{"id":44706,"date":"2019-03-23T10:10:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T15:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44706"},"modified":"2019-03-23T10:10:59","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T15:10:59","slug":"a-fracking-disaster-bc-failing-to-make-polluters-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=44706","title":{"rendered":"A Fracking Disaster: BC Failing to Make Polluters Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/Analysis\/2019\/03\/14\/Fracking-Disaster-Polluters-Not-Paying\/\">A Fracking Disaster: BC Failing to Make Polluters Pay<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Auditor general says oil and gas commission hasn\u2019t ensured companies will pay cleanup costs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2017\/04\/26\/oilwell.jpg\" alt=\"Oil well\"\/><figcaption>BC\u2019s oil and gas industry has predictably let the number of inactive wells grow from 3,800 to 7,474 between 2007 and 2018, due to \u2018gaps\u2019 in legislation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The polluter-pay approach isn\u2019t working in British Columbia\u2019s oil and gas patch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The province\u2019s energy regulator hasn\u2019t secured enough money from companies to cover the estimated $3-billion cleanup costs for 10,672 inactive oil and gas sites, says a&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bcauditor.com\/pubs\/2019\/bc-oil-and-gas-commission%E2%80%99s-management-non-operating-oil-and-gas-sites\">new report<\/a>&nbsp;by B.C. auditor\u2019s general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But that\u2019s only the beginning of a long list of deficiencies in the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission\u2019s approach to managing the rising environmental and financial risks posed by inactive wells, pipelines and other industry infrastructure, according to the report by Auditor General Carol Bellringer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In addition to not collecting enough security deposits, the regulator has failed to demand that operators decommission inactive wells in a timely fashion due to \u201cgaps\u201d in legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With no legal requirement to clean up old wells, the industry has predictably let the number of inactive wells grow from 3,800 to 7,474 between 2007 and 2018.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe increase in the numbers is significant,\u201d Bellringer said during a Vancouver news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2017\/02\/13\/Inactive-Wells-Alberta\/\">North Dakota<\/a>&nbsp;where industry has two years to clean up a well once it stops producing, B.C. has no defined time limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The government has promised to introduce changes shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report noted that the province\u2019s Orphan Site Reclamation Fund is effectively bankrupt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The number of orphaned sites abandoned by insolvent operators has grown from 45 wells in 2015 to 326 wells today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the regulator estimates, it costs an average $370,000 to cement and reclaim a well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a result the agency could face more than $120 million in cleanup costs for the 326 orphaned wells. The fund\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bcogc.ca\/node\/14849\/download\">operating budget<\/a>&nbsp;for 2017\/18 was $5.3 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Fracking Disaster: BC Failing to Make Polluters Pay Auditor general says oil and gas commission hasn\u2019t ensured companies will pay cleanup costs. The polluter-pay approach isn\u2019t working in British Columbia\u2019s oil and gas patch. The province\u2019s energy regulator hasn\u2019t secured enough money from companies to cover the estimated $3-billion cleanup costs for 10,672 inactive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[5549,331,1729,638,23884],"class_list":["post-44706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-andrew-nikiforuk","tag-fracking","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-pollution","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44707,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44706\/revisions\/44707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}