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Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’

October 27, 2017

Alberta Approves Suncor Tailings Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has approved a tailings management plan from oilsands giant Suncor, despite the plan relying on “newly patented, unproven technology” that will require decades of monitoring.

Wednesday’s decision came only six months after the AER rejected Suncor’s proposed plan for the same project because it relied on unproven technology and a 70-year timeline for reclamation. The regulator only later agreed to re-review the plan.

So what changed? Uh, nothing.

“Suncor really hasn’t budged an inch in terms of actually changing anything,” said Jodi McNeill, policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

Critics are also concerned that the approval will set the tone for the remaining seven tailings management plans: all of which depend on unproven technologies in some capacity.

“Suncor has been operating for 50 years: they shouldn’t be given another 15 years to monitor and confirm tailings treatments that may or may not work,” said Tzeporah Berman, former co-chair of the Alberta Oil Sands Advisory Group, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“It is not a matter of the AER asking for more details. It’s that oilsands companies should not continue to operate if they once again have shown they don’t know how to clean up the mess they make. They have other technologies they can use. They just don’t want to pay for them.”

DeSmog Canada @DeSmogCanada

Alberta Approves Suncor Plan Despite Reliance on ‘Unproven Technology’ https://www.desmog.ca/2017/10/27/alberta-approves-suncor-tailings-plan-despite-reliance-unproven-technology …@james_m_wilt

Industry Has ‘Taken Advantage of Flexibility’ of Regulator

It’s been a long and windy road to get to this point.

Directive 085 was introduced by the AER in mid-2016 to replace the failed Directive 074, which was implemented in 2009 and saw every way company overshoot its respective tailing target without any consequence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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