SUBMISSION TO THE JACKPINE MINE EXPANSION PROJECT JOINT REVIEW PANEL

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1 SUBMISSION TO THE JACKPINE MINE EXPANSION PROJECT JOINT REVIEW PANEL SIERRA CLUB PRAIRIE OCTOBER 1, Introduction The overarching objective of Sierra Club Prairie s participation in the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project (JMEP) Joint Panel Review is to ensure that environmental effects such as water pollution are rigourously examined as a step towards achieving environmental, economic and social sustainability in the Fort McMurray region. Sierra Club Prairie s objective is to ensure that the environmental assessment integrates knowledge of effects, including cumulative effects, of other oil sands and related projects in the Fort McMurray region. 2. Assessment of the Risks and Environmental Effects of Tailings Containment Failure Tailings storage facilities represent the most significant environmental liability associated with oil sands mining operations. This is compounded by the fact that those facilities must be designed, constructed, operated and maintained, and closed in perpetuity in a manner that ensures their safety as well as physical and environmental integrity. The worst single environmentally damaging event that could happen to any oil sands project is for containment of tailings to fail, with a resulting release of toxic tailings into the Athabasca River or tributaries. Part III of the JMEP Joint Panel Review Terms of Reference states: In considering the environmental effects of malfunctions and accidents, the Joint Review Panel should include potential malfunctions or accidents associated with the following components: tailings management; waste management and disposal;... As well, The environmental assessment should consider the sensitive elements of the environment (e.g., communities, homes, natural sites of interest, areas of major use) that may be affected in the event of an accident or major malfunction. The environmental assessment should consider the likelihood of occurrence of such accidents or malfunctions. 1 Shell Canada Ltd, the proponent of the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project, admits that The magnitude of effects on the environment from an ETDA (External Tailings Disposal Area) dyke failure would be massive as there would be persistent, severe environmental effects that could lead to loss of commercial or recreational use and loss of natural resources over a wide area. 2 Yet Shell Canada s comprehensive Accidents and Malfunctions assessment in the May 2011 devoted 2.5 pages to assessing the risks of ETDA dyke failure, supplemented by one additional 1 Minister of the Environment, Canada and Energy Resources Conservation Board September 2011 Agreement to establish a Joint Panel Review for the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project Appendix Terms of Reference (as amended) p Shell Canada Ltd. May 2012 Joint Review Panel Supplemental Information Requests p.49. 1

2 page in its May 2012 Response to Supplementary Information Requests on ETDA dyke failure in response to the Panel s Supplementary Information Request 33. Sierra Club Prairie notes that in Supplementary Information Request 33, the Joint Review Panel requested that Shell provide an analysis of the environmental effects to sensitive elements of the environment, of all accidents and malfunctions listed in the May 2011 submission. 3 Sensitive elements of the environment may include, but are not limited to, communities, homes, natural sites of interest, areas of major use, species at risk, protected areas, and high-value wildlife areas that may be affected in the event of an accident or major malfunction. 4 No such analysis was provided in the May 2012 Shell response with respect to ETDA dyke failure aside from several unsupported conclusions relating to the direction of dyke failure, decreasing environmental harm with greater distance from the location of the failed dyke, and health effects on individuals of a species as opposed to a population. A substantive analysis in the Environmental Impact Statement would have examined environmental effects associated with each of the sensitive elements categories (e.g., communities, homes, natural sites of interest, protected areas) referred to in Supplementary Information Request 33 and the Panel s Terms of Reference. A first step would have been to enumerate the communities, homes, natural sites of interest, protected areas etc. that could be adversely affected by a tailings containment failure. Even this first step was not taken. Sierra Club Prairie concludes that Shell has not responded substantively to the Joint Review Panel s Supplementary Information Request 33. Shell s apparent rationale for the lack of an analysis of environmental effects on sensitive elements of the environment resulting from a tailings dam failure is that the likelihood [of an ETDA dyke failure] is so remote that any discussion of it is of limited value. 5 However, this conclusion as to the remoteness of an ETDA dyke failure is itself largely unsupported by analysis or literature review. Shell states that the likelihood of a tailings containment failure is remains remote... based on the following: Shell s ETDA dykes are designed and operated to Canadian Dam Safety Association Guidelines and the Mining Association of Canada Guides for Management of Tailings Facilities Shell s tailings facilities are not located on floodplains A probable maximum precipitation factor of 1 in 10,000 years is used to address concerns of extreme weather. To this Shell applies an additional safety factor of 10 There has never been a single loss of containment in 40 years of oil sands mining. 6 Designed and operated to industry guidelines - It is difficult to assess the veracity of this statement as tailings dam management and performance documents such as emergency 3 Ibid p Ibid. 5 Ibid p Ibid p

3 preparedness plans; emergency response plans; operation, maintenance and surveillance manuals; annual tailings dam performance reports; and five-year tailings dam safety reviews for Shell and other oil sands companies are not publicly available. Oil sands companies and the Government of Alberta claim that the information contained in such plans and reports is confidential for proprietary reasons; requests for such information by the Pembina Institute to the Government of Alberta and oil sands companies have been unsuccessful. 7 In Sierra Club Prairie s view, such information is crucial to an informed public debate about the safety of Alberta s oil sands tailings dams, and that the public interest surely requires that such information be made publicly available. Shell s tailings facilities are not located on floodplains - Tailings containment failures are not limited to facilities located on floodplains. Probable maximum precipitation factor The source for, and applicability of, this factor is not described. There is no discussion as to whether the factor employed has taken into consideration the increasing risk and severity of extreme weather events due to global climate over the lifetime of the ETDA dykes. No loss of containment This statement is not consistent with data collected by the International Commission of Large Dams, 8 which indicates that there has been at least three major accidents in Canada s oil sands: a major accident in 1974 at the Great Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor) mine due to slope instability; a major accident in 1978 at Syncrude s operations due to foundation problems; and a major accident in 1979 at Suncor s retention dam due to slope instability. The facts are that the risk of failure for tailings dams is high relative to the probability of other types of industrial disasters, and tailings dam failures are occurring at an unacceptable 9 rate. Tailings dams have an annual probability of failure of 1 in 700, according to one estimate based on the actual failure rate of tailings dams between 1970 and Failure rates are not improving over time, and failures are not limited to older facilities, but include newly commissioned dams using modern engineering. 11 This translates to a greater than 0.1% chance of failure, which may appear low, but is ten times greater than the probability of failure for a conventional (water) dam. 12 The consequences of tailings dam failures are also much more catastrophic than conventional dam failures; while the failure of a conventional dam may cause severe flood damage, the failure of a tailings dam releases highly toxic substances, resulting in both flood damage and contamination of communities and watersheds. 7 Grant, Jennifer et al. Northern Lifeblood: Empowering Northern Leaders to Protect the Mackenzie River Basin from Oil Sands Risks. July The Pembina Institute p.23 [ Grant ]. 8 Tailingss Related Accidents - Failures, Breaches and Mudflows- data collected from International Commission of Large Dams, Bulletin Tailingss Dams, Risk of Dangerous Occurrences: Lessons learnt from practical experiences 9 Davies, Michael, Todd Martin and Peter Lighthall Mine Tailings Dams: When things go Wrong Lexington, KY: Association of State Dam Safety Officials,2000 p : Paper presented at the Tailings Dams 2000 Conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, March 28-30, 2000, p 1. [ Davies ] 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Martin, T.E, M.P. Davies, S. Rice, T. Higgs and P.C. Lighthall Stewardship of Tailings Facilities. AMEC Earth & Environmental Limited, Burnaby, B.C. Canada AMEC Simons Ltd., Vancouver. p 9. 3

4 Globally there has been one significant tailings impoundment failure per year, many resulting in massive damage, severe economic impacts and, in several cases, loss of life. 13 For example, the widely reported flood of toxic red sludge resulting from the rupture of a aluminum mine tailings dam in Kolontár, Hungary in October 2010, which caused ten deaths and over one hundred burn injuries. 14 In 2000, a spill of cyanide-laden tailings water from a Gold Plant in Baia Mare, Romania contaminated a cross-border river system. In 1994, the release of 600,000 m 3 of tailings from a failed dam in Merriespruit, South Africa killed 17 people. 15 Major tailings accidents are not uncommon in Canada: in 2008, tailings were released during a dam breach at the former Opemiska copper mine near Chapais, Quebec 16 ; in 2004, up to 8, 000 m 3 of tailings spilled at a former mercury mine in Pinchi Lake, BC 17 ; and, in 1991, an iron tailings impoundment breached at the Sullivan Mine in Kimberly, BC. 18 The amount of oil sands tailings requiring containment in the Athabasca watershed continues to grow. Combined, oil sands tailings lakes cover an area of 170 km 2. There are currently more than million m of tailings that require long-term containment, a volume that will grow 30% to over 1.1 billion m 3 by 2020, and that volume will remain without long-term containment until 2065 based on current projections. 19 The growth and sheer volume of oil sands tailings requiring containment can only add to the risks of a containment failure. Sierra Club Prairie concludes that the risks of oil sands tailings containment failure in the Athabasca watershed are small but far from remote. To the extent that the oil sands industry believes it has designed and is managing tailings containment in a manner that is safer than other global mining sectors, all of the supporting evidence information should be made publicly available. 3. Environmental Effects of Tailings Containment Failure Large-scale disasters caused by failure of tailings containment can and do occur. Thus the environmental assessment of the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project should consider the risks of a tailings dam failure and assess the resulting harm to ecosystems and human health that could occur as a result of such a failure. The risks associated with tailings dam failures in the oil sands are classified as extreme under the 2007 Canadian Dam Association guidelines. 20 The category of extreme consequences includes the following scenarios: major loss of critical fish or wildlife habitat, where restoration or in-kind compensation would be impossible; potential for loss of more than 100 lives; 13 Davies, p Hungary's toxic sludge disaster remembered BBC News, October 5, Davies, p Grand Council of the Crees, The failure of the retaining dyke at the Opemiska Mine near Chapais, 17 Tailingss Related Accidents - Failures, Breaches and Mudflows- data collected from International Commission of Large Dams, Bulletin Tailingss Dams, Risk of Dangerous Occurrences. Lessons learnt from practical experiences 18 Davies, p News Release ERCB Approves Fort Hills and Syncrude Tailings Pond Plans with Conditions. April 23, 2010, ercb_home/news/news_releases/2010/nr2010_05.aspx in Grant, p Grant, p.21. 4

5 possibility for extreme losses affecting critical infrastructure or services; a population residing in the zone that would be inundated by a dam breach. 21 A tailings dam failure in the oil sands would have potentially extreme effects on downstream communities and wildlife habitat in the Athabasca River Basin, but these effects could extend even further downstream into the Peace-Athabasca Delta, Lake Athabasca, the Slave River, Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River. Such a tailings dam failure would contaminate surface and groundwater with toxins, including carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs). In 2003, the Mackenzie River Basin Board noted an accident related to the failure of one of the oil sands tailings ponds could have a catastrophic impact on the aquatic ecosystem of the Mackenzie River Basin due to the size of these lakes and their proximity to the Athabasca River. 22 The Athabasca and Mackenzie River Basins are relatively pristine, and there are few natural areas in the world that are as ecologically significant. The Mackenzie River Basin alone includes interconnected streams and rivers which together cover 1.8 million km 2 (20% of Canada s land mass). 23 Given the scale of potential environmental impacts and the value of the ecosystems that would be damaged, a tailings dam failure in the oil sands could result in catastrophic and irreversible loss to the region and to Canada. Global climate change may result in increased probability of extreme weather in the Athabasca River basin resulting in increased frequency of flooding. Increased or more intense flooding could increase the risk of containment failure of tailings dams. Global climate change could also increase risks of tailings containment failure by increasing snowmelt volumes, or changing thawing and freezing patterns that alter soil or structural stability. A 2007 Natural Resources Canada report 24 summarizes Canada s vulnerability to climate change during the previous decade primarily through a regional approach. The NRCan report cites studies suggesting an increased probability of extreme [hydrological] conditions [in the prairie provinces], including a greater frequency of flooding and severe drought. 25 For the boreal forest and taiga areas, another cited study concludes that increased drought frequency, including persistent multi-year droughts will result in declining soil water and increased forest fire extent and net area burned. During recent extreme droughts, organic soils have dried and burned with forests, resulting in an almost total loss of vegetation and soil cover, and subsequently the ability to store water locally. Under these conditions, runoff becomes instantaneous, resulting in flash floods. 26 Finally the NRCan report refers to other studies which conclude that: Increasing annual and seasonal temperatures will exacerbate drought conditions... but warmer temperatures also increase the likelihood of extreme rainfall events. 27 Sierra Club Prairie concludes that any rigorous study of the risks and environmental effects associated with tailings containment failure in the Athabasca watershed should examine the extent to which extreme weather events caused by global climate change would increase the risk 21 Grant, footnote Mackenzie River Basin Board State of the Aquatic Ecosystem Report p. iv, cited in Grant at p Grant, p Natural Resources Canada From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate Ibid, chapter 7, section Ibid, chapter 7, section Ibid, chapter 7, section

6 and intensity of flooding events in the Athabasca River Basin, thereby potentially increasing the risk of tailings dam failure. 4. Cumulative Effects Assessment relating to Tailings Containment Failure Given the risks of, and poor track record associated with tailings containment globally, the accidental release of large volumes of tailings is within the scope of reasonably foreseeable malfunctions or accidents with respect to the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project. Moreover, the potential for severe environmental impacts resulting from tailings containment failures exists with respect to many of the numerous oil sands projects in the region. Assessment of cumulative environmental effects must consider the potential environmental effects resulting from the failure of numerous dams at the same time. Given that failures are often triggered by events such as heavy precipitation and seismic activity, it is not unreasonable to consider that more than one tailings dam in the same region could fail at the same time. Given the unprecedented and growing volume of oil sands tailings in close proximity to one of Canada s greatest rivers, the scale of the potential disaster of multiple tailings dam failures can hardly be overstated. Any cumulative effects assessment should also consider the increased risk of failure that accumulates with each additional project. Discussing the Deepwater Horizon Blowout, one author comments that the risks of a disaster magnify with the number of times they are taken, and the deep-water business is booming. 28 The same is certainly true for the oil sands business. There are currently dozens of new oil sands projects, or expansions of existing projects, that have been announced or are under construction, 29 multiplying oil sands activity and risks in the coming decades. 5. Conclusions and Recommendations The worst single environmentally damaging event that could happen to any oil sands project is for containment of tailings to fail. Shell Canada Ltd, the proponent of the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project, admits that the environmental effects of a dyke failure of the External Tailings Disposal Area would be massive with persistent, severe environmental effects that could lead to loss of commercial or recreational use and loss of natural resources over a wide area. 30 Shell s Environmental Impact Statement fails to provide a substantive analysis of the risks of, and potential environmental harm caused to sensitive elements of the environment caused by a failure of containment of tailings under the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project. Such an analysis appears unlikely to emerge in the course of the hearings of the Joint Panel Review; Sierra Club Prairie certainly lacks the resources to prepare such an analysis, although one approach, the socalled Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is described in Sierra Club Prairie s 28 Houck, p Alberta Oil Sands Industry: Quarterly Update. Fall Submission of Information to the Joint Review Panel May 2011 p.49. 6

7 December 16, 2011 Submission to the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project Joint Review Panel 31 As a result, the Joint Review Panel may make decisions and recommendations based on incomplete understanding of the environmental risks posed by tailings impoundments. Recommendation 1: Sierra Club Prairie recommends that the Joint Review Panel undertake a substantive analysis of the risks of, and potential environmental harm caused to, sensitive elements of the environment caused by a potential failure of containment of tailings under the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project. The environmental risks of tailings dam containment failure are not clearly not limited to the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project, but are an issue of concern throughout the oil sands industry especially given the rapid growth of tailings in containment in the Athabasca watershed. Sierra Club Prairie notes that previous joint panel reviews for the Kearl Oil Sands Mine and Joslyn North Oil Sands Projects have, in our view, also not included substantive analyses of the risks of tailings containment failure and consequent environmental harms. Sierra Club Prairie concludes that a joint initiative by the Alberta and federal governments with engagement of industry, First Nations and stakeholders to undertake a rigourous cumulative effects assessment including a quantitative analysis of the risks of tailings containment failure throughout the Athabasca watershed, consequent environmental effects, and mitigation measures is due. Such a joint initiative could be structured pursuant to an agreement for a regional study pursuant to section 74 of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act However such a joint initiative is structured, information currently held by oil sands companies and governments relevant to the study, such as emergency preparedness plans; emergency response plans; operation, maintenance and surveillance manuals, annual tailings dam performance reports; and five-year tailings dam safety reviews must be made publicly available. Recommendation 2: Sierra Club Prairie recommends that the Joint Review Panel recommend that the Alberta and federal governments, with the engagement of industry, First Nations and stakeholders, undertake a rigorous cumulative effects assessment including a quantitative analysis of the risks of oil sands tailings containment failure throughout the Athabasca watershed, together with an analysis of consequent environmental effects and mitigation measures. Such a cumulative effects assessment would: Quantify the risks associated with possible oil sands containment failures throughout the Athabasaca watershed Prepare scenarios for worst-case oil sands containment failures throughout the Athabasca watershed Examine additional risks that global climate change (e.g., extreme weather events) might cause for tailings containment Prepare models on the nature, extent and intensity of adverse environmental effects that could result from the above scenarios Assess the significance of the adverse environmental effects Develop watershed-wide measures to reduce the risks, and mitigate the adverse environmental effects of, a worst-case scenario failure of tailings containment. 31 Sierra Club Prairie December 2011 Adequacy of Information in the Environmental Impact Statement - Submission to the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project Joint Panel Review p