Rancher frustrated with AER

TWIN BUTTE RANCHER AIRS FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE ALBERTA ENERGY REGULATOR’S CLEANUPS

Asouthwest Alberta rancher has been wanting inactive sour gas wells to be removed from his property for decades.

Tony Bruder and his family live on their threegeneration ranch near Twin Butte and they’ve been trying to get the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to remove two inactive gas wells.

After years of frustration, Bruder decided to write an article about their issue in hopes of shaming the AER into doing its job. In October, Bruder wrote the article for the online news magazine “DeSmog Canada” about the history of his family on the ranch and the history of the oil wells that have yet to be removed. These wells have been inactive since 1994 and Bruder and his family are frustrated with AER.

“Basically, for the three generations, we’ve been fighting with the oil and gas companies to do what’s right on the landscape … right from the time it was drilled to now,” says Bruder.

He explains every time the lease changes hands between companies, it goes to a smaller company with less regard for the landscape. They generally don’t have any money to do anything. They’re just buying it in the hope that someone will buy it from them and make a profit.

Bruder says, for the last two or three companies that have leased the land, he is continuously having to go through the Section 36 process with the Service Rights Board just to get paid.

“We’ve been wanting, since 1994, for the well site to be cleaned up and reclaimed and … AER keeps telling us that they’re going to get something done and haven’t been … even following their own guidelines so we wrote the article hoping to shame them into actually doing their job,” adds Bruder.

Since Bruder wrote this article, the AER has given the current leasing company another order until this month to do the work. The company recently applied for a May 2017 deadline to get the well site cleaned up and reclaimed.

There has been a company contracted to do the Phase 2 study now and they were supposed to at least do their flagging before Christmas, says Bruder.

This gives Bruder and his family a small amount of relief that action may be starting, but Bruder adds he won’t be confident until he sees Phase 3 and Phase 4 completed.

Bruder says there are no words to explain how frustrated he and his family have become.

Ecojustice has taken on this case for the Bruder family and he is thankful. It’s a long process to get this done, but without Ecojustice, they would just be sitting idle like most of the other landowners in the province in similar situations.

Bruder said in his article there are more than 80,000 inactive oil and gas wells in Alberta and thousands have been decommissioned, but in many cases, the land has not been cleaned up.

There have been multiple emails and letters sent to AER from the Bruder family’s lawyers, Ecojustice.

In 2014, Nomad Exploration Ltd. was issued an order by the AER to decommission the well.

AER eventually had to do the work itself.

Bruder wrote in his article they watched AER officials haul 12 truckloads of contaminated soil from a small portion of the lease site. A preliminary environmental investigation showed there was more contaminated soil on and surrounding the well site.

In September of 2015, Bruder stated in his article the AER ordered Nomad to complete a more detailed site investigation to determine the extent of the contamination. However, Nomad once again did nothing to effectively rectify the situation nor did AER.

After numerous letters from the Ecojustice lawyers and emails, the AER issued another order that asked Nomad to create a plan to commence the site assessment by Aug. 2016. This was the same work they had ordered Nomad to complete the year prior. Nomad did create a plan, but there was no followup.

Bruder and his family are worried about the amount of contaminated soil that now sits on their land because of the inactive wells. They’ve worked hard to preserve that land for future generations.

He wrote in his article that his children are reluctant to take over the property because of the AER’s inaction. It doesn’t help that they have grown up absorbing their parents’ disbelief and frustration at the dim prospects of a cleanup.