"Be forthright with what the scope of the investigation is," he said Wednesday. "I think there are probably some gaps that need to be looked at and processes fixed and improved."īut New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt said the public deserves to know what questions will be asked and how those fixes will be made. ![]() "It’s an unfortunate incident that happened at Kearl, and I think we need to learn from it and do better," Savage told a legislature committee on March 9. Savage has repeatedly promised to get to the bottom of how it took so long for news of the significant leaks to be released. Power said Ottawa also wants to see a federal-provincial-Indigenous working group, with participation from the oil companies, to address the immediate concerns around the Kearl releases "to restore trust and give transparency." They learned of it from an environmental protection order issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator after a second release of 5.3 million litres of oilsands wastewater at Kearl from a catchment pond.Īrea First Nations have also said they were not updated after initial notification of discoloured water found on the site. The seepage was discovered in May, but neither politician was told about it until nine months later. Tuesday evening, Savage and Guilbeault discussed seepage and a leak from Imperial Oil's Kearl oilsands mine about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta. "Minister Guilbeault underlined that Imperial Oil’s own stated failures of communication were unacceptable and have raised broader concerns regarding the efficacy of (Alberta's) existing notification systems," said Kaitlin Power, Guilbeault's spokeswoman. Her office did not respond to a request for comment. The release contained no direct quotes from Savage. ![]() "(Alberta Environment) Minister (Sonya) Savage and (federal Environment) Minister (Steven) Guilbeault reiterated a dual commitment to review information exchange processes and committed to maintaining open communication channels with Indigenous communities in the area with updates on water sampling and other monitoring results," said a news release Wednesday from the Alberta government. ![]() The Alberta and federal governments say they will work together to understand what happened around a nine-month delay in notifying the public about toxic seepage from an oilsands tailings pond.
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