http://www.calgarysun.com/2017/02/02/is-albertas-rate-of-recovery-after-oil-spills-too-good-to-be-true-one-researcher-is-raising-questions
Is Alberta's rate of recovery after oil spills too good to be true? One
researcher is raising questions
THE CANADIAN PRESS
First posted: Thursday, February 02, 2017 11:46 AM MST | Updated:
Thursday, February 02, 2017 11:56 AM MST
EDMONTON — A researcher says the agency that monitors Alberta’s energy
industry has underestimated the impact of tens of thousands of spills
going back decades.
Kevin Timoney, an Edmonton-area consulting biologist, used sophisticated
statistical analysis, an extensive research review and comparisons with
other jurisdictions to conclude the Alberta Energy Regulator doesn’t
have a good handle on how much oil and saline water has been released
into the environment or remains there.
“Their spill volumes and recovery volumes are too good to be true,” said
Timoney, who did the study on behalf of northern indigenous bands
concerned about spills on their land.
Timoney began with an AER database of 23,655 oil spills and 14,833
primary spills of saline water reported between 1975 and February 2013.
The database included records of how much oil or water was spilled and
recovered.
Timoney found that the regulator considered 100 per cent of the oil was
recovered in 53 per cent of the oil spills. The median recovery rate for
oil was 100 per cent and for saline water 80 per cent.
“Thousands of spills reporting essentially perfect oil recovery raise
questions of data validity,” he writes in a report which was to be
released Thursday.
The regulator listed two types of spill environments: air-land or
muskeg-stagnant water. Timoney found that recovery efficiency was
reported to be the same for both. Nor was it significantly affected by
the size of the spill.
Timoney turned to previous academic spills research. In eight major
studies — five on land and three in water — the median recovery rate was
43 per cent. No one documented a perfect recovery.
He then looked at other jurisdictions.
North Dakota, one of the few places where data was available, said only
3.4 per cent of its spill recoveries were 100 per cent successful.
A graph of U.S. oil-spill volumes revealed a smooth, even curve while
Alberta’s graph looks like a staircase. That suggests, Timoney writes,
“a large proportion of Alberta spill volumes are estimates of
convenience rather than measured volumes.”
Tracie Moore, a spokeswoman for the regulator, said the database was
never meant to provide a complete picture of spill cleanup. She pointed
out that before 2014, the regulator shared cleanup responsibilities with
others such as Alberta Environment.
“The remaining volume from the release may have been cleaned up through
other means and under the jurisdiction of other entities,” she wrote in
an email.
Timoney also subjected the spill and recovery data to a Benford
analysis, a statistical tool that exposes anomalies in large data sets.
It has been used in everything from forensic accounting to biology and
is accepted as evidence in some U.S. courts.
The AER recovery data was off for both oil and saline water, Timoney
found. Given the size of the data set, Timoney concluded the chances of
the AER numbers representing actual measured values were vanishingly small.
“If a tax auditor looked at this, there’d be people knocking on doors
the next day.”
Moore said the regulator relies on industry to accurately report volumes
released and recovered.
“This information may then be verified by AER experts,” she wrote.
Timoney suggests numbers in the AER’s database are the result of
managerial decisions and not in-field reporting. That could mean spill
and recovery volumes have been underestimated for decades, he said.
“We don’t know how much is spilled and we don’t know how much is left in
the environment.”
The AER database says that habitat was damaged in less than one per cent
of all spills. In contrast, a study of oil and saline releases in
Oklahoma from 1993 to 2003 found damage to surface water, crops or
livestock, soil, fish or wildlife in about one-third of 17,000 cases.
Again, Moore noted, monitoring habitat damage may have fallen out of the
pre-2014 regulator’s purview.
“Now that AER has jurisdiction over the entire life cycle of oil, gas,
coal and oilsands, we have a better understanding of the impact of
incidents on the environment.”
Lingering impacts from spills are common on the Alberta landscape,
Timoney said, even on sites that are considered remediated. Effects can
persist in residual soil contamination and non-natural plant communities.
He believes his investigation raises major concerns in how the regulator
monitors an industry with a footprint in Alberta of 12,000 square
kilometres.
“We have an environmental risk that is pervasive across the province and
it’s unassessed,” Timoney said.
“It’s a major liability not only for the present, but if we ever try to
fix things, for the future as well.”