Bighill Creek Preservation Society

In this episode, you hear about the environmental concerns surrounding gravel pits in Bighill Creek, Alberta. Jerry Bietz from the Bighill Creek Preservation Society highlights the issues of water shortages and the impact of gravel extraction on the local ecosystem. The conversation delves into the broader implications of gravel mining, including the potential contamination of groundwater, the cumulative environmental impacts, and the need for better regulatory oversight.

The discussion then shifts, the Polluter Pay Federation team touches on the challenges of administrative law, the role of government and regulatory bodies, and the importance of public engagement and education in environmental stewardship. The participants emphasize the need for a balanced approach to resource management that considers both economic benefits and environmental sustainability.

Key takeaways include the importance of baseline data for monitoring environmental impacts, the need for more effective public representation in decision-making processes, and the role of education in fostering critical thinking and environmental awareness.

Welcome and Updates for Gerry Bietz and the Polluter Pay Federation

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well where we break down heavy ideas into small buckets anyone can handle. In our work and at play, we seek the wisdom of elders, individuals, and communities to share their knowledge to care for our water, air, land, life and resource needs. A healthy relationship with our homeland and each other is our guide.

Jenny:

Excellent. I am just going to do a roll call. This is weird for us because we’re doing it on a different system today, but we have Gerry Bietz who is with the Big Hill Creek Preservation Society and we’re joined by the Polluter Pay Federation team: Mark Dorin, Regan Boychuk, Dwight Popowich, Vern Bretin, and myself, Jenny Yeremiy, and Alex McGillivray, of course, my cohost here. We are going to dive into our original discussion, which is around the who’s who in the zoo in Alberta. But first, we’ve got Gerry who’s here to talk about the issues that he’s seeing in terms of gravel pits in Big Hill Creek. I’ve been attending the watershed council meetings, been very concerned about water shortages, and originally started with the logging campaign, looking at the clear-cut logging that’s happening in the headwaters of the Highwood and realized that it’s a broader issue than that.

Jenny:

We’ve started looking at watersheds and I am now on the Bow River Basin Stewardship Committee of that. Being that I get to hear what all the watershed groups are doing, and now I’m trying to go to all the watershed meetings and learning a lot. Last week I was in sundry and heard about some gravel pit extraction and water usage by industry. That was quite alarming. I had just been to the Cochrane meeting, the Bow River Basin hosted in February, excuse me, and met with some members of Gerry’s group, the Bighill Creek Preservation Society, and they brought me the gravel pit concern to my attention. Here we are. We’re going to let Gerry expand on that. Alex and I have been meeting with a group that we’re going to have a meeting, or sorry, they will join us next week and they’re doing a strategy in meetings to try and make sure that meetings are actually more democratic and that the purpose of everybody, everybody’s perspective is brought in really well.

Jenny:

We’re going to use that system today. I’ve got three questions that I want us to use as we go around to help Gerry explain his issue and then we can give our perspective back to him on it. We’re going to test some stuff and this is flexing this learning muscle that we’re trying to do in these conversations too. Okay, That’s enough on the background and I did a bit of intros. Alex, do you have any reflections before we start that you want to offer?

Alex:

Looking into that whole Big Hill Creek Area and studying the topographical maps, there are some things that I’m interested in learning more about. I had no idea there were 86 active wells, 18 abandoned wells, and two active pump stations within that region. I was floored when I started looking at the maps. I’d like to know your views on things concerning the creek, the aquifers, and the surrounding environment. With that, I’d like to get started and hear what you have to say, sir.

Gerry Bietz Explains the Importance of and Risks to Big Hill Springs, Alberta

Gerry:

Well, thank you. Let me give you an overview of who we are and what we’re doing. Big Hill Creek Preservation Society is a group of local people who’ve undertaken the long-term preservation of the Bighill Creek drainage, which is a unique area of Alberta. It’s unique in that it was created at the end of the last glaciation by a torrent of water over three or four weeks that flushed out all of the overlaying glacial till and gravel layers cut down through the bedrock into a deeply incised valley that is now primarily spring fed. The foundation of the health of the environment in the Bighill Creek drainage is groundwater and the supply of that groundwater from the numerous springs that erupt down through the basin. The drainage itself is relatively small.

Gerry:

It’s about 174 square kilometers, which is smaller than Horse Creek or Grand Valley on the western side. As I said, it’s deeply incised. It’s very diverse in terms of its ecology. The focal point of the drainage is Bighills Springs Provincial Park. At Bighill Springs Provincial Park, the main spring erupts from an aquifer that extends out to the north and west, and that aquifer supplies about 50% of the water that comes into Big Hill Creek. That water is very consistent in its quality and quantity and it sustains the bottom up through all of the categories of the ecology that are experienced in the valley. This is a very unique area and our group, as I said, is dedicated to the long-term preservation of the valley and the ecology that it sustains. There are numerous potential impacts on that preservation and we see subdivisions extending out from Cochrane and subdivisions in Rocky View County residential subdivisions.

Gerry:

We see, and I live in this area, I’ve got my well that is served from the aquifer, I am dependent upon it. I enjoy that opportunity, but I also know the impact that it creates. We have oil and gas production in this area that has been relatively benign in terms of recent impacts. It’s a visual impact, but those wells are deep. What’s come to pass in the last little while with refracking has extended our current concern regarding the groundwater impacts and the more overarching concern that we have right now is the proliferation of gravel along the aquifer that extends out from Bighill Creek out to the west, and currently, there are there approximately 800 acres of lands adjacent the park or immediately adjacent the park that would be developed for gravel and those gravel mines would remove up to 25 meters of gravel and excavate down to within one meter of the flowing water in the aquifer.

Gerry:

And we as an organization and local residents have opposed these many of these gravel operations because we are concerned about the potential impacts on the removal of the till, the overburden and the removal of those 25 meters of gravel and the filtration that provides for water that flows down from the surface water permeating through the glacial till and the gravel filtration down into the aquifer and obviously what erupts at Bighill Springs Provincial Park and into the creek. And we know from our analysis the studies that have been done that when gravel is exposed to the atmosphere and weathering and leaching, that there is the opportunity for harmful chemicals to flow into the groundwater and we would expect that over the course of time with the proliferation of these gravel operations that will do harm to the creek and all the biodiversity that it sustains.

That is where we are. I also have another hat besides being the president of the Big Hills Springs Preservation Society. I’m also on the Rocky View County Aggregate Resource Committee, which is currently in deliberations on how the county might manage gravel extraction over time, not only today but obviously into our children’s and grandchildren’s horizons. These are things that are very much at the forefront and things that we’re working on and what we’re looking for. We want people to understand the importance of Big Hill Creek drainage, the opportunities that are presented by the quality of the water, the biodiversity that it represents, and the opportunities for people to get out on the landscape and benefit from having an opportunity for being in the outdoors. Those are the linchpins of our approach to this. We think that people cannot appreciate the open spaces and the natural environment unless they have the opportunity to experience it, and we recognize that that experience also comes at a cost of the environment, but we see that there’s an opportunity to create a balance between allowing people to get out onto the landscape, appreciate the value that it provides, and then move forward to protect it.

What we’d ask listeners to do in terms of gaining knowledge on this would be obviously go to our website, visit the park. There is a road allowance that extends from Cochrane up to the park. It’s a public road allowance and if people are inclined to walk up there, it’s available for walking. It’s bordered on both sides by private lands. If people are inclined to walk up there, we’d encourage them to make sure that they respect that private land, don’t interfere with livestock or wildlife and enjoy it because it’s a marvelous place. We’d like you to obviously go to Bighills Springs Provincial Park. It’s only 70 acres. It sees a quarter of a million people a year or more because those numbers were taken before Covid and before densification in the cities and all the things that are happening around us. It’s a marvelous place and it needs to be recognized that it needs to be protected, it needs to be quite candidly, it needs to be expanded because it’s being love to death.

The province spent $1.2 million in hardening the pathways and trying to protect the sensitive areas, but I’ve been there, I know how much people love it and it needs further respect. We’ve put up on our website a map that illustrates the potential gravel production that we’ll see out of this area over the next 40 years because gravel production, as you might know, is an extended process from the gravel, gravel industry’s perspective. It’s a short term enterprise, but for anybody on this call it’s terminal, we won’t see the end of these gravel operations in our lifetime, and I don’t suspect my children will see the end of ’em when these gravel operations are complete. There could be up to a thousand acres of depressions up to 25 meters deep and up to 300 acres in extent in each individual site. And many of them, I believe will have what they call end of pit lakes, which means their depressions that collect water and if there’s inadequate till and gravel filtration provided, then whatever contaminants are reside on that landscape have the propensity to infiltrate into the water flowing water in the groundwater.

Thank you Alex for putting this up. This is an illustrative map of the extent of gravel potential in our area over the course of the next 30 or 40 years. What you can see there, you can see in the center right of the screen is Bighill Springs Provincial Park. It’s about 70 acres in an area on the left. There’s inverted L Shape area that’s owned by Burnco. The next two quarter sections are owned by a company called Mountain Ash, which is the summit pit Mountain Ash has been approved. We’ve gone to the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board, asked for them to investigate the premise on which the water act approval was given for that operation. Our next quarter section is owned by Lafarge. The next one is an operating pit that’s owned by a company called Hillstone and the one across 5 6 7 has been approved and we oppose that at the Land and Property Rights tribunal and we’re unsuccessful in having that set aside or mitigated in terms of its impact.

And that one will go ahead in the next little while. On the west side of Highway 22 is two quarter sections that were recently acquired by Heidelberg. They didn’t buy that property to turn it into a recreational area on Cochrane West. I don’t know whether you’re familiar with this area. Cochrane West extend out across the Grand Valley area. The lands are owned or controlled by Burnco. They’ve received approval for one quarter section of gravel extraction there. They’ve, they unsuccessfully applied for a re-designation for land use to Rocky View County for the remaining 12 quarters of land. Irrespective of that decline declination by Rocky View County Burnco was successful in going to Alberta Environment and Parks and receiving a water act approval for that land. They’ve now have the ability to, my understanding is that they have received approval to mine into the active aquifer and use Bow River water for gravel washing in their crushing operations. These are all of the local issues that we face in terms of the potential impact on groundwater.

Alex:

Gerry, if I may I have another set of maps. You remember that booklet that I was talking about? Yes, and if you don’t mind, I could bring some of these up to help illustrate what you’re saying.

Gerry:

Please go ahead.

Alex:

It’s a really cool, actually, this map book that they have, this is the one that I was most interested in because what’s in red is the suitability levels in terms of further gravel works. That doesn’t mean that those are current. Those are just land that they consider suitable for future extraction projects and then in moderate to low to very low. But you can see that what they find suitable is basically carving the whole thing out of the earth if they had it their way. And these three coloured blocks here are what are currently happening or pending approval. If you go to the watershed map book PDF, you can get access to all these maps.

Gerry:

These maps were created about five years ago by students at C. They were GIS students and they put together these maps based on what we believe to be credible sources that we ask them to put them together. And when you review them, you need to look at them as illustrative. I think they should not be taken as the finished product, but I think they do give us guidance as to things like where the gravel resource is. Here’s a map. I think that shows where they suggested these were areas in which that might be suitable for gravel exploration. Is that correct?

Alex:

That’s correct, yeah.

Gerry:

That was their interpretation. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong, but I think it’s one interpretation. Please, if you review these maps, don’t assume that they are the final product.

Alex:

It’s an ever evolving circumstance. I discovered these very well put together. I’ve looked into some other counties and they don’t have anything remotely like this. Then I think it would be really cool as an idea to have these so that people could have access to the real stuff. I mean, if this was just a student project absolutely taken into context, but where can we get the GSD involved in doing something like this?

Gerry:

There are a number of things that are going on in the county that lead me to have some optimism. The Calgary Metropolitan Regional Board has undertaken a study of the environmentally sensitive areas in Rocky View County. That is one guidepost for not only gravel excavation over the course of time, but also other kinds of municipal planning. Where are our environmentally sensitive areas and how much protection do they deserve? What kind of setbacks? How do we plan around them to ensure that my grandchildren, your great-grandchildren, all those kids that are going to come in the next a hundred years, they have access to these spaces and that they have the opportunity to generate the environmental assets that they have for the last 10,000 years. That’s the challenge and mapping, whether it’s gravel mapping or ESAs or Rocky view, county’s recently undertaken a study of the appropriate locations for solar and wind power. Those are all important aspects. I’m a maps guy, a map will tell me 10,000 times as much as a document. There needs to be more public outcry to politicians and to other interested parties as to what the issues are in regard to protecting groundwater in these areas. Gravel is front and centre to us. They all need to better understand that people are concerned about the landscape and the natural assets that are here and the water that it will sustain, especially through these next periods where water will be at a premium.

Jenny:

Yeah, go ahead, Dwight. I see. I have a question.

Dwight Popowich Explains the Preconceptions and Challenges with Gravel Pits in His Community

Dwight:

Yeah. I live right in the middle of one of these gravel areas. I have a pit that’s just a quarter mile up from me, and I’ve had my land them looking around looking for gravel. When they did the Anthony Hede round Edmonton, a good chunk of that gravel came from my area and we drove around on really beat up roads and whatnot, and I think our county did a real terrible job of getting their share of the money to look after those roads. That is going to be an issue because that’s what these guys do. Counties MDs, they make money from selling gravel. They want landowners to develop this stuff, and that’s in my area. We are a big supplier of gravel in this area and we’ve been supplying a good chunk of the province. I have landholders that would say, no way that you’re going to tell ’em that I can’t develop that. There’s going to be a bit of a fight here over that for sure.

Gerry:

The benefit directly to the county from gravel production comes under what they call a community access premium, I think it is, or it’s called a cap levy, and it’s currently 40 cents a tonne, and that is basically in Rocky View County. That’s the extent of the revenue that’s generated in Rocky View County in 2017 or 18. The last numbers that I had, they generated a million dollars in revenue from cap levy. There’s another levy that they might impose upon a specific pit to upgrade roads in their immediate area, but those are the two sources of revenue. Those sources of revenue do not cover any of the costs.

Dwight:

That’s what my point is in our area. Did we get back enough from the gravel royalties to even pay for the upkeep of the roads? The roads are so beat up that it was just, I don’t even know how you explain, they’d have to keep a grader on it 24 hours a day so we could get through there properly. It was ridiculous.

Gerry:

That is the issue. And the county needs to have full management of the gravel industry. They need to monitor the activities. They need to set standards in terms of fugitive emissions from the pits. They need to be responsible in managing the cumulative impacts of traffic on the roads and the impact on roads in the environment. Those things have to be actively managed and they need funds to do it, and the cap levy doesn’t, in our mind, provide sufficient funds to do that. That’s our view. And this might be something that other jurisdictions might take a look at.

Dwight:

That cost thing has to be part of your message, I think, to the public because it’s going to be tough selling landowners on the water issue a loan because if they can see development as a way to put a few dollars in their pocket, that’s what they’re going to lean towards. If they have gravel on their land, it’s going to be a tough sell unless you can show it to them. There is actually a loss to them through taxes and stuff like that. That’s I think, where you need to push.

Gerry:

Well, the role of government is to recognise the benefit of the broad constituency versus the individual constituents. And there needs to be regulation. Obviously there’s a debate in regard to property rights and who’s got rights and who doesn’t have rights. But in the overall, there needs to be management of resources no matter whether it’s gravel or oil or gas or any other, or whether it’s wind farms. There needs to be recognition that the benefit of a few can’t compromise the loss of many.

Jenny:

Yeah, thank you. Go ahead, Vern.

Vern Bretin Asks Gerry About Well Contamination Due to Oil and Gas Activity in Bearspaw

Vern:

Gerry, my understanding is there’s a Cochrane lady and other people from the Cochrane area, maybe the Bearspaw area, who were combining deeply about their water wells and the fact that they were not able to shower anymore because of the, now that my understanding that was oil and gas. Now that is a different aquifer than yours. And have you heard of the water difficulties in the Bearspaw area?

Gerry:

I’ve not heard of any specific concerns in regard to the impact on water wells. I know there’s been concern about fracking and the impacts on water wells. I’ve personally not seen evidence or heard direct anecdotal evidence that those things have occurred in regard to groundwater and water wells and gravel. I’ve definitely heard concerns about that. And we quite candidly are looking for data concerns have been raised and there’s a dearth of data available. And that’s one of the things that we struggle with is that we need to have what a lawyer would say would be not priori before the fact data analysis to determine what, for example, what the quality and quantity of groundwater is before these things start to impact it. That data is very important.

Jenny:

Find data.

Gerry:

Now, and it will be over the course of time as things like oil and gas or gravel start to impact the groundwater supply.

Jenny:

Yeah. Alex, go ahead. I think you have a question.

Alex and I Confirm the Amount of Gravel Being Extracted in the Big Hill Springs Area and the Environmental Implications

Alex:

When you were mentioning 40 cents a tonne. I just thought to myself like, okay, a million bucks at 40 cents a tonne, that’s like 2.2 million tonnes of earth that’s just taken right out of there. That’s unbelievable. It should be way more than that to justify it.

Gerry:

The gravel association says that each one of us either directly or indirectly consumes 15 tonnes of gravel every year to build our homes, to build our roads, and schools, to support the burgeoning population in Alberta. It’s not a renewable source resource. That’s something we need to remember. It’s not renewable, but within our timeframe, it’s inexhaustible. A small percentage of the gravel availability can provide all the needs of Southern Alberta, certainly for the foreseeable future.

Alex:

I do know that the street sweepers in Calgary do collect the gravel off of the roads and they pilEIt in a separate area, and then they recycle it every year because they can resell it by the TONNE. They do as best as they can to make use of it once it’s there. But I mean, still, I just think 40 cents per tonne and it takes a lot of earth to move just to make that million bucks.

Gerry:

And, as we’ve discussed, it doesn’t offset the costs to residents and the environment.

Jenny:

No, and as Regan pointed out in the chat here, even the gravel companies only make 30 cents a tonne, too. It’s a narrow margin business for a bigger effort. And my experience, I was in the oil and gas industry for 22 years, is we go after the best stuff first. We go after the stuff that has the lowest burden, the lowest cost to get to it, all of these things. The concern I have around this happening now is that we’re going to get, this is probably an even more expensive project, and those numbers that you were talking about in terms of covering the road maintenance costs and things, that’s probably even more out of whack with what is going to be required to do this. I’m going to throw back one question and then I’ll let Regan ask his, sorry, Regan, I think you were going to try and offer something.

The way I see a potential solution to the challenges that we face is land use agreements. We’re supposed to not just be getting after emissions reductions, but we’re also supposed to be doing what you hinted to earlier in this discussion, Gerry is removing ourselves from the landscape wherever we can, right? We’re supposed to be doing net restoration in the province as well. We have two precedent-setting subregional plans that have sites on timelines for that intention that we start peeling ourselves back from the landscape. I guess I’m going to throw it back to you. You pointed to the map, and I’ll make sure to include that in the video once we do this, but is your ask that none of this goes, are you okay with some of it? Can you be specific about what you think should happen in this area? My personal view from what you’re saying is none of it should be going ahead. We need to be doing preserving, as I was saying, but I would like to make sure I’m understanding that properly. Thanks.

Gerry:

In regards specifically to Big Hill Springs and the operations that may be going forward there in the next 30 years as a realist, I know that one pit is currently operating and it probably will receive approval for expansion. Two more have been approved and irrespective of our appeals, I think it’s highly likely that they will go ahead given those, our view would be that no more are necessary. There’s a debate that goes on between the benefits of agglomeration where you create the mother of all pits and minimise the halo that’s created by numerous pits and the impacts that they create. What we have at Bighill Springs is the proliferation of small pits, each one of them that generates fugitive emissions in terms of noise, and dust emissions impacts on the environment. We see the impacts on groundwater, all the cumulative effects all strung out in a line basically from one from Bighill Springs Provincial Park, almost to Highway 22. And that’s a wide swath.

Those berms and the noise and the activity create barriers to wildlife corridors, and this is a very active area for wildlife. All those impacts occur. Our ask would be if we have to contend with the pits that have already been approved, mines that have already been approved, let’s manage them in a way that will mitigate as best we can, the impacts that they have on the environment. And then let’s try to focus our new endeavours in areas in which we can attempt to minimise impacts for everybody on residents, on groundwater on the environment. And that’s managed the gravel industry across the county so the benefits in commensurate with the costs. Let me put it that way.

Jenny:

It did. Thank you very much. Regan, I’ll let you go first and then Mark, I see you have your hand up next.

Regan:

I didn’t have anything to say. Mark, go ahead.

Jenny:

Okay, thanks. Yeah, no, I think you made a point in the chat that the royalty rate is brutal and the money that we’re making on this needs to be understood. It’s not dissimilar to the logging. We’re getting cents on the dollar there too, and where the risks are way higher than economic benefit. Okay, go ahead, Mark.

Mark Dorin Discusses a Precedent-Setting Case in Gravel Mining Called Court vs. the Environmental Appeal Board

Mark:

Gerry, I was just wondering, and I made a written submission to the Alberta Utilities Commission in this regard recently on the renewables moratorium on behalf of Pluto Pay Federation. But one of the ways of managing this at law in Alberta is through the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, and I don’t think that there’s a regional plan for your area in place yet. I could be wrong, but that would be one way of, there’s one way of designating areas through a regional plan that should take precedence over any decision, for example, of Alberta Environment. Are you aware of this? Has your group looked into trying to deal with the people who are developing the regional plan for your area to set aside this area or put development restrictions on it in a regional plan?

Gerry:

No, I’m not aware of it. I’d be happy to engage in that.

Mark:

The problem we’ve got in Alberta where Vern lives is the South Saskatchewan drainage basin, and I think it’s only one of two completed regional plans and there are, I believe, seven areas in the province. It’s quite remarkable and quite perhaps scandalous that these regional plans have not been developed. It’s high-level planning. We’ve talked about approvals. Presumably, these are from Alberta Environment, is that right? Are the approvals coming from Alberta Environment and what they call protected areas now? Were your appeals through the Environmental Appeal Board? I guess that’s my two-part question.

Gerry:

The process requires that the applicant, the gravel company goes to Rocky View County and requests a land use redesignation. It would be transferred from agricultural into industrial utilisation. And through that process, there’s a hearing activity, they’re, they’re required to make submissions in terms of the biodiversity inventory, surface water, groundwater. There’s a whole list of a checklist of reports that they need to make. Unfortunately, Rocky View County does not have, and I suspect that many other counties cannot adjudicate the validity of those reports. They make a judgement based on what’s presented to them. And without experts to test that validity, that checkbox exercise often results in approvals. Once that approval is given by Rocky View County, then the only approvals thereafter are through Alberta Environment and Parks (AEP). A gravel operation has to go through what they call an application for a code of practice for pits, which is a very rudimentary overview of a checkbox exercise as to how big is the pit, are going to follow these standard regulations as how you manage your operation in terms of berms and noise and some other things like that.

But it’s a very high-level exercise. And once they have that code of practice for pits in Alberta, unless there are wetlands and they need to go to Alberta environmental parks and ask for the destruction of the wetlands, and if there are a couple of slews on the property, then that’s pro forma approval. We had to go to environmental parks and impeach them to review groundwater impacts from these wells or these mines. They will take off seven metres of till. They will extract up to 25 metres of gravel. They will leave one metre of gravel to protect the flowing aquifer. They’ll have an operating area of about 40 acres before they do remediation. All of these things are a significant concern to us. And without an organisation like ours going to AEP, these would never become issues. Gravel companies have told me several times they have no, as long as they undertake that they’ll stay one metre away from flowing groundwater, they have no requirement to do anything further. These are the things that we are faced with. We’ve gone to Alberta Environment and Parks and tried to make our case to them. In the case of Mountain Ash, we were declined. And that’s why we’re at the Environmental Appeals Board today. And as I said earlier, I don’t know the outcome of that process, but we’re hopeful.

Mark:

One more follow-up on that is that I’m quite familiar with a case in the Court of Kings Bench. You probably have heard about it. It’s called Court, that’s the person’s name, not the court, Court versus Environmental Appeal Board. That’s exactly what that case was about, was an appeal to the court of King’s bench of approval for a gravel pit. Mrs Court had breathing problems. The approval of the Alberta environment was qued by the court because they felt that they didn’t deal with the effects on the surrounding public sufficiently enough in approving that gravel mine. I just wanted to know if you’re aware of that case or at least pointed it out to you because that would be quite an important one. It’s a bit of a precedent-setting. One at the Environmental Appeals Board.

Gerry:

And that’s Court?

Mark:

C-O-U-R-T, that’s the family name. Court versus Environmental Appeal Board. And I’ll look it up and I’ll post it in the chat.

Gerry:

Oh, if you would, that’d be great.

Mark:

That’s one of the leading cases of interest to anybody, it’s really about really obtaining status in a hearing to object to something like development, like a gravel pit and who should be granted status and who shouldn’t. Justice McIntyre goes through the issues of who should be granted status, et cetera, in detail in paragraphs 70 or from my memory. It’s one thing we do Vern and I especially, read a lot of court cases, that was an interesting one and I do remember it.

Gerry:

It is quite helpful. Okay. Expand on the comment you just made. One of the real challenges for organisations such as ours is receiving recognition as the “directly affected” part and the environment supporters of the environment, as you probably are aware, have a very difficult time establishing themselves as being directly affected. And the only guidance that I can provide to other organisations like ours, your hope has to be that you establish your bonafide status early in the process, long-term studies, science, and the validity of establishing your organisation as a supporter of an individual aspect of the environment that gives you a better opportunity than a high-level environmental action. You need to be on the ground collecting the data and demonstrating that you were directly impacted and the area that you’re trying to protect is going to be directly impacted.

Mark:

Definitely.

Jenny:

I see Vern has had his hand up here patiently for a while, so let’s let him do that.

Mark:

You are probably better off objecting on your own Gerry as opposed to a group or both because if you live in the area and you have a well, then the potential to be directly and adversely affected is much higher than the group. But that’s a great point you make for societies in general.

Vern:

If you read through the court decision, what you will understand, and I hope you take away from it, is that the gravel companies also read the court decision. They will circumvent the decision that was made in the court decision by following a pathway. But that pathway is clearer for you to now understand as well as the grappl pit owners, they understand it very well too. They will make sure that they do not trespass on those things that are brought out in the court decision. The court works both ways.

Gerry:

Well, thank you.

Jenny:

Okay, I think that covers it. The one thing I will plug for future conversation is your comment about water wells. I heard you talking about baseline data, but I think that’s one thing that the northern, not northern but sundry area groups are looking at is how can we get a database of wells and baseline information so that there is a way to monitor and be able in real time to say something? Go ahead.

Dwight:

From a landowner perspective, I think Alberta Environment should have a lot of that information for you. Every time a water well is drilled, there has to be a report made and it has to be sent. They have a record of a lot of this stuff. You just need to ask them and tell ’em which areas probably cost.

Jenny:

But I mean ongoing monitoring of the quality and volume and all that, is that on an ad hoc, whoever chooses base? Go ahead, Vern. I see you’re shaking your head.

Vern:

That information is not available to the public because if you have a, well, I mean I can look up your, well, Gerry on the government website, no problem. I can read everything about your, well, nothing to do with quality. The quality is a personal thing that if you want your quality registered or sorry if you want to find out your quality, then that’s a private thing between you and whoever tests your, well, if you lose that information, it’s not available anywhere else. I’ve had mine done twice.

Gerry:

I would advise you that Rocky County organisations within Rocky View County under the auspices of Bow River Basin Council have initiated a citizen science program to monitor individual wells. And to your point, yes, you can get access to the original well data regarding the depth and possibly the original productivity of the well, but what we’d be looking at is the productivity over time and the quality over time. Those are things, again, data that need to be brought into this. There needs to be, and as an organisation, when we look at gravel, we think that it’s necessary to be proactive in identifying the quality and quantity of water in all the wells that surround a gravel operation so that we can identify any changes over time, which you can’t measure, you can’t manage, you can’t recognise. Those are the fundamentals.

Vern:

Yes, Gerry, I belong to that organisation and my well is one of the wells that gets tested every time.

Gerry:

Well, I’m supposed to be on the list. I’ve got a well that’s going to be part of that whole process, as soon as I get moving with it.

Jenny:

Yeah, they’re doing a training this month. With that, I will add the training when I share this link so that there are some people, it’s open to the public to go and understand this measuring system, but really, I was asking some questions in the last meeting around contamination and what are they measuring, and that’s great. I understand that, but I do, I am concerned from a contamination standpoint that there isn’t enough focus on it, not only from oil and gas operations but from now on gravel. That’s in my view. Anyway, thank you so much, Gerry. This is a great start. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. And yeah, I hope this was valuable for you as well. This will be posted next week, and then we’ll do our best through social media to make sure people understand what this problem is and what they can do about it for us and you.

Gerry:

Thank you very much.

Jenny:

Great. You are welcome to stay or pardon?

Gerry:

Go ahead. A pleasure to meet you all.

Jenny:

Yeah, you as well. We’ll be chatting soon.

Alex:

A pleasure to meet you. Thank you very much for your time. And the wife and I may be headed up to Bighills Springs this weekend, if we haven’t seen it, it’d be nice to shake your hand.

Jenny:

Take care for now, Gerry.

Polluter Pay Federation Background Information

Mark Dorin, Dwight Popowich, Vern Bretin, and Regan Boychuk of the Polluter Pay Federation join us to discuss the key players and the power structure in Alberta. I am also a member of the Polluter Pay Federation, a group of landowners and concerned citizens dedicated to building awareness and action towards addressing the fossil fuel industry well, pipeline, and facility site liability issues.

Dwight Popowich has what should be deemed an orphan well on his property but the Alberta Energy Regulator has not ordered the orphan well, pipeline, and facility liability program in Alberta to abandon or reclaim the site. The courts have been deciding who is responsible for the liabilities. Some of the liability responsibility has been accepted by the former owner, Sue Riddell Rose, some is being held back due to other working interest participant responsibilities, and the rest is slowly heading to the orphan program for the industry to cover.

Dwight knows the well is not in good condition or good hands. He has yet to receive a hearing on the issue. For an excellent overview of Alberta’s Orphan Fund legislation, listen to this explanation by Mark Dorin and Regan Boychuk. Alberta and the other Canadian provinces have safeguards, unique to any other petrostates in North America, that ensure solvent companies are liable for the outstanding liabilities from prior owners in the oil patch, not taxpayers. But these regulations are not enforced.

Who is Who in the Zoo?

Jenny:

Okay, I’m just going to tee off this model and why I generated it. The intention was to show that we have balancing forces in this province. I’m going to use the one example and then I’ll pass this off to you guys. We have, on one hand, have governance and not just provincial, municipal and federal. And then, on the other hand, we have the laws of the land. What the land is capable of. This example that Gerry just brought forward to us is a good one. We can only do so much. We can’t do all the things that this province, this government wants to do, this government. Now I’m talking specifically of our provincial government. And because of that, this is this balance that we’re trying, we’re this instability we have.

I’m trying to balance the needs of the land versus the needs of what we want to do in terms of operating or managing it. That’s the one example I have. I mean, we’ve already touched on the regulator here, I’ll let you guys talk about that. But the idea is that I’ve left some blanks in here. I have facts versus stories, and I have beliefs versus clubs and things like that. None of these were intended to be final. This is just to give, what are we missing in terms of the picture here, right? Institutions not only do I mean universities, but I mean institutions of religion like Dwight, we had an off conversation, maybe you can expand on that as well, but other things come into play here. I’ll stop there. The idea, please, if we can just do a round table of this model and what you see and how you think that it should look better. Okay, I’ll stop there. Maybe I’ll hand it to who’s ready first? Okay, Mark’s going to go first. Thanks, Mark.

Mark:

Is this to be based on this discussion we just had of the Bighill springs or?

Jenny:

There could be some things that’ll be tweaked. You talked about the government being a really big player in this. Landowners we know are big players in this. I mean, we can use that example to help fuel who we know are big decision-makers. We haven’t talked about lobbyists yet. Where are they in this? If you guys can just talk to some of those big players then we can later maybe talk about that structure. Who’s on the other side of that table? For example, we’ve got lobbyists and we don’t have a counter lobbyist, right? That’s what we’re trying to be as the p polluter pay federation is to offer that. I’m seeing more and more that there isn’t enough counter-lobby to industries too, unfortunately, our government, right? I’m going to stop there. Mark, are you okay to go first? We talked about this earlier today or do you want…

Mark:

Yeah, I suppose I can. I think that one thing that a lot of people don’t realise is that when we’re talking about development activities, whether it be oil and gas, renewables, gravel pits, or even garbage dumps, the main thing that’s required is what’s called a provincial statutory approval to, and what these do is they legalise an activity that’s otherwise illegal. Three main bodies do this. I think there’s a lot of confusion about which bodies handle which activities for approval and then who has the follow-up responsibilities for enforcement, et cetera. What we’re usually doing is balancing the rights of various parties. And someone usually has some property, whether it be gravel or oil and gas or collecting sunlight off of an area that some resource that they’re trying to gather and exploit somehow. And that usually causes damage to someone else somehow.

One of the models is certainly in under oil and gas and power lines, et cetera, is to compensate those who are damaged. But that’s not being done very well in renewables. For example, if you end up living next to a solar farm or a wind farm and it’s not on your property, you could be damaged, but there’s no provision for compensation for that. I think there’s a lot of confusion in Alberta about who handles what, and especially after the fact, we’ve talked a bit about how the Bighill Springs gravel pits get approved and how there’s an appeal process tonight. But what happens if the people don’t, if the approval holder doesn’t live up to the terms and conditions of approval? And those are the things that if there is compensation, those terms and conditions of approval are put in place to mitigate your losses, to minimize your compensation.

If the terms and conditions of approval aren’t upheld well, your compensation’s out the window. I think we have a lot of problems in this province. This is all called administrative law. I mean, there are new arguments that have arisen just this week with the renewables thing about, or even at the Alberta Energy Regulator when they did a regulatory appeal of certain actions they took against Alphabow, a rather delinquent oil company, and about whether the appeal should have reviewed whether Alphabow was treated fairly or whether the appeal should have gone into how the Alberta Energy regulator deals with these liabilities or the obligations of oil companies in general. We have a serious problem in this province with understanding administrative law. And administrative law is unfortunately a constantly moving target. Governments tend to say, oh, well here’s a problem, let’s break it into two and let’s separate power issues from oil and gas issues, et cetera, and that’ll solve the problem.

And the constant tweaking, constant moving around of who’s in charge of what. This leads to confusion. You almost have to be an engineer, a lawyer, and many other things just to follow if you have one of these activities on your land or something just to follow. And we heard Mr. Bietz talk about even if you are directly affected, how do you get status in a hearing if you do get a hearing, how do you bring expert evidence and how do you go up against the formidable industry as one person? I think those are the types of problems we’re having here. And if you read Supreme Court decisions like I have on administrative law, the Supreme Court will say, well, situation A is extremely rare in the country. No, it’s commonplace here in Alberta where the Supreme Court has gone through criminal law in detail.

I’ve never dealt with even a tiny fraction of what people have to deal with in resort development in Alberta. I think we need to take a serious look at how administrative law, which plays a massive role in almost everyone’s life, whether it be from what’s occurring for land use through to things like workers’ compensation boards, things that are going on in your own towns and cities. Administrative law affects everyone’s life in an incredible degree to an incredible degree. And yet the average person knows almost nothing about it. And that’s how irresponsible players get away with things, whether that irresponsible player is a politician, a corporation, an executive, an individual, a board member on a tribunal, there’s irresponsible people everywhere. They’re sewn among us everywhere, and they get away with this through ignorance and that we’re appointing people to these boards who are just not qualified. It’s a serious problem. And I think that until we get a handle on that, we’re going to have some serious issues with water, with land, with air, a fraction of these problems unless we can address the overall administrative law problem. And that’s…

Alex:

I a hundred per cent agree with everything you said. There’s too much red tape and nobody knows what the heck’s going on. The intentional exclusion is a real problem when it comes to these bureaucracies. I’ll pass it to you now, Vern.

Vern:

Yes. And until it goes to the courts never gets cleaned up. Administrative bodies don’t necessarily do everything. Right. An interesting case in regards to what Mark had first spoken of is legal versus range of oil where the Surface Rights Board told the one operator, go screw yourself. And the court said, no, you can go right back to day one because the operator did trespass on your land. The only way the Surface Rights Board can deal with this is to go right back to day one and say, you are now owe