The Environment Under Alberta's New UCP Regime
A confrontational stance by the UCP in defense of its beloved energy industry pits environment against economy
The United Conservative Party (UCP) under the leadership of Danielle Smith has been handed a majority mandate by the people of Alberta. One issue that did not receive nearly the attention that it deserved during the election campaign was the environment. Neither candidate mentioned the environment or climate change during the only televised debate, despite both parties (NDP, UCP) at least paying lip service to it in their published platforms. That’s because, like taxes, the environment is anathema to the Albertan electorate. Unfortunately, ignoring environmental issues in a province that depends on natural resource extraction at the expense of the environment has serious consequences that are already being felt today. Look no further than the unprecedented wildfires that burnt through Alberta while the election was underway.
In the following paragraphs I outline a some of the more pressing environmental issues facing Alberta following the 2023 election and provide a few thoughts about how the new UCP government is likely to handle them.
Coal
When Jason Kenney was elected as Alberta’s first UCP premier, one of the first things he did was close, sell, or privatize many of Alberta’s parks and natural spaces. The move was ostensibly to save money. But even after offloading a significant proportion of the province’s parks, it only amounted to about $5 million in savings. The notion that it was a cost-saving measure was almost laughable, especially when one overlaid a map of the parks slated for privatization with one showing the locations of undeveloped coal reserves. At the same time as the province’s natural places were being sold off to private interests, the UCP government rescinded the 1976 coal policy that prohibited coal development in ecologically sensitive areas in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and issued exploration permits to foreign coal companies. They only backed off in the face of a massive public backlash, much of which came from the same voters that elected the UCP into power, such as the ranchers who recognized the potential risk of mine-contaminated water to their livestock. Although Kenney backed down and reinstated the coal policy, Danielle Smith has indicated that she’s not opposed to reopening this contentious issue. Albertans can expect to see renewed activity directed towards metallurgical coal extraction from the eastern slopes, in some cases using controversial mining techniques, such as mountaintop removal.
Mountaintop removal mining is an extremely invasive extraction technique. As the name implies, it involves using explosives and heavy equipment to literally remove the tops of mountains in order to access the coal deposits that reside below. The technique was developed in the United States, where it’s used extensively, especially in Central Appalachia, to access shallow coal deposits at low cost. The physical disturbance that results from this kind of mining produces prodigious volumes of contaminated mine waste and dust, the latter of which can be transported over very long distances by wind. Open pit coal mines operating in the southeastern corner of British Columbia also produce contaminated dust that is carried by wind across the Continental Divide into Alberta where it is deposited on land, in snowpack, and ultimately in water bodies across southern Alberta. If Danielle Smith and the UCP rescind the 1976 coal policy again and open up the eastern slopes to mountaintop removal or open pit coal mining, any land or water downwind (predominantly east owing to the prevailing westerly winds in that area) is likely to become contaminated by dust-blown metals, such as arsenic and cadmium, and non-metals, such as hydrocarbons and selenium. The UCP government has already refused to share existing contaminant data with the general public. If these coal deposits are developed under this government, and they continue to withhold important contaminant data, it will be difficult to evaluate the extent or magnitude of environmental contamination (as I’ve written here).
Abandoned Oil Wells
Alberta has a $130 billion (with a “B”) problem with abandoned oil wells (double that, $260 billion, if you include remediation of oil sands operations). The province has roughly 162,500 active oil wells. But it also has 97,000 inactive and abandoned oil wells in addition to another 71,000 that have either been sealed or otherwise taken out of commission but not remediated. And the numbers are growing. The number of inactive wells increased by 50% between 2015 and 2020. In 2021, the Alberta Energy Regulator closed over 6,500 wells, but reclaimed only 2,600. When oil prices fall, small oil well operators become insolvent and walk away from their wells and any obligations they have for well remediation or land reclamation. The cost of clean up then falls to the landowners on whose land the wells reside or the taxpayers of Alberta1.
Before a permit is issued for a new well, the company must commit to environmental remediation. This commitment includes a financial commitment that is collected up front to pay for the remediation. Despite this legal and financial obligation, many companies, regardless of their insolvency status, simply abandon the site without delivering on their remediation commitment. Part of the issue is that there is no time limit for remediation, so companies can delay without risk of penalty. Another part of the issue is that the Alberta government has only collected about $1.6 billion from industry for site remediation, which is less than 1% of the liability cost2. These are not insignificant costs; they represent “almost five times the cost of the Alberta government’s total spending in 2018 and are growing by an estimated $8 billion to $11 billion every year” (Ascah, 2021 cited in Taft, 2023).
Before her most recent run for public office, Danielle Smith was an oil lobbyist with the Alberta Energy Group. In that role, she lobbied for the R-Star program as a way to incentivize oil and gas operators to clean up their abandoned oil wells across the province. The R-Star program was designed by the Sustaining Alberta’s Energy Network (whose ironic acronym parses to SAEN), an organization founded by Kris Kinnear. The program would forgive royalty payments from oil producers to the province to offset the cost of site remediation. Oil royalties are one way the people of Alberta prosper from oil production. When the R-Star program was originally proposed while Jason Kenney was premier, his energy minister, Sonia Savage, rejected it. Smith hired SAEN’s founder, Kris Kinnear, to be her campaign manager for her recent run for public office. When she was first appointed to the premiership when Kenney was ousted, she appointed Kinnear to Special Project Manager in the premier’s office and appointed Peter Guthrie—another R-Star advocate—to the energy portfolio. If the R-Star program gets implemented, it will effectively transfer $20 billion of “incentive” from the pockets of Albertans to Big Oil’s bottom line. And given how Big Oil has a penchant for hoarding its previous “incentives”—like corporate tax and royalty cuts—instead of allowing them to trickle down to the people of Alberta, I expect more of the same under a new UCP government led by Danielle Smith.
Oil Sands Tailings
Oil sands mining and upgrading is water-intensive. Bitumen is the natural material mined in an oil sands operation. To separate the oil from its sandy substrate, bitumen is treated with hot water. After the oil and a few other marketable byproducts are removed, the remaining water and solid waste material—the tailings—are stored in massive ponds. Some of the water is recycled for use in other mining processes. But each time the water is recycled it becomes increasingly unusable and is treated as another waste product. Until now, the tailings from oil sands mining have been stored because of their potential toxicity3 and the risk they pose to receiving-water ecosystems and downstream drinking water supplies. Unfortunately, these tailings storage ponds are so massive that oil sands operators are running out of storage capacity and plans are afoot to treat and release tailings water back to the environment.
Any water that comes into contact with oil sand in a bitumen mining operation is called oil sands process-affected water (OSPW). The composition of OSPW varies depending on a number of different factors, but usually contains a complex mixture of potential toxicants, including naphthenic acids, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), BTEX (a mixture of organic solvents; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene), phenols, metals, and salts. Organisms exposed to OSPW have shown signs of toxicity, including abnormal behaviour, tissue lesions, endocrine dysfunction, immunity disorders, impaired development, stunted growth, reduced reproductive success, and premature death. Naphthenic acids are thought to be the primary contributor to OSPW toxicity, but other constituents are likely to contribute to toxicity depending on their concentration, the composition of the specific OSPW under investigation, and the different sensitivities of the organisms involved.
A great deal of research has gone into understanding the nature of OSPW and its toxicity to organisms inhabiting potential discharge receiving waters—like the Athabasca River. Innovative treatments have been developed that show considerable promise for remediating OSPW to a point where it may be possible to safely discharge at least some of it into natural receiving waters. However, the proposal to release OSPW to natural systems has met with considerable opposition, particularly by downstream Indigenous communities who are concerned that it will contaminate traditional food sources and drinking water supplies, which they feel have already been compromised by upstream industrial activity.
Protecting natural water bodies against industrial contamination falls under federal jurisdiction. The first piece of legislation introduced after first being appointed as Alberta’s premier was Danielle Smith’s Bill 1, Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act (which I wrote about here). This act allows the Alberta government to effectively ignore any federal legislation that it deems to infringe upon Alberta’s provincial jurisdiction, especially as it relates to natural resource development. Unless major oil sands operations can free up tailings storage capacity, production may need to be curtailed to ensure untreated waste materials are not released to the environment. I expect a jurisdictional conflict between federal and provincial governments over this issue, which may involve an invocation of the newly minted Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act. I anticipate that Smith’s UCP government will remove any remaining legislative barriers to releasing treated OSPW to natural receiving waters, regardless of the legitimate concerns raised by downstream Indigenous communities or conservation biologists. The Act will be invoked to protect oil production when the federal government invokes its jurisdictional right to protect natural waters.
Energy Production and Climate Change
The Government of Canada has committed to reducing carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. In order for it to achieve those targets, it needs buy-in from Alberta—Canada’s biggest carbon emitter, by far. But Danielle Smith continues to push back against these federal commitments by citing jurisdictional overreach by the federal government by imposing their targets on an unwilling Alberta, and that the federal targets are simply unachievable. According to Smith, the only way that Canada can achieve these targets is to impose a production cap on oil and gas production, which she will not allow. Instead, Smith is proposing an “aspirational” target (whatever that means) of net-zero emissions by 2050, which aligns with federal targets; but instead of imposing production caps she says the target can be achieved through technological innovations like carbon capture and storage and developing alternative energy commodities, like liquid natural gas and hydrogen.
Although I agree with Smith that technological innovation has a role to play in reducing carbon emissions, it’s not enough on its own4. Smith’s view is that production can continue to grow as long as technological interventions can capture and store sufficient quantities of carbon emissions, allowing Alberta’s economy to thrive. But this is a wild underestimate of the problem. Alberta has 140,000 square kilometres of bitumen in three large deposits; the Cold Lake deposit, the Peace River deposit, and by far the largest, the Athabasca deposit. After decades of extraction, fewer than 800 square kilometres has been mined. Alberta has a lot of oil! It’s the third largest oil reserve on Earth, only behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
The economic argument makes sense in a world of growing oil demand. But that was yesterday’s world. Although there is some disagreement among experts about the timing of peak oil, with some arguing it’s already occurred, while others suggest it’s imminent (2025-2030), there is little disagreement that oil’s best days are behind it. Alberta’s oil is the most carbon intensive in the world. Unlike conventional crude oil production, where oil is pumped directly from underground reserves, Alberta’s bitumen requires much more energy for extracting and upgrading before a marketable product is produced. This upgrading is itself carbon intensive, which is why the Alberta oil sands is often the target of worldwide scorn; while other countries make important economic sacrifices for the sake of lowering global greenhouse gas emissions, Alberta continues to develop and grow its beloved oil and gas industry.
Danielle Smith and the UCP will be undeterred by worldwide scorn. Oil and gas production will continue to be a centerpiece of the UCP agenda, where nearly every piece of legislation will be shaped by its impact on oil and gas production. As others have argued before, UCP economic policy will significantly benefit oil and gas producers but at the expense of Alberta taxpayers, and in particular, at the expense of the environment. New international trade agreements, such as the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme or its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will impose tariffs on imported goods manufactured by carbon-intensive processes. Consequently, the UCP’s belligerent stance with Ottawa threatens international trade with our long-standing trading partners who, unlike Alberta, are taking the threat of climate change seriously.
Conclusion
The environment is barely a passing consideration for the UCP government, especially given the contempt it showed towards the environment during their last mandate under Jason Kenney. Instead of appreciating the value the environment provides in supporting healthy and diverse ecosystems, clean air and drinking water, and recreational opportunities, the UCP has viewed it as something either to be monetized for profit or as an obstacle to be overcome for the sake of its corporate overlord, the oil and gas industry. It continues to ignore the strong majority of Albertans who acknowledge the risks of climate change and support aggressive action to do something about it. Instead, it will continue to pick fights with Ottawa—particularly Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government—on environmental policy, which will probably include the first invocation of the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act. Its propaganda machine, the Canadian Energy Centre, known more commonly as the “War Room”—a $30 million a year propaganda machine (or professional Twitter troll)—will continue to harass critics of the oil and gas industry by using an age-old strategy of instilling uncertainty in credible environmental science. The net effect of all this is that the new UCP government under Danielle Smith will advance the oil and gas interests ahead of those of regular Albertans (whether they realize it or not). What’s potentially worse is that these same strategies will have a broader impact on the rest of Canada, who, like the majority of Albertans, want strong and effective measures to address their very real concerns about climate change. While Alberta decides what kind of relationship it wants to have with the rest of Canada, Canada should also reflect on its relationship with Alberta under this UCP regime.
Goodday, V. and B. Larson. 2021. The surface owner’s burden: Landowner rights and Alberta’s oil and gas well liabilities crisis. The School of Public Policy Publications. University of Calgary. Vol. 14:16. p. 41. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3850218.
Taft, K. 2023. The future is past: A political history of the UCP energy policy. In: (Harrison, T. and R. Acuña, eds.) Anger and Angst: Jason Kenney’s Legacy and Alberta’s Right. Black Rose Books, Montreal, PQ. pp. 177-201.
Li, C., Fu, L., Stafford, J., Belosevic, M., Gamal El-Din, M., 2017. The toxicity of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW): A critical review. Science of The Total Environment. 601–602: 1785–1802. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.06.024.
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