water? Justice Alito wrote the term can mean “contiguous” or “near.” For purposes of the Clean Water Act, he wrote, “wetlands that are separate from traditional navigable waters cannot be considered part of those waters, even if they are located nearby.”
The four justices in the minority took a different view.
“‘Adjacent’ and ‘adjoining’ have distinct meaning,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote, adding that he would have included wetlands that are “separated from a covered water only by a man-made dike or barrier, natural river berm, beach dune, or the like.”
He added: “There is a good reason why Congress covered not only adjoining wetlands but also adjacent wetlands. Because of the movement of water between adjacent wetlands and other waters, pollutants in wetlands often end up in adjacent rivers, lakes and other waters.”
Justice Kagan gave an example of the difference between adjoining and adjacent.
“In ordinary language,” she wrote, “one thing is adjacent to another not only when it is touching, but also when it is nearby. So, for example, one house is adjacent to another even when a stretch of grass and a picket fence separate the two.”
Justice Alito responded, quoting from an earlier decision, that Congress must use “exceedingly clear language if it wishes to significantly alter the balance between federal and state power and the power of the government over private property.”
Justice Kagan wrote that last year’s climate-change decision used similar reasoning, invoking “another clear-statement rule (the so-called major questions doctrine) to diminish another plainly expansive term.”
She added: “Today’s pop-up clear-statement rule is explicable only as a reflexive response to Congress’s enactment of an ambitious scheme of environmental regulation. It is an effort to cabin the anti-pollution actions Congress thought appropriate.”
Lower courts ruled that the Sacketts’ property was a wetland that the agency could regulate, concluding that it qualified under a 2006 Supreme Court decision, Rapanos v. United States, which featured competing tests for deciding that question.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016, wrote for four justices in the Rapanos decision that only wetlands with “a continuous surface connection” to “relatively permanent, standing or flowing bodies of water” qualify.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who retired in 2018, said in a concurring opinion that the law required only a “significant nexus” between the wetlands at issue and bodies of waters.
The decision on Thursday rejected that view. “It’s striking,” Professor Adler said, “that no justice sought to preserve the ‘significant nexus’ test Justice Kennedy had articulated in Rapanos.”
As Warming Melts the Permafrost, Toxic Waste from 10,000 Contaminated Areas Could Spill Into the Arctic!
(Source: The Weather Channel) Forget mainstream news, even meme pages on social media are littered with exasperated groans of people finding out scientists have dug out ancient ‘zombie’ microbes from the Arctic.
While it is somewhat difficult to pinpoint how much of this paranoia is actually justified, the ‘zombies’ might not be the only foe we uncover as global warming tears through the permafrost — frozen surface soil encompassing substantial parts of Alaska, Greenland, Canada and Siberia.
Despite seeming wild and untouched, the mineral-rich Arctic has been home to many industrial facilities such as oilfields, mines and military bases since the end of the 19th century.
Unfortunately, this was far from the time when the world cared about conservation and sustainability. Therefore, the corporations, being largely unchecked, buried all their toxic waste under the permafrost.
This dumping was largely done under the assumption that the permafrost was stable and here to stay. But as we know, the masses didn’t catch wind of the global warming phenomenon until it was too late. In fact, studies from the time actually hinted otherwise.
“A major problem is that for a long time, the consequences of global warming and thawing permafrost were not taken into account and definitely underestimated. There are many engineering studies from that time that consider permafrost as a favourable condition for the disposal of industrial legacies and other wastes,” Moritz Langer, one of the study authors, told The Indian Express.
“Today, these former practices — some of which are still in use — are becoming an increasing problem as large parts of the Arctic are already affected by thawing permafrost.”
The waste products in question, ranging from drilling and mining wastes to toxic substances such as mine waste heaps, heavy metals and radioactive wastes, threaten to be exposed back to the Arctic environment once warming melts the permafrost.
Adding to the agony is the fact that the Arctic is heating up nearly four times as fast as the rest of the planet. As the permafrost thaws, it could also destabilise the existing infrastructure and contaminated sites, unleashing a flurry of toxic waste that could threaten species living in the area and the people who eat them.
According to the study, the risk stems from about 1,000 industrial sites and 2,200 to 4,800 contaminated areas that are at risk of destabilisation. However, if we touch the feared 2°C warming target, all of these already-dreary numbers could more than double.
And there are also the inherent risks associated with a melting Arctic. The area is critical for several planetary regulations, such as reflecting most of the Sun’s radiation back into space. In addition, the warming permafrost could release an astronomical amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
“Arctic permafrost alone holds an estimated 1,700 billion metric tons of carbon, including methane and carbon dioxide. That’s roughly 51 times the amount of carbon the world released as fossil fuel emissions in 2019,” a NASA report outlines. Action to contain these consequences is critical.
The findings of this study have been published in Nature Communications and can be accessed here.
Upcoming Industry Events
RemTech East
May 30 -June 1, 2023
Fallsview Casino and Resort
Niagara Falls, ONLAST CHANCE TO REGISTER
RemTech East starts in 3 weeks. Still time to register.
The program features 42 technical talks covering a number of topic areas, plus a special session specific to Ontario regulations.
The program also features keynotes by: Matt Jamieson, President/CEO Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation, Brian Keating, Going Wild, Tovah Barocas, Earth Rangers and Yvonne Camus, Eco Challenge Adventure Racer.
The conference also features 45 exhibits, numerous networking opportunities and two amazing receptions including one at Table Rock Restaurant.
Program details can be found at: https://esaa.org/remtecheast/
agenda/ Full conference details at: https://esaa.org/remtecheast/
Registration Fees
ESAA / ONEIA / QPCO Member $875 Register Now Non-Member $995 Register Now Student $225 Register Now Hotel Reservations – For full details visit: https://esaa.org/remtecheast/hotel-travel/ Hotel Reservation deadline is April 28th. ESAA and ONEIA look forward to seeing you at the Falls!
PTAC Reclamation Forum
The PTAC Remediation Reclamation Research Committee (RRRC) has provided a central gathering place for hundreds of research and technology providers, oil and gas producers, academia, government organizations, and regulators to collaborate and advance new innovations, supported through the Alberta Upstream Petroleum Research Fund (AUPRF). This unique collaborative approach allows consortium to work together to identify challenges, leverage funding and technical expertise, and support applied research and technology development activities in the hydrocarbon energy industry.
The PTAC RRRC has evaluated that four recently completed projects resulted in a realized cost savings estimated to be $93M annually. Program results have proven against the conventional wisdom of economics that there is a trade-off between social license and fiscal performance. Business can indeed profit while reducing environmental liability through collaborative solutions, oriented toward research and innovation that drive smart policies and regulations, while improving environmental performance and cost savings in an efficient, effective, and predictable manner.
In following our mission and vision, PTAC will continue to assist more producers, research and technology providers and industry stakeholders to get engaged in expanding our industry’s innovation ecosystem. Please join the PTAC RRRC May 30th, 2023 at the Remediation Reclamation Forum as we will host presentations from current projects. You will learn how the practical application of outcomes will benefit your organization with realizing significant cost savings while reducing environmental footprint.
More details at: https://shop.ptac.org/product/2023-ptac-remediation-reclamation-forum3rd-annual-digital-innovation-in-oil-and-gas-forum-copy/
2023 Hybrid Greening & Sustainability Workshop
June 13-14th, Ottawa
This first-ever Real Property Institute of Canada (RPIC) greening workshop is happening from June 13 and 14, 2023, at the Shaw Centre (55 Colonel By Dr, Ottawa) and online. This year’s learning themes explore different pathways to achieve net-zero, eliminate waste in the real property life-cycle, or reduce climate change risks to federal assets.
For more information visit: https://rpic-ibic.ca/professional-dev/2023-hybrid-greening-sustainability-workshop/
ESAA Job Board
Check out the new improved ESAA Job Board. Members can post ads for free.
Current Listings:
- Manager, Strategic Relations – ESAA
- Intermediate/Senior Environmental Specialist – Summit
- Senior Reclamation Specialist – H3M Environmental
- Senior Environmental Professional, Reclamation & Remediation – H3M Environmental
- SENIOR CONTAMINATED SITES SPECIALIST – Matrix Solutions
- Senior Advisor, Environment With Specialization in Ecology, Wildlife, Environmental Planning and Monitoring – EPCOR
- Intermediate Environmental Scientist (Various Locations) – 360 Energy Liability Management
- Environmental Manager (remote) – Action Land & Environmental Services Ltd.
- Senior Environmental Professional, Planning – H3M Environmental
- Senior Environmental Professional, Planning – H3M Environmental
- Labourer – Summit