Imperial Oil faces multiple environmental assessments

Imperial Oil now faces not one, but two environmental assessments in Norman Wells according to a public regulatory registry.

Environmental assessments are in-depth examinations of industrial operations to understand their likely effect on various aspects of the surrounding environment, and on local communities and the economy.

They are a central pillar of the NWT’s regulatory regime, and they take time.

An Imperial project to replace pipelines at its Norman Wells facility – the Line 490 project, which the company said was vital work to unlock access to more oil and keep the facility going – was referred to environmental assessment by the Sahtu Secretariat last month.

The Sahtu Secretariat represents the regions Sahtu Dene and Métis. The decision to refer the pipeline work was not unanimous among the secretariat’s members, but a letter from Sahtu Secretariat Chair Charles McNeely said the drilling technique proposed beneath the Mackenzie River “clearly calls for a full environmental assessment.”

Now, the regulatory record shows a second environmental assessment has been opened covering Imperial’s licence to operate the entire facility for the next five to 10 years.

Authorization from the Canada Energy Regulator and a water licence from the Sahtu Land and Water Board are among the permissions Imperial needs to operate its Norman Wells facility.

In letters last week, the Sahtu Secretariat said Imperial’s applications to both the CER and the land and water board should be sent to an environmental assessment of their own. The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review board, which runs such assessments, has duly opened a new file alongside the Line 490 file. It isn’t clear if the two will continue as separate files or ultimately be merged.

Parts of the Sahtu Secretariat’s latest letters were identical to the letter with which it sent Line 490 to environmental assessment. (The secretariat has the power to trigger assessments without any other authority’s agreement.)

However, the secretariat did add fresh context in the new letters.

There had been “many changes in the broad environment” in which Imperial wants to keep operating, the secretariat wrote, including “noticeable environmental changes, changes to geopolitical concerns affecting development, and increasing recognition of Indigenous rights.”

“These changes not only impact the operation of the Norman Wells oilfield, they call into question the very need for that operation,” the letters continued.

The letters ask: “Today, in an area of increasing environmental sensitivity, does it make sense to accept any degree of risk from an ageing oilfield that in 2021 provided less than one percent of Canada’s daily conventional light crude production?”

The Sahtu Secretariat goes on to challenge whether Imperial’s activities are bringing sufficient benefits to the region, adding that it “believes a full environmental assessment process is required to ensure that Sahtu residents can be meaningfully involved in decisions relating to development on, and affecting, their lands and waters.”

‘Uncertainty and fear’

The net result of the past month is what appears, from the outside, to be an extraordinary collapse in relations between the Sahtu Secretariat and Imperial Oil.

Imperial said late last week it was “reviewing and assessing next steps,” a similar response to one the company had given when Line 490 was referred to assessment days earlier.

Imperial’s Norman Wells operations are central to the town’s economic wellbeing.

The facility is a century old and is projected to close in the next decade come what may, but Imperial has said any major regulatory delays could bring up that closure date to some time in the next year or two, and bring knock-on effects to the likes of power and fuel, both of which are supplied by Imperial to the town and its residents.

Fuel prices spiked in Norman Wells over the past few days, a development for which there was no immediate explanation available – and one that only adds to residents’ woes after a summer when resupply barges couldn’t run because of low water, driving up local costs.

Community and regional leaders, meanwhile, are lobbying in Yellowknife and Ottawa for some kind of assistance to ease the burden of the “whole load of issues” the Sahtu has faced this year, as one leader put it.

“These challenges are real and deeply personal. Many of us are experiencing declining mental health, uncertainty, and fear about how we will afford to live in the coming months,” the town told its residents in a public message late last week.

“You are not alone in this struggle.”