Environmental issues in Alberta
This article details some of the environmental issues including past ecological disasters in Alberta and describes some of the efforts at the municipal, provincial and federal level to mitigate the risks and impacts.
[5] By September 2017, Alberta had already begun "implementing broad climate change policies" including a "sophisticated two-tier carbon pricing system" for consumers and major emitters.
The province set a "target cap for greenhouse gas emissions" and began the transformation to lower-carbon with coal being phased out for electricity production.
[7] Raw bitumen extracted from the oil sands in northern Alberta is shipped in Canada and to the United States through pipelines, railway, and trucks.
Environment Canada monitors greenhouse gas emissions, including "carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3)".
[9] The sources of GHG were grouped into five sectors: energy; industrial processes and product use (IPPU); agriculture; waste, and land use, land-use change; and forestry (LULUCF).
The 2015 Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards report showed that the Red Deer area had "exceeded the acceptable amount of particulate matter and ozone exposure" from 2011 through 2013.
[12] A May 14, 2019 Data Trending and Comparison Report by Fort Air Partnership (FAP) showed that in their study area—which includes a "4,500 square-kilometre airshed near Edmonton", "levels of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide" have been decreasing since the late 1980s.
[Notes 4] By 2016, NRCAN reported that the growth of annual production of oil sands, in spite of significant technological advances, presents several environmental challenges to land, water, air, and energy conservation.
[24] In a June 3, 2019 The Globe and Mail article, limnologist David Schindler expressed concerns about new regulations at both the provincial and federal level authorizing the "discharge of treated effluence" from oil sands tailings ponds into the Athabasca River.
[30] The Environment Canada researchers defined secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) as "gases and particles that interact with sunlight in complex ways and that are released by both the globe’s plant matter as well as fossil-burning machines and industries".
[32] According to the article in La Verge, citing Environment Canada researchers, emissions from the oil sands "equal what's produced by the entire city of Toronto".
[31] Their "data from airborne measurements over the bitumen-producing region in August 2013 found that oilsands production generates at least 45 to 84 tonnes per day of the tiny particulate matter.
"[35] According to the University of Calgary's Joule Bergerson, a co-author of an August 31, 2018 Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)-funded Science article entitled "Global carbon intensity of crude oil production", "if oil-producing countries adopted regulations similar to Canada's that limit the amount of gas flared or vented into the air, it could cut greenhouse gas emissions from oil production by almost a quarter.
"[36][28] In May 2016, the NDP provincial government introduced the Climate Leadership Act which "included a 100-megatonne annual emissions cap on oilsands operations in Alberta".
[39][40] The November 2016 initial federal support for the controversial expansion of the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline was conditional on Alberta having a "climate plan that included the key ingredients of a carbon tax and a cap on emissions from the oilsands".
According to Vicki Lightbrown of Alberta Innovates, the remaining 80% of bitumen reserves are deep underground and can only be recovered in situ, which involves drilling down to extract the oil using methods such as Steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS).
[42] Alberta's Western Canadian Select, one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams,[44] is landlocked and has faced significant obstacles to reaching tidewater.
[45] On April 28, 2011, 4.5 million litres of oil (28,000 barrels) leaked from the Rainbow Pipeline, owned by the American company, Plains Midstream Canada spilled near Little Buffalo, a Lubicon Cree First Nation community in northeast of Peace River, Alberta.
[49] On January 17, 2001, a rupture occurred on the Enbridge Pipeline System near Hardisty, Alberta and about 3800 cubic metres of crude oil spilled.
[50] In June, 2012 almost half a million litres of sour crude oil leaked into a creek that flows into the Red Deer River near Sundre, approximately 100 kilometres north of Calgary.
[53] In November, 2014 a pipeline leaked 60,000 litres of crude oil spilled into muskeg in Red Earth Creek in northern Alberta.
[57] On August 14, 2015, 100,000 litres of an oil, water, and gas emulsion leaked on the Hay Lake First Nation, about 100 kilometres northwest of High Level, Alberta.
[1] On October 31, 2013, the tailings dam collapsed at the Obed Mountain coal mine, near the town of Hinton, Alberta, spilling about billion litres (260 million US gal) of wastewater into the Athabasca River.
"[87] From about 2006 to 2017, Alberta spent $484 million which includes financial support from both Saskatchewan and the federal government, to fight the invasive species, the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) and "prevent damage in specific locations and to protect valuable resources, such as watersheds.
"[88] An extreme frigid cold spell in February 2019, was expected to kill off the 90 per cent of MPB's larvae in Alberta, particularly in and around Jasper National Park, where the beetle has had the most damaging effect on the forest.
It requires "large final emitters", defined as facilities emitting more than 100,000tCO2e per year, to comply with an emission intensity reduction which increases over time and caps at 12% in 2015, 15% in 2016 and 20% in 2017.
[113]: 32 The province has made significant strides in transitioning towards renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainability.
[118][119] Alberta purchased "thousands of megawatt hours of wind power at the lowest recorded price in Canadian history, much of it from Indigenous partnerships.
[123] At the time, Notley "lobbied Trudeau to allow coal-to-gas conversions as a short-term solution, extending the life of the infrastructure with fewer emissions.
