EDMONTON — Alberta oilsands producers say they will work as one to reduce tailings ponds, the sprawling inland lakes of toxic effluvia that have become an international symbol of environmental degradation and a whopping political headache for Premier Ed Stelmach.
“We can do much more, much faster than we’ve ever done in the past,” John Broadhurst, vice-president of Shell Canada, told a news conference Monday at the University of Alberta.
“Individual operators will put their tailings information on the table.”
The seven operators are: Canadian Natural Resources (TSX:CNQ), Imperial Oil (TSX:IMO), Shell Canada (TSX:SHC), Suncor Energy (TSX:SU), Syncrude Canada, Teck Resources and Total E&P Canada.
Under a new agreement, they will make tailings ponds information more broadly available to each other and to regulators and academics. They will eliminate intellectual property concerns and other monetary concerns that may have prevented them from collaborating in the past.
“I like to think of this as the stars aligning,” said Brian Schleckser of Syncrude.“We have a stockpile of technologies.
“It’s like an Olympic or all-star team, where we bring the best players together with a specific objective.”
Shelley Powell of Suncor said there had been collaboration before, but it was on an ad-hoc basis.
“It’s been more like a couple of people (working) on one specific problem who know each other through past industry relationships,” said Powell.
“(This) is true collaboration — everybody putting their heads together deciding what we’re going to work on, at what pace and with what resources.”
Eddie Lui of Imperial Oil said the first thing will be to create a steering group to set priorities and set the agenda.
There are no timelines, but the provincial regulator, the Environmental Resources Conservation Board, has already directed the companies, through what’s called Directive 74, to gradually reduce the liquid tailings in graduated steps up to 50 per cent by the middle of 2013.
Broadhurst said Directive 74 was just one factor motivating the companies to join forces.
“There have been a bunch of considerations, not the least of which have been the environmental and social responsibility.”
Those issues have transformed what was an industrial irritant a generation ago into a high-stakes public relations problem for the entire province.
International attention was drawn to the problem in the spring of 2008, when more than 1,600 ducks died after they landed on a Syncrude tailings pond. Pictures of the oil-soaked birds, trapped or being eaten alive by ravens, flashed around the world.
The ducks, along with images of the great brown-black pools of sludge and waste are now used by environmental groups in aggressive ad campaigns to persuade tourists not to come to Alberta and to press politicians in the United States and Europe to say no to synthetic crude.
Stelmach’s government has been fighting back. Representatives of the province have been lobbying U.S. and European leaders pondering whether to place sanctions on Alberta’s oil, and even taking them on tours of the oilsands sites.
Stelmach has said he wants to see drastic reductions in tailings ponds soon and last September marked Suncor’s Wapisiw Lookout, the first parcel of reclaimed tailings pond land in the 40-year history of the oilsands.
It’s a big job to tackle.
The settling ponds comprise more than 130 kilometres in northern Alberta. They are a pasty goo, a mix of water, sand, silt, clay, heavy metals and hydrocarbons left over after bitumen is extracted from the oilsands.
It is taking years to separate water from the clay particles. Oil producers are experimenting with a variety of ways to separate the particles: expensive centrifuges or adding other chemicals to thicken and dry it out.
A recent report from the Pembina Institute think-tank says it is broadly acknowledged that while dikes can keep the tailings ponds contained above ground, the waste can seep into groundwater.
Mike Hudema of the enviro-activist group Greenpeace said Monday the fact the group has not set up timelines or concrete goals on tailings reduction is telling.
“If these companies were serious about addressing the devastating effects that toxic tailings ponds pose to our environment and communities, they would commit to taking them off the landscape entirely,” said Hudema in a release.
So far, Suncor is the only producer that has set up a plan to meet the requirements of Directive 74. Imperial Oil and Syncrude had their plans approved even though they don’t meet the directive’s targets. The others producers are still working through the approvals process.