Cleanup Fund Hits $700M
10/18/2007
by -- ESAA
www.esaa.org
Edmonton, AB - Alberta's financial security blanket for cleaning up abandoned oilsands mines and other potential environmental messes has ballooned tenfold in the last seven years.
In 2000, the government held just over $70 million in environmental protection security funds, letters of credit and promissory notes. Now it has about $700 million.
About 65 per cent of this money is for oilsands mining operations. The recent oilsands expansion is a big factor in the ncrease, said John Knapp, Alberta assistant deputy minister of environmental assurance.
The money is held to ensure landscapes used by industry are cleaned up to the satisfaction of the government. Types of operations covered include coal and oilsands mines, sand and gravel pits, landfills, hazardous waste management and hazardous recyclable facilities.
Once a reclamation certificate is granted, the money is returned. Partial refunds are given when a portion of the work is done.
The money can also be used if a company goes bankrupt.
The government had to dip into the funds in 2000, when Smoky River Coal went into receivership. It had about a third of the deposit left by the time it finished the cleanup.
Knapp said there is no set rate that companies must pay into the fund. "Basically, the company has to state what the reclamation costs would be, and they have to satisfy the director under our legislation," he said.
Syncrude spokesman Alain Moore would not say how much the company spent to reclaim Gateway Hill because the company considers that information proprietary.
But he did say that land reclamation as a whole is a "significant expense" for the company, amounting to $30 million last year.
Reclamation work on 300 hectares accounts for the lion's share of that spending, with the rest of the money spent on research and development.
(Source: ESAA Weekly News - Week Ending October 19, 2007, (www.esaa.org)
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