Alberta's energy regulator has a new name, new responsibilities and new leadership. After sitting on the news of a recent spill for 12 days, it apparently also needs new policies about transparency.
The Alberta Energy Regulator, formerly the Energy Resources Conservation Board, has a tough act to follow when it comes to alerting the public about pipeline ruptures and other incidents that cause hydrocarbons to soak the landscape. Its federal counterpart, the National Energy Board, sent the message last week that the bar has been raised.
When it comes to jurisdiction, the NEB is responsible for pipelines that cross provincial boundaries, while the provincial regulator is responsible for energy operations within Alberta. The provincial body has come under scrutiny from environmentalists and other critics of Premier Alison Redford's government, who have questioned the board's credibility following the appointment of oil industry insider Gerry Protti as its chairman. Mr. Protti is best known for his 15 years as an executive with Encana Corp. and its predecessor company, as well as being the founding president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
He and the AER board would do well to allay fears that they have a pro-industry bias by telling people about the industry's mishaps sooner, regardless of severity.
Consider two recent spills: The NEB issued a news release Thursday to tell Canadians about an estimated 12 barrels, or roughly two cubic metres, of crude that squirted from Kinder Morgan Canada's Trans Mountain pipeline southwest of Merritt, B.C., the day before.
This is slightly more than a thimbleful compared with the 300,000 barrels that conduit carries to the West Coast from Alberta each day. In the end, Kinder Morgan estimated the volume spilled to be closer to about six barrels, or one cubic metre.
It was hardly a catastrophe . But the disclosure was handled as it should be.
Meanwhile, Apache Corp. had notified the Alberta regulator about a contaminant leak near Zama City in northern Alberta 12 full days before the AER issued a news release. An official said it stayed quiet until it could confirm how much "produced water," a mix of brackish H2O and a small amount of oil, had spilled. It turned out to be 9.5 million litres, or enough to cover 52 football fields.
To be fair, the regulator tallies all incidents and puts them in a report released annually to the public. But the AER claims that it decides when it learns of a spill whether to issue a bulletin based on the incident's public and environmental impact. Alberta's Energy Minister, Ken Hughes, said he trusts the regulator to decide when to release information based "on a process of established science and protocol."
But that's not what the optics imply. The delay suggests instead the board was more concerned with managing the flow of information about the spill than it was with letting the public determine the gravity of the situation. The NEB's strategy, by contrast, puts the onus on the public to come to conclusions on its own. If every spill was publicized quickly, those affected might find that most leaks are small and easily cleaned up and that an imperfect record is more acceptable than none at all.
The province has said it is confident its new AER will stand up to international scrutiny. Better disclosure would help.