‘Ridiculously small’ Kearl fine sends wrong message, says ACFN

The Alberta Energy Regulator’s decision to fine Imperial Oil $50,000 over major tailings leaks in 2023 tells industry “come here and dump all of your toxic waste in our drinking water,” one chief says.

Chief of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Allan Adam told Canada’s National Observer the fine was “ridiculously small.”

The Alberta Energy Regulator “could have given them a stiffer fine, maybe $5 million to $10 million, to send a message to all of industry that they will not tolerate this. But they didn’t do anything,” Adam said late last week.

Imperial Oil made roughly $20 billion in profit over 2022 and 2023 combined, and reported a profit of $1.13 billion in the second quarter of 2024.

“That $50,000? I think Imperial makes that in probably three seconds,” Adam said.

ACFN is suing the Alberta Energy Regulator for failing to notify the nation of two large leaks of toxic tailings from Imperial Oil’s Kearl site in northern Alberta.

“This ridiculously small fine shows that Alberta, with its weak regulations, is the problem,” he said.

Announcing the fine last week, the AER said it still had an “ongoing investigation into potential contraventions at the Kearl site.”

“Enforcement decisions do not encompass all potential contraventions that may have occurred at Kearl,” the regulator added. The $50,000 fine relates to “shallow seepage” of industrial wastewater first identified in May 2022.

In its written notice of the penalty, the AER said it could have applied a $5,000 daily fine over many months, but had decided it should “exercise its discretion … to reduce the penalty to a representative monthly amount.”

The AER said to act otherwise would result in a “disproportionate” fine, “especially in light of the fact that the actual known environmental impacts of the contravention, to date, appear minimal.”

Writing to Imperial Oil, AER regulatory advisor Paul Ferensowicz said the fine closed the shallow seepage portion of the investigation into Kearl, but two other aspects of the investigation are ongoing: one into the February 2023 overflow of a wastewater storage pond, and the other into separate instances of seepage.

Imperial Oil, in a statement, expressed “regret” that the shallow seepage incident had occurred.

“We are confident the actions we have taken to address the issue and the extensive measures we have put in place to refine and strengthen our seepage monitoring and collection systems are working,” the company stated.

“We continue to monitor and provide regular updates and data to local Indigenous communities.”

‘Negligence’ toward communities

ACFN is not the only community saying the AER didn’t go far enough.

“This penalty falls short of sending a strong and clear message to the oil sands industry regarding the imperative of accountability in environmental stewardship,” said Fort Chipewyan Métis Nation President Kendrick Cardinal in an emailed statement to Canada’s National Observer.

“The actions of industry players have far-reaching consequences that extend beyond immediate financial penalties; they impact our nation, and our Aboriginal rights,” Cardinal said, adding that the $50,000 fine should be the first step toward more rigorous enforcement by the regulator, to ensure all industry participants adhere strictly to their regulatory responsibilities. 

“It is crucial to recognize that the true ramifications of this incident may not become apparent for years to come,” Cardinal wrote.

In February 2023, downstream communities learned that toxic tailings had been seeping from Imperial Oil’s Kearl site for nine months. Those communities were concerned and fearful that members had been harvesting and subsisting off the land without being notified.

A lot of people in the community are “pissed off about it,” Adam added, himself included. 

In the aftermath, Indigenous leaders criticized Alberta’s regulatory regime and lambasted the Alberta Energy Regulator for failing to protect people and the environment, calling it a captured regulator.

“Everybody says that the Alberta government will let industry do whatever they want, because they turned a blind eye and nobody wants to say anything about it, but it’s happened to our people,” Adam said.

The federal government announced $12.5 million this month for a community-led study into the cumulative health impacts of the oil sands. For many years, ACFN and other groups had documented rare cancers found in the community and called for studies into the causes.

In March, the Athabasca Chipewyan Firs Nation said it would sue the AER.

“We’ll take this and we will submit this as evidence that the Alberta government doesn’t care about our people,” Adam said. “Everything that they do from here on in … just goes to the record to show their negligence towards our community.”

Ollie Williams contributed reporting.