Alberta regulator fines Imperial Oil for Kearl tailings pond leaks

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has fined Imperial Oil $50,000 for a leak in an oil sands tailings pond that was not reported to the public for nine months.

The regulator is imposing the administrative penalty as part of its investigation into possible violations at the company's oil sands site in Kearl, 70 kilometers north of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The regulator is investigating two industrial wastewater discharges from the Kearl site, one reported in 2022 and another in early 2023. The fine announced Thursday relates to the leak, which was first discovered in 2022.

On Thursday, the regulator released its first investigation results, which found that industrial wastewater bypassed a leachate collection system and was released outside the leased area.

The regulator is also requiring Imperial to develop and implement a plan to mitigate the damage from the release and to submit a proposal for a research project on the release of industrial wastewater. The final reports of both projects must be made publicly available, the regulator said.

So far, no impacts on fish, amphibians or other wildlife have been reported, the regulator said in a statement on Thursday. The AER investigation is expected to continue.

“These findings and the resulting compliance and enforcement decisions do not encompass all potential violations that may have occurred at Kearl,” the statement said.

The first sign of a problem at Kearl appeared in May 2022, when a discolored substance was discovered outside the boundaries of one of its tailings ponds.

The toxic residual water was discovered and reported in spring 2022, but did not come to light until months later.

The AER was notified, but neither the regulator nor Imperial Oil informed First Nations downstream until February, after a separate oil spill that released 5.3 million litres of oil from a retention pond at the site.

The spill of tailings – a toxic mining byproduct that contains water, sludge, bitumen residue and metals – angered Indigenous leaders whose communities lie downstream from the oil sands and sparked a series of investigations into the operator's response and calls for greater transparency in Alberta's regulatory framework.

The AER's environmental protection ordinance of February 6, 2023 states that when the first wastewater leak was sampled in August 2022, it was found that levels of iron, arsenic, hydrocarbons, sulfate and total sulfide exceeded provincial guidelines.