The federal Minister of the Environment is concerned about the Alberta government’s silence for nine months regarding two discharges of contaminated water from oil sands retention ponds.
Steven Guilbeault recalls that Alberta is supposed to inform the federal government of any rejection within 24 hours of reporting the incident.
However, Alberta government agencies appear to have been aware of the seepage from Imperial’s Kearl tar sands tailings pond for nine months before making a public statement about it.
Environmental incidents in Alberta are normally reported first to a government call center operated by the Ministry of Transportation, which then notifies the provincial regulator.
Environment Canada, in a chronology published Wednesday, maintains that the federal government had to find out about the seepage, and a second spill of 5.3 million liters, from the indigenous communities in the region. These communities were themselves kept in the dark about the scale and nature of the environmental incidents, according to Ottawa.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith blamed Imperial for slow communications.
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