Big oil and fresh water are becoming an increasingly volatile mix in Alberta.
Environmental groups, citing the oil and gas industry’s insatiable thirst for fresh water, want the province to slow down more than $50 billion of new, water-consuming oilsands plants.
Some farmers and ranchers – already struggling with drought – are taking a stand against new industry projects. They’re calling for a ban on companies using water from lakes, rivers and wells in local aquifers.
“After three years of drought, this (industrial use) is now taking its toll,” says Don Bester, a rancher near Caroline north of Calgary, and a former engineer in the oilpatch.
“We’re removing water from our water cycles in Alberta – and we have been for a long time – that is not returning to the natural water cycle through evaporation and precipitation,” Bester says.
David Pryce, vice-president of Western Canada operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), says the total volume of water that the province licenses every year to oil and gas companies has indeed increased.
But companies’ actual consumption of fresh water has declined, especially in Alberta’s so-called White Zone agricultural land base, he says.
Oil and gas firms are recycling more of the water they use, and are drilling more wells to obtain otherwise unusable salty, brackish water in deep-rock formations.
Companies typically use just 40 to 60 per cent of their annual fresh-water allocations, Pryce says.
He points out the industry holds only 2 - 2.5 per cent of all surface water and groundwater licences issued by the province.
Still, about 55 per cent of Alberta’s daily oil production of 1.55 million barrels is obtained by injecting water or steam into wells to help push oil to the surface.
Last year, the industry injected 273 billion litres of fresh water into wells to enhance production – up from 206 billion litres in 2000.
“The trend of such dramatic increases of fresh water injection is alarming,” Ian Zaharmko, a staff lawyer at the Environmental Law Centre in Edmonton, wrote recently in the centre’s newsletter.
Bester, a member of the Butte Action Committee of mostly farmers and ranchers, says the fresh water that the oil and gas industry uses every year is enough to supply Red Deer and its approximately 71,000 residents with 30 years of water.
At the same time, he adds, some farmers in the drought-ravaged Wainwright area east of Red Deer haven’t got water for their homes, let alone their livestock, because their wells have run dry.
Fresh water that’s injected into deep oil formations is lost to the natural water cycle, Bester says. “It’s gone forever. It’s never coming back.”
His message to oil and gas companies? “Stay out of our rivers and lakes and streams and our groundwater aquifers.”
The industry is hearing the same message over different projects.
TrueNorth Energy Ltd. wants permission to use up to 907,000 barrels of water a day from the Athabasca River, to supply its planned $3.5-billion bitumen extraction plant near Fort McMurray.
The company argues the amount is less than one per cent of the river’s flow.
Nevertheless, water and the oilsands mining operation’s effect on wetlands were two of the biggest issues that TrueNorth faced at last month’s Alberta Energy and Utilities Board hearing on the project.
Shell Canada Ltd., Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude Canada Ltd. also draw water from the Athabasca River for their oilsands operations.
The Oil Sands Environmental Coalition of environmental groups is calling for a moratorium on new provincial licences for water withdrawal from the Athabasca.
There should first be an assessment done of the water resources relative to what the needs are, says Mary Griffiths, a policy analyst for the Pembina Institute, a member of the environmental coalition.
The Marie Lake Landowners group has for several years voiced concerns about Imperial Oil Ltd.’s use of fresh water at its oilsands operation near Cold Lake. The group now says it plans to oppose Canadian Natural Resources’ planned $250-million oilsands expansion in the area.
Imperial Oil’s operation near Cold Lake produces about 120,000 barrels of oil a day, using up to 500,000 barrels of water in the process.
But most of that water comes from sources unsuitable for drinking, and 90 to 95 per cent of it is recycled, says company spokesman Pius Rolheiser. Only about 53,000 barrels of fresh water are used daily.
Another battle is brewing over Canadian Crude Separators Inc.’s newly approved oilfield waste treatment facility near Edson, about 200 kilometres west of Edmonton.
The West Edson Landlords Coalition of rural landowners vows to fight any application by the Calgary-based company to use local groundwater for the facility.
“We’ll object strenuously to them removing potable water,” says Edson area rancher and coalition member Judith Bugg.
Alberta Environment spokeswoman Anne McInerney says people repeatedly voiced concerns about industry’s use of fresh water at public consultation meetings held this summer on developing a provincial water-management strategy.
Commercial and industrial users account for more than half – about 53 per cent – of all groundwater licensed for use in the province, according to Alberta Environment figures. The agricultural sector uses about 25 per cent of groundwater, while cities and towns consume about 18 per cent.
But when it comes to surface water such as rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigation farmers have by far the biggest share of water.
Irrigators use nearly 71 per cent of all licensed surface water. That compares with 15 per cent for commercial and industrial users, and just over five per cent for municipalities.
The province allocates water on a first-come, first-served basis. That means whoever holds the oldest water licences gets their water first – whether the licence holder is an irrigation farmer, oil and gas company, a city or some other industry.
McInerney says Alberta Environment regularly monitors the spring runoff and river flows. The department then decides how much water can be allocated, while still protecting the aquatic environment and sharing cross-border rivers.
But University of Alberta professor and ecologist David Schindler, a world-renowned expert on fresh water, contends that Alberta Environment no longer does sufficient monitoring to know accurately how much water is available in specific river basins at certain locations and times of the year.
Because of budget cutbacks by the provincial government, “nobody’s collecting any data anymore,” Schindler says.
Stringent, regulated water conservation and protection of wetlands need to play much bigger roles in the province’s forthcoming water management strategy, he says. “It’s like we’ve got a 19th-century view of the world in our regulations.”
McInerney says the province’s water strategy, a draft of which is due this fall, will undoubtedly include plans for managing the increasing demand on fresh water by a growing number of thirsty users.
“We’re hoping to move on it (the strategy) pretty quickly.”
