Premier Ed Stelmach used Earth Day to deliver some green marching orders to oilsands producers, demanding Thursday they eliminate wet tailings ponds within "a few years" because they are a blight on Alberta’s international image.
Stelmach also invited Hollywood film director James Cameron — who called the oilsands a "black eye" on Canada’s environmental record — to travel to Fort McMurray to tour oilsands facilities and canoe down the Athabasca River.
The premier said the toxic tailings ponds — small lakes that store the sand, clay and residue left after the oil is separated — are what environmental groups and international media focus on when criticizing the resource.
With that in mind, it’s time oilsands producers operating open pit mines expedite their plans to move to dry tailings or eliminate the wet tailings lakes, he stressed.
"It means we’re going to have to force — when I say force, we’re going to get more aggressive — and work with companies presently in open pit mining to move to either dry tailings or develop that resource without wet tailings ponds," Stelmach said.
"It’s going to take an investment, there’s no doubt about it, but we just can’t talk about it. We want to show progress. That’s what people see."
Pressed to give a specific timeline for eliminating the tailings ponds, which cover about 130 square kilo-metres in northern Alberta, Stelmach said he can’t provide a definite date, but expects it’s only a few years out.
"I know that within a matter of a few years we should be able to get there," he added. "I want to be realistic in the timeline, but yet I want to send a clear message that this is the direction we’re taking and let’s get it done."
Currently, four companies operate open pit mines requiring tailings ponds: Syncrude, Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources and Albian Sands Energy (operated by Shell), while a handful of others are planning to add them to their operations.
Oilsands mining companies were issued a new directive last year by Alberta’s energy regulator, the Energy Resources Conservation Board, to clean up tailings ponds and submit plans for how they will do it.
The ERCB order requires operators to prepare tailings plans and report on tailings ponds annually and reduce fine particles in liquid tailings by 20 per cent by June 30, 2011, and by 50 per cent by 2013.
The land must be able to support vehicles — and therefore be ready for reclamation — five years after tailings have ceased being deposited in the ponds. But there’s been no deadline for completely eliminating wet ponds or moving to dry tailings, according to the ERCB.
Don Thompson, president of the Oil Sands Developers Group (an industry lobby organization), said companies are working to comply with the ERCB directive, but was hesitant to say whether it can be achieved within the premier’s timeline of a few years.
"That requires new technology to be implemented and that requires time," Thompson said. "Companies will move as expeditiously as they can to comply with those regulations."
It could be far more difficult, however, for "legacy" oilsands projects to implement the new technology compared to operations that are still on the drawing board or just set to begin production, he said.
Thompson also hopes the premier’s tough talk isn’t being driven by Cameron or the international media spotlight on the oilsands, the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world next to Saudi Arabia.
"I hate to see provincial policy or direction driven by fantasy film directors south of the border," he added. "I would love to take Mr. Cameron from the fantasy world of Hollywood to the reality of what we are already doing in terms of environmental protection and reclamation in the oilsands."
Davis Sheremata, spokesman for the ERCB, said the agency is reviewing the tailings plans filed last fall and "hope to be making an announcement on that very soon." He said the regulator is taking a "collaborative" approach with industry because some of the plans originally submitted wouldn’t have complied with the directive.
"We’re working with the companies to get plans that work, that are achievable and that are enforceable," Sheremata said.
Simon Dyer, oilsands program director for the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental think-tank, said his group has reviewed all of the oilsands developers’ plans and found seven of the nine projects did not meet the rules.
"Some of the tough statements don’t back up the current regulations that we have," Dyer said. "It’s a golden opportunity for the government to actually show they are serious about this if they do actually reject those plans."
The premier’s call to action comes as oilsands giant Syncrude is on trial — and in the media glare — for the deaths of more than 1,600 ducks two years ago on one of its tailings ponds near Fort McMurray.
Additional criticism came this week from director Cameron, whose movie Avatar is set in the future and sees a multinational company plunder a planet for its "unobtanium." The resource pursuit threatens the existence of the planet Pandora’s native community.
Cameron, who was born in Canada, was reported to have called Alberta’s oilsands a "wrong solution."
On Thursday, Stelmach sent out an official invitation to Cameron to get better informed on the oilsands and environmental efforts to clean up the resource, urging him to come to Fort McMurray for a tour of the sites and a trip down the Athabasca River.
"Write him, send him an e-mail. Twitter him. Whatever we can do," Stelmach said.
"Here’s an opportunity. Travel, have a look, visit. Maybe take a canoe trip down the Athabasca . . . see for yourself."
jfekete@theherald.canwest.com
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