Riley Brandt

Tailings lakes in northern Alberta currently cover about 130 square kilometres, an area the size of Vancouver

In a precedent-setting move, the Alberta government has forced tarsands companies to create plans to clean up their toxic tailings — but critics say the total amount of tailings and their pollutants will continue to grow despite the new rules, and companies themselves openly say that their recently submitted plans rely on uncertain technology.

At the same time, the province is planning to fork out $745 million to help oil giant Shell Canada clean up another environmental scourge of the tarsands — greenhouse gas emissions — with carbon capture and storage, also an unproven technology.

A directive put out earlier this year by the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), the province’s energy regulator, aims to hold companies “accountable for tailings management.” In the past, companies only had to submit dates for tailings reclamation. “Through the years, not one of those targets has been met,” says ERCB spokesperson Davis Sheremata. “Obviously this was a situation that could not be allowed to continue.”

Tailings, the sludgy byproduct of oilsands mining, are laced with naphthenic acids and other harmful pollutants. Industry refers to these toxic bodies of sludge as “tailings ponds,” but in reality they’re more like lakes.

In formulating their new plans, individual oil companies were permitted to create their own in-house clean-up procedures. The ERCB still has to approve each company’s plan. “We can approve the plans, deny them, or really send them back for revisions,” says Sheremata, adding that it will be at least several weeks before those decisions are made.

Under the new provincial rules, companies have to reduce the amount of fluid tailings they produce. However, the volume of tailings lakes will continue to grow under the new rules, warns Pembina Institute policy analyst Jennifer Grant. “[Companies] are still going to be producing far more than they’re treating.”

The directive orders companies to turn a portion of their tailings into “trafficable deposits,” hard surfaces drained of water that could later be covered with soil and vegetation. Companies have five years from the time tailings production ends to solidify the tailings and make them ready for reclamation. That’s the goal, but research into ways to solidify the sludge is still in its infancy. “None of those methods, to date, has been proven to be commercially viable on a large scale,” says Sheremata.

In Shell Canada’s submission to the ERCB, heavy oil vice-president operations Thomas Zengerly warns that “implementation of these plans will be challenging given the practicalities of construction and operation of new processing facilities utilizing new technology.” He also asks for “flexibility” in evaluating the plans’ success.

The ERCB says it recognizes the need for flexibility and will develop “project-specific requirements” after assessing companies’ plans.

The ERCB is hopeful that the new directive will compel companies to find new ways to deal with tailings, much in the same way industry cut back on flaring and venting gas in the ‘90s when stricter rules were brought in, says Sheremata. “We found once they made it a priority, suddenly you saw successes happening very, very quickly. And so we are optimistic that the same thing will happen here — obviously on a larger scale.”

Currently, however, it’s unclear whether or not tailings lakes can ever be reclaimed. Tailings lakes in northern Alberta currently cover about 130 square kilometres, an area the size of Vancouver. Grant says that even if tailings can be solidified on a large scale, there are no guarantees that growth on the deposits will be successful. “They may not be a good substrate for revegetation due to the high salt content,” she says. “There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

Albertans could be on the hook for cleaning up companies’ tailings messes in the future, adds Grant. “This is a huge potential liability for taxpayers,” she says. “We want to put a pause on development in order to resolve some of this uncertainty and make sure that we’re not adding to the tailings problem before we have the solutions.” The ERCB directive, she says, is a “very small first step.”

Shell spokesperson Laurieanne Lynne says the ERCB’s timeline is “technically challenging,” but says her company is “experimenting with many different techniques” to solidify tailings. “It’s a little hard to project into the future how quickly you can guarantee the solidity — but we certainly do intend to meet it one way or another,” she says.

Meanwhile, on the carbon front, the provincial and federal governments have pledged $745 million and $120 million, respectively, for a Shell-led carbon capture project with an uncertain future. The provincial subsidy has drawn fire from opposition MLAs, as injecting carbon dioxide into the ground for storage is another emerging technology that also hasn’t been proven on a large scale.

“It’s ridiculous that a corporation as profitable as Shell is looking to receive three-quarters of $1 billion dollars from Alberta taxpayers at a time that we’re being told we have to tighten our belts,” says NDP MLA Rachel Notley.

Shell has said it will decide whether or not to go ahead with its Quest carbon capture project after the company consults the public, conducts more studies and gets regulatory approval.