Alberta keeps a tight noose on renewable energy development. That is, unless you own an oil and gas well that needs to be cleaned up.
One of the proposals in the Alberta government’s recently released Mature Asset Strategy report suggests fossil fuel energy companies should be able to dodge clean-up costs by installing solar panels on polluted well sites.
The report was chaired and written by long-time oil and gas industry insider David Yager. In the introduction, Yager writes that “the trust has been broken” between the province, industry, landowners, and municipalities.
However, he seems to blame Alberta’s ballooning abandoned well problem on sagging gas prices and shifting public opinion instead of on the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and the companies that profited then left behind the mess.
There are currently more than 274,000 marginal, inactive and decommissioned wells needing reclamation, with a clean-up price tag that could top $80 billion.
According to the report, these sites could be “utilized for solar power generation instead of undergoing full reclamation, delivering both environmental and economic benefits.”
Phillip Meintzer of the Coalition for Responsible Energy isn’t impressed. In an interview with The Narwhal, he said polluters must be made to pay and not be allowed to offload clean-up costs to taxpayers.
“Companies have been able to profit off of these assets, and this risks them dodging the responsibility for cleanup up and pushing it onto us,” he said.
The strategy calls for an industry-funded but government-managed insurance fund, but is short on details around how this would work. Critics fear this could leave Albertans holding the bag if oil and gas companies walk away from reclamation responsibilities.
Considerable Health Risk
Un-reclaimed wells pose a considerable public health risk to people living nearby these sites.
Abandoned wells can discharge chemicals like benzene, barium, chloride and arsenic into groundwater, soil and the air.
Benzene is a potent cancer-causing chemical that the World Health Organization calls ”a major public health concern.” Barium leaks into the environment through a well’s liquid waste. It’s linked to heart disease and gastro-intestinal issues. Chloride is found in a saltwater brine that is a byproduct of oil and gas production, and can pollute water and impact agriculture. Arsenic, another powerful carcinogen, is often released by drilling through rock that contains this toxic element.
A Sierra Club report about the more than two million abandoned and unplugged wells in the United States highlighted a lack of information about these hazardous sites.
“Nonexistent documentation means many idle wells release harmful chemicals without sounding a single alarm, putting nearby communities at risk,” according to the article.
An investigation two years ago by The Narwhal uncovered internal AER documents showing that the government agency had been secretly tracking hundreds of toxic wells in Alberta since 2019.
“The [regulator] is tracking the status of several hundred contaminated sites,” said a briefing note acquired by The Narwhal through a freedom of information request. “Many of these sites pose some risk to public safety and/or the environment.”
