There are no toxic tailings lakes, dead ducks, heavy-hauler
trucks or strip mines visible from space: there's none of that
associated with in situ oilsands development. So, as industry tells
us, in situ oilsands development is nothing to worry about, right?
Not quite, according to a new report evaluating in situ oilsands'
real impacts.
While mining is currently the main method used to develop Alberta's
oilsands, in situ techniques could eventually allow access to the 80
per cent of those oilsands deposits too deep to mine. In situ, or
"in place," extraction involves drilling wells into the deposit, then
melting the bitumen with steam so it can be pumped to the surface.
We haven't had a good idea, until now, just what the environmental
impacts of in situ are -- or the wide range in environmental
performances within this industry.
Drilling Deeper, a first assessment and report card released on
Wednesday by the Pembina Institute, gives us more information about
those impacts, and the findings fly in the face of what some in
industry and government have been telling us.
Upon evaluating nine in situ operators, preliminary indicators show
greenhouse gas and sulphur dioxide emissions are higher for in situ
than for mining. Some in situ projects also have higher total water
use intensities than the average for mining. And the land use impacts (for example, fragmented forests from the
construction of roads, wells and pipelines) are serious too, likely
contributing to the loss of caribou populations in northern Alberta.
That's not the message we've been hearing though.
Many in situ operators want us to draw a distinction between mining
and in situ operations. They're trying to establish in situ oilsands
development as a less risky form of oilsands development that
doesn't deserve the same scrutiny as oilsands mining, and there is
even talk about reducing environmental assessment and fast-tracking
the in situ approval process. Speaking tours have taken place across
Canada and the U.S. promoting in situ as a step up from mining.
In response to shareholder concerns over a $10-billion investment
in the oilsands, the CEO of British Petroleum went so far as to
refer to its in situ interests as "environmentally sustainable."
Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice has been focusing on
deflecting criticisms regarding the oilsands too, rather than
resolving them, vowing recently to "up our game . . . in terms of
our communication efforts."
Our report card on the performance of in situ oilsands industry
reveals there is plenty of room for improvement. When we compared
nine in situ oilsands operations on 17 environmental indicators
grouped in five categories, including general environmental
management, land impacts, air emissions, water use and climate
change, we found big gaps across the sector. Scores from nine in
situ projects averaged 44 per cent, but showed that if industry just
applied currently available environmental best practices, those
scores would shoot up to 85 per cent.
Companies lagged in some key areas. Only one operator had plans for
reducing air emissions and water use beyond weak regulated requirements and no companies had targets to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Only two of nine operators invested
in biodiversity offsets to compensate for the impacts of their
facilities. Only two of nine companies have third-party accredited
environmental management systems and only three companies
financially support a provincewide biodiversity-monitoring program.
The report card made one thing clear: calling in situ a low impact
form of oilsands development is not accurate -- it's a myth. And the
impacts shouldn't be underestimated when the scale of this kind of
development is huge.
While more than 4,000 square kilometres of northern Alberta land
has been leased for mining, 80,000 square kilometres has been leased
for in situ development. That's an area 12 times the size of Banff
National Park.
There are ways to improve, and we provide recommendations in our
report, including greater transparency from industry on
environmental data, a stronger commitment by industry to reduce
environmental impacts and stricter rules from government to ensure
best practices are implemented and the environment is protected.
Many of these improvements come from industry's own stated best
practices -- practices they need to start implementing.
Were industry to employ its own best practices, they could not only
improve their environmental performance, but their reputation as
well. So, how about this? Let's fight attacks on Alberta's
environmental reputation by scrapping the ramped up public relations
efforts and focusing on addressing the unresolved environmental
impacts.
Simon Dyer is the director of the Oilsands Program at the Pembina
Institute and coauthor of Drilling Deeper: The In situ Oilsands
Report Card.
The report is available at www.pembina.org/pub/1981.
