David Dougherty, member of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, writes:
Synopsis of the Review Panel Report on the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Kearl Bitumen Mine.
June 2019
This is a very quick analysis of the archived review panel report on the environmental impact assessment (EIA). I have not covered everything in the panel report as there is far too much text to cover it quickly. The idea was to provide CACOR members with the flavour of the work.
When I picked this particular EIA I had not known, or at least had not recalled, the history of this particular project, though I did know the project is now in operation.
The analysis is solely mine. I have presented here my understanding of the written content of the report, often verbatim or nearly so. There has been no external review or collaboration. I did the review in response to a question from another CACOR member regarding the EIA status of bitumen mining in Alberta. My purpose was not to opine on the wisdom of bitumen extraction. Rather it was to summarize the content of the review panel’s report on the EIA & provide some sense for how comprehensive the EIA & the review were.
A priori, it is important to understand that a good EIA is supposed to identify what society needs, the alternative ways in which such needs could be satisfied, & the most cost-effective & least environmentally damaging of those alternatives. For example, this is how the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency put it in relation to a mine: “The Proponent shall clearly describe the rationale or need for the Project. This description shall define the problem or opportunity the Project is intending to solve or satisfy.”
Essentials
- The archived document I found was a 127-page review panel report, dated February 2007, on the environmental impact assessment completed by Imperial Oil (the proponent), with the help of Golder Associates & subcontractors (consultants)—the panel report was archived on the internet by the Alberta regulator
- https://www.aer.ca/documents/decisions/2007/2007-013.pdf
- Joint Panel Report, EUB Decision 2007-013. Imperial Oil Resources Ventures Limited Application for an Oil Sands Mine and Bitumen Processing Facility (Kearl Oil Sands Project) in the Fort McMurray Area
- The EIA was conducted as a joint federal-provincial undertaking, in large measure because of the fisheries aspects (federal) & the resource aspects (provincial)
- The review panel approved the project, placing 17 conditions on the proponent
- The three panel members appear to have been JD Nichols (P Eng), T McGee, & L Cooke, & I have been unable to find any additional information on these people, including when they were appointed & by whom
- There had been problems with the assessment process
- In February 2008, Ecojustice went to court on behalf of Pembina Institute, Sierra Club of Canada, Toxics Watch Society of Alberta, & the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition, arguing that the review panel had failed to do its job, & that a proper environmental review must take place before the federal government can decide whether to allow the project to proceed—in March 2008, the Federal Court ruled in favour of the plaintiffs, saying that the panel had made crucial legal errors & ordering the panel to review its decision—Fisheries & Oceans Canada then revoked a key water permit
- In a case commentary, Dr NJ Chalifour gave the opinion that the underlying reason for the court’s ruling was that the proponent failed to apply the precautionary principle, though the court’s stated reasons were essentially that the review panel had relied on quite uncertain pronouncements from the proponent regarding the future impacts of the project & had not taken into proper consideration the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions
- By summer 2008, the federal government had given the final federal approval for the project following submission of some additional information by the proponent—the water permit was reinstated
- Total area to be occupied ~200 km2, 1/3 the size of the City of Toronto
- Three ore production/extraction trains running simultaneously to extract bitumen
- Four open pit mines over the life of the mine
- Production of ~50,000 m3/d of partly deasphalted bitumen, so ~17.5 million m3/y & ~875 million m3 over the 50 years of planned operation
- Movement of bitumen offsite by pipeline using diluent to produce diluted bitumen (dilbit)
- Considerable air emissions (e.g., regional NOx emissions increased by 11%, acid forming compounds by 6% over the ‘existing & approved case’)
- Bitumen production started in 2013, expanded in 2015, & is now being expanded again
Objections & Concerns Raised in the Hearing Process
- The Oil Sands Environmental Coalition raised issues regarding
- NOx in the region
- GHGs & climate change
- Water withdrawals from the Athabasca River during low flow (winter)
- Lack of mitigation plans regarding wildlife & wetlands
- Absence of consideration of foreseeable development
- An outdated (low) royalty regime that would return little value to the Crown
- Negative regional socioeconomic impacts, which is infamous for drug abuse & crime
- Inability to sustain the woodland caribou & traditional lifestyles, & various other elements of the ecosystem (water, wetlands, waterfowl, commercial forests, etc.)
- Athabasca Chipewayan First Nation, Fort Mackay FN, Mikisew Cree FN, Dininu Kue FN, Wood Buffalo FN, Clearwater Band (and others) were concerned about many things
- Despite having an agreement with the proponent & not objecting to the project overall, ACFN had issues regarding water flows, wetland loss, & cumulative effects
- ACFN was concerned about: the fate of process-affected waters & the reliance on dilution as a treatment method, especially in end pit lakes (which are lakes that form in mined-out areas & into which tailings are deposited) & discharges to the Athabasca River; unproven approaches & lack of results on other projects regarding reclamation, especially for wetlands; cumulative effects on Kearl Lake, which were not included in the EIA; air pollutant effects on the ecosystem & human health
- The Cumulative Environmental Management Association defines an oil sand end pit lake as ‘an engineered water body, located below grade in an oil sands post-mining pit.’ It may contain oil sand by-product material & will receive surface & groundwater from surrounding reclaimed & undisturbed landscapes. End pit lakes will be permanent features in the final reclaimed landscape, discharging water to the downstream environment. As a permanent feature, the long-term environmental effect of such an oil sand deposit must be carefully designed & monitored. If the end pit lake contains an appreciable thickness of tailings, the consolidation of tailings may continue for many decades. The effects of groundwater leakage are analysed & modelled to show the potentially large amounts of seepage into the underlying stratigraphic units.
- While end pit lakes are common around the world in all sorts of mines, & about 30 have so far been proposed in northern Alberta, no such lake has been operated for any significant length of time
- The essence of using an end pit lake for disposal of tailings is that the mine operator uses a water cap, normally to prevent the generation of acid mine drainage, which is not the major expected environmental problem in the region—the problem is the long settling time for fines & degradation time for toxic constituents such naphthenic acid
- Syncrude has constructed 11 small end pit lakes that it says have developed into healthy aquatic ecosystems & put one commercial-scale lake (Base Mine Lake) into operation in 2012
- If there are no significant environmental effects from an end pit lake, & if aquatic life becomes stable in such a lake, the lake would solve several problems for a mine operator, such as the proponent, as there would be no need to find ways to consolidate the tailings, detoxify the liquids & particulates, keep wildlife away from toxic wastes, monitor leakage from tailings ponds, or contain such leakage—rather, leakage is planned & it is supposed not to be toxic
- Suncor Energy’s plan to clean up tailings in some of its operations using water capping was recently rejected by the Alberta Energy Regulator because the firm’s plan lacked evidence it would work, & a proposal for capping with consolidated solids was also rejected
- Tailings from bitumen extraction are essentially an emulsion of water, sand, silt, clay, residual bitumen, & whatever was soluble in hot liquid added within the extraction building, & while the sand settles quickly the fines remain suspended in water & it may be decades before they settle into a soft mud
- Despite over five decades of operations in the region, with about 94,000 ha disturbed & 1.3 TL of tailings, only about 100 ha of land has been successfully reclaimed to the point of obtaining a clearance certificate from the government regulator (~6,000 ha have been reclaimed but not yet certified as adequately reclaimed, & only one 200 ha area used for tailings has been certified as reclaimed)
- Despite having a partial agreement with the proponent & not objecting to the project overall, FMFN Industrial Relations Corp had issues regarding water withdrawals
- Despite having a partial agreement with the proponent & not objecting to the project overall, MCFN had issues on ecosystem integrity, tailings, end pit lakes, future liability & ecological function, & effects on traditional land use & culture
- ACFN, DKFN, WBFN, & Clearwater Band were concerned about loss of biodiversity & wildlife habitat (including mammals, waterfowl, fish, & rare plants), believing that the existing landscape & local food supplies could never be returned to anything resembling predevelopment conditions, & that there would be long-range transport of air pollutant, including into Wood Buffalo National Park (whooping crane habitat); several highlighted the fact that the proponent had done little study of the wildlife & fish in the area, & had covered various species important in the local food supply (e.g., whitefish); they also highlighted inadequate river flow modelling, especially in terms of both reduced & increased flows expected in future under climate change—the communities area already suffering from periodic low river flow they attribute to industrial water withdrawals—and they objected to the proponent’s request that industrial water withdrawals be given preference over all other water uses, including natural stream flow.
- MCFN is concerned about ability to travel, hunt, & fish on the Athabasca River if the water flow is too low
- Many FNs & regulatory agencies expressed concerns about future water quality, especially in light of potential cumulative effects—despite identifying the need for better modelling, the Alberta regulator said the proponent’s predictions were based on thoroughly reviewed models, & that management frameworks for wetlands & end pit lakes were not urgently needed
- ACFN actually withdrew from the much-vaunted Cumulative Effects Management Association (CEMA) for half a dozen reasons that essentially amounted to lack of confidence about its effectiveness, while MCFN limited its participation & Environment Canada, & even Alberta Environment, thought the CEMA needed many improvements
- All the FNs were concerned that the landscape would never be able to support their continued cultural occupation of their traditional lands as guaranteed in their treaties & by the aboriginal rights
- All the FNs were concerned about human health effects from contaminants, including some the proponent may not have studied adequately (e.g., arsenic), to which they would be exposed via air, water, & food
- Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo was concerned about several things
- RMWB objected to the project being viewed in isolation from everything happening in the region, including other foreseeable new developments
- RMWB said further resource development needed to be delayed while infrastructure caught up, & even camp-based housing would have impacts, including denying the local towns economic benefits
- RMWB said it was unable to manage the on-going negative socioeconomic impacts even of existing projects
- Local Health Region was concerned about one main thing
- The health region is in crisis (and imbalance of demand & funding for staffing & operations) & the project would make matters worse—while the region had proposals to help resolve that crisis & deal with new demands from the project
- Environment Canada was concerned about several things
- There should be monitoring of benzene & acrolein (also known as propenal, simplest unsaturated aldehyde), in addition to other pollutants (sulfur, particulates, ozone, NOx, & so on)
- Over half of the Muskeg River watershed will eventually be disturbed by this & other planned projects
- Alberta Environment was concerned about several things
- There should be monitoring of lake eutrophication & lichen health (as a proxy for forest health)
- There needs to be additional work on the effects of off-channel water storage (a 30-day supply is planned) of mercury levels, oxygen levels, scouring, & ice dynamics
- The review panel was concerned about many things
- There was insufficient planning of the secondary raw water pipeline transport & storage system, so the panel would not approve it without further satisfactory work
- The panel required further work on the proposed water storage & waste storage areas, & evaluation of the bitumen resources near the lease boundaries
- The panel noted the tailings dump was to be over permeable surficial deposits—there was no plan for containment, just monitoring & reaction if/when seepage (guaranteed to occur) is discovered also noted the proponent had incomplete understanding of the surficial geology
- The panel required the proponent to complete more geotechnical studies because its work on the overburden storage areas was incomplete
- The panel required further study of the extraction process & air pollution, especially for ozone & fine particulate matter
- The proponent had, among other things, no watershed management plan, no comprehensive effects monitoring plan, & no ‘no-net-loss plan’ for fisheries
Omissions
- Identified by the proponent:
- No greenhouse gas management plan
- Identified by the review panel:
- No assessment of mine truck fleet emissions
- Incomplete water management framework
- Ecological base river flow not considered
- Inadequate regional monitoring framework
- No complete plan for no net loss of fisheries habitat
- No complete plan for monitoring cumulative effects on fish habitat
- Incomplete information on most aspects of the project, even down to the geology & hydrology of the area, the extraction process, & the wastes & by-products
- Lack of land, infrastructure, & resources in the town of Ft McMurray & in the municipality of Wood Buffalo
- No chosen route for a road on the east side of the Athabasca river valley
- No hydrogeologic modelling of the external tailings area; no research schedule for testing end pit lake predictions & designs (so no idea of the effects of end pit lakes)
- No mechanisms for coordination of industry plans across the region
- No watershed management plan
- No assessment of the cumulative impacts on the Yellow Rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis), a bird that is under pressure from habitat loss—the bird was first assessed as a species of Special Concern by COSEWIC in 1999 and was listed on Schedule 1 of the Species at Risk Act in 2005
- No plan to protect the Yellow Rail
- Major problems in the region are the result of industry activity as a whole, not just this project, but there is an inadequate management system in place, especially in light of recent increased industry activity
- The “sustainable development strategies” & “integrated resource management plans” that exist for the region are in “urgent need of updating”
- There is no clear vision on the nature & pace of resource development
- The Cumulative Effects Management Association, responsible for addressing the challenges of the project, does not have a completed management framework
- There were several land claim challenges at the time of the panel’s deliberations, but the panel said no indigenous people in the area represented “a recognized entity of distinct community” with communal aboriginal rights & no person had valid individual aboriginal rights
- Proposal for use of current technology, augmented by what the panel saw as unproven technology (which the proponent claimed was proven at small scale), that is not dealing adequately with tailings & supernatant waters
- Proposal for what the panel saw as unproven technology for tailings reclamation
My Observations
- The project lifespan is said to be 50 years, but on page 6 it is noticeable that the project was supposed to start in 2007, ramp up until 2018, & continue mining operations until 2060, giving a planned life of 54 years, not including final decommissioning & reclamation
- The need for the project was said by the proponent (Imperial Oil) to be to develop the resources in the area so as to produce bitumen—no party, including the review panel, took issue with the proponent though if there was a need for any project, it was surely to provide energy & feedstocks for petrochemical production—the result was that no appropriate suite of alternatives was examined (e.g., providing energy through geothermal technology and feedstocks of natural gas), nor was there an evaluation of whether the energy & feedstocks were needed or could be produced in a more appropriate way
- The proponent said there would be jobs & purchasing of goods & services, with resultant wealth & enhanced standard of living—such ends could have been produced in many different ways that could have had lesser impacts, very likely with less investment
- It is unclear whether the proponent’s studies considered the possibilities of both increased & decreased river flows under a changing climate—in coming decades, there may be much more flow at times because of increased precipitation & ice melt, while there may be low flow at time because of drought, & eventual depletion of the mountain glaciers that feed the river system (the headwaters are near the Columbia Icefield)
- I couldn’t find & reference to inversions as a result of cold air drainage may trap air pollution in low-lying areas on & adjacent to the mine lease
- I didn’t see anything specific in the panel report on the human health effects of exposure to monocyclic (e.g., benzene) & polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (e.g., naphthalene)
- I saw no plans for dealing with the deforestation that will occur—though there have been some reclamation guidelines produced, there are not even protected areas of undisturbed boreal forest against which to compare any replanted lands; nor did I see plans for dealing with much of the acknowledged wetland destruction (6,000 of 11,000 ha of wetland on the mine lease will be disturbed) or plans for dealing with acknowledged wildlife disturbance, such as bear & moose, let alone the endangered woodland caribou
- As the court found, I saw no discussion of the contribution of the production aspects of project to the greenhouse gas emissions, let alone burning or processing of its products
- By my unsophisticated calculation, 875 million m3 of bitumen over the 50 years of planned operation would produce 3.7 x 103 Gt CO2; if this calculation is even in the correct ballpark, this one project MIGHT have a noticeable effect on global temperature
- Emissions ~105 g CO2 eq/MJ lower heating value (LHV)
- Energy content ~41 MJ/kg
- Density of deasphalted bitumen ~980 kg/m3
- Carbon equivalent ~1Tt C = ~3.7 Tt CO2
- Global temperature sensitivity ~1.35 °C per Tt C
- 875 M m3 bitumen x 980 kg/m3 = 857,500 M kg = 857.5 B kg
- 5 B kg bitumen x 41 MJ/kg = 3.5 x 1013 MJ
- 5 x 1013 MJ x 105 g/MJ = 3.7 x 1015 g = 3.7 x 103 Gt CO2
- 7 x 103 Gt CO2 = 1 x 103 Gt C = 1 Tt C
- Potential global temperature increase ~1 °C
- https://www.pembina.org/reports/clearing-the-air-climate-oilsands.pdf
- https://www.pembina.org/pub/oilsands-heavy-crudes-and-eu-fuel-quality-directive
- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.7b02004
- https://www.nap.edu/read/21898/chapter/5#18
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_climate_response_to_cumulative_carbon_emissions
- Without evidence, it is unclear end pit lakes will give long-term low-impact tailings storage
- There were no agreements in place at the time of the review on many important issues, such as dealing with resources near common lease boundaries, competing projects, cooperation with adjacent leaseholders, common infrastructure, exchanging information (including information on impacts & attempted mitigation)
- I couldn’t find consideration of the emissions, effluents, waste, & consumption of the on-site workers’ camp, including regular fly-in from outside settlements
- There were no detailed financial calculations of benefits & costs over the entire life of the project, including the post-project period
- The per job costing of the project—~2,600 permanent jobs were promised for a stated initial capital investment (excluding government inputs) of $5.5 B, so the cost is $2.1 M per job, excluding operational costs & decommissioning—though in line with World Bank estimates, appeared not to represent good value for money.
- https://blogs.worldbank.org/jobs/how-much-does-it-cost-create-job
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