By Nia Williams
Feb 8 (Reuters) - Canada's Imperial Oil on
Wednesday said it is working with the Alberta Energy Regulator
(AER) to fix industrial wastewater seepage from tailings ponds
at its Kearl oil sands project that has been ongoing for months.
The AER issued an environmental protection order to Imperial
on Monday, giving the Calgary-based company until the end of
this week to submit a plan to intercept and contain the seepage
before the spring snowmelt, and until the end of February to
figure out how to fix the problem.
The order steps up regulatory enforcement from the AER,
which previously issued Imperial with two non-compliance notices
and conducted site inspections.
Kearl is a 240,000-barrel-per-day bitumen mine in northern
Alberta, and the wastewater, or tailings, from its industrial
processes include dissolved iron and arsenic.
The AER said the seepage, first reported in May 2022 after
Imperial spotted pools of discoloured surface water, involves
industrial wastewater leaking from the external tailings area in
four locations on and outside the boundaries of the Kearl site.
Imperial, which is majority-owned by Exxon Mobil Corp , said it has been working to determine the cause of the
seepage and that the issue is related to gaps within the seepage
interception system.
"We regret this incident and are making every effort to
learn from it and apply preventative measures," Imperial
spokesperson Lisa Schmidt said in an email, adding that the
company has been working with the regulator since the leak was
first identified and there are no reported impacts to fish or
wildlife in the area.
However, Imperial on Saturday also reported a separate leak
of more than 5,000 cubic metres of tailings water from one of
its holding ponds.
Schmidt said the cause of that release is still being
determined and Imperial has notified local communities.
"Some of the actions that we plan to implement are
additional monitoring and control measures, including water
catchment features, and additional monitoring and pumping
wells," she said.
(Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Paul Simao)
Messaging: nia.williams.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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