Alberta waited a month to declare emergency response to Kearl oilsands releases: document

The Alberta government waited a month before calling an emergency response to one of the biggest releases of oilsands tailings in the province’s history, a leaked document shows.

The document, obtained by The Canadian Press, shows the province didn’t initiate an emergency response until after First Nations chiefs in the area went public about how they were informed of the releases from Imperial Oil’s Kearl mine, about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.

The document also sheds new light on official communications and reaction to the Kearl spills, now the subject of three inquiries.

“The fact that the province waited over a month before initiating its emergency response is not surprising at all,” said Chief Alan Adam of the Athabasca Cree First Nation, which uses the area for harvesting.

“We are used to the provincial government letting us down.”

Discoloured water, later found to be groundwater contaminated with oilsands tailings, was discovered seeping from a Kearl pond in May.

First Nations were not kept informed of that investigation until Feb. 7, when the Alberta Energy Regulator issued an environmental protection order against Imperial after the another release of 5.3 million litres of tailings from a containment pond.

That order was made public and reported on. Alberta Environment Minister Sonya Savage has said the protection order was how she first learned of the problem.

The releases drew more attention on March 2, when chiefs of area First Nations said they had not been updated since the original notification, while their people continued to hunt, fish and gather plants in the area. Both Adam and Chief Billy-Jo Tuccaro of the Mikisew Cree First Nation said they’d lost trust in the regulator.

Five days later, on March 7, Alberta Environment began an emergency response to the spill, which contained toxic levels of contaminants including…