Jennifer Grant, spokesperson for the Pembina Institute, made the following statement in response to the announcement that company plans for compliance with Directive 074 have been made public:
"After 40 years of voluntary management of tailings the new Directive requires oilsands operators to submit annual plans and schedules for reducing the liquid tailings waste. However, even under the new Directive, the total amount of liquid tailings waste will continue to increase due to the rapid expansion of the oilsands industry.
"The tailings directive is a step in the right direction to address the risks posed by toxic tailings from the oilsands, but success will depend on the rules being strictly enforced and companies being held accountable for meeting these rules. We will assess these plans to determine their proposed impact on reducing the volume of liquid tailings waste produced.
"The ERCB must next address other gaps in the regulation of tailings, including binding rules to deal with existing tailings waste, prevention of leakage from tailings lakes and ultimately the prohibition of liquid tailings waste at new mining operations.
"While the Directive seeks to reduce the rate of production of new liquid tailings waste, it does not address the 720 billion litres of 'legacy' tailings on the landscape today. Failure to regulate tailings reclamation has resulted in large tailings lakes that occupy a combined area of 130 square kilometres (the size of the City of Vancouver)."
-30-
The Pembina Institute is a non-partisan sustainable energy think tank. The Pembina Institute's report on oilsands reclamation and tailings is available at www.pembina.org/pub/1639
For more information, contact:
Jennifer Grant
Policy Analyst
The Pembina Institute
Tel: 867-873-4309
Email: jenniferg@pembina.org
