Fine for oilsands water violation to be used to establish wetlands
Court orders Grizzly Oil Sands to pay most of $100,000 to fund
An Alberta firm that violated the province’s Water Act at one of its work sites in the oilsands has been fined $100,000, with a majority of funds earmarked to establish wetlands that contain plants of cultural significance to aboriginal communities.
In provincial court in Fort McMurray last month, Grizzly Oil Sands ULC pleaded guilty to breaching conditions of a water-usage licence obtained in conjunction with construction and exploration activities at one of its bitumen-mining properties in the region.
As part of its sentence, $90,688 is being used to bankroll a revegetation project near Conklin in which plants for food, medicinal and spiritual purposes will be reintroduced, including Sweetgrass, paper birch, Labrador tea, bearberry, bog cranberry and dwarf raspberry. The remaining $9,312 will be paid as a fine.
According to a statement of facts in support of the company’s guilty plea, Grizzly hired a contractor to oversee field operations at three work sites in the oilsands. The firm said that without its knowledge, the contracted employee diverted more water than Grizzly’s licences allowed at each of the sites from Nov. 3, 2010, until April 27, 2011, and then falsified documents to cover it up.
Irregularities were discovered during inspections conducted by Alberta’s Department of Environmental Resource Development, after which the contractor acknowledged violations to officials at Grizzly Oil Sands. The contractor was immediately terminated by Grizzly, and the company contacted government officials to report the violations, the statement of fact says.
An audit conducted by Grizzly for its 2010-11 drilling season shows it exceeded water-usage licence limits at the projects by a cumulative 26,964 cubic metres. Its guilty plea involves only its Thickwood property, however.
At each site, an extensive amount of water is diverted for both freezing down access roads and boring exploration holes. A separate document, called a temporary diversion licence, is required for each source from which water is diverted, with the holder of the licence required to record and report the volumes.
Although the Crown agreed Grizzly was itself a victim of falsified and inaccurate reporting, the company acknowledged it did not have adequate mechanisms in place to supervise the contractor’s activities, and did not have proper guidelines in place with respect to water being diverted.
The firm has until April 28 to pay its fine and deposit $90,688 into the trust account of Alberta Innovates.
According to court documents, the creative sentencing project is designed to benefit the environment and help offset any potential harm that was done to the ecosystem by establishing wetlands in the same region where the offence took place.