NWT and Alberta say they’ve worked out their water differences

The NWT and Alberta environment ministers say they now have an “open line of communication” after years of concern over how information is shared.

Despite the presence of a transboundary water agreement and other measures designed to ensure each government knows what the other is doing, arguments have arisen in the recent past.

A dispute resolution mechanism was triggered in 2023 over a massive spill and tailings leak at the Kearl oil sands mine in northern Alberta – an incident that communities in the NWT feared would affect their water.

Alberta’s government asserted that no industrial wastewater had reached the Athabasca River leading north toward the NWT, or its tributaries, and as a result the province was under no obligation to inform the territory about the incidents under their transboundary water agreement.

The NWT’s then-environment minister, Shane Thompson, said the province had made a significant error in not informing the territorial government of the issue far sooner.

“Because of the severity of this spill and them not telling us information that we needed, we’ve implemented this,” he said at the time of the need for dispute resolution.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had said the onus lay with Imperial Oil, Kearl’s owner, to communicate about leaks.

“We don’t have an agreement with the industry. We have an agreement with the Government of Alberta, and I’ve made that very clear. It is with them. They need to be sharing this information,” Thompson responded.

On Friday last week, the current NWT and Alberta environment ministers – Jay Macdonald and Rebecca Schulz respectively – insisted relations are much-improved.

“Our relationship with Alberta is strong. We work collaboratively together. They’re very good at sharing information,” Macdonald told reporters at a press conference following a meeting in Yellowknife of Canadian environment ministers that he chaired.

“Water quality monitoring within Alberta is probably some of the most intense in all of Canada. If you go back to the Kearl situation and look at how we’ve moved forward from there, the information-sharing from that point forward has been really good,” said Macdonald.

“We have our transboundary water agreements that are working quite well and allowing us to have that communication. We don’t necessarily agree on all points, but we’re certainly having regular conversations and working together to find solutions that work for all of us.”

Schulz acknowledged that communication over the Kearl spill “was not acceptable.”

“We learned from that situation, both in terms of what the company is required to report – both to government and to impacted communities – and how we communicate, of course, to other partners, including Northwest Territories,” she said.

“We know that water is one of our most precious and important resources. We know there is a lot of eyes and a lot of focus on oil sands mine water, specifically. It’s something that our government has made a priority, and I’ve committed to minister Macdonald that we would have an open line of communication about what we’re doing there.

“The relationship is something that we take very seriously. We don’t take it for granted, and we know that open and constant communications is part of that.”