Northern Alberta Surface Water Study

Water contamination... not a new subject or story to many people, but it's something that does not come out in the open very often. Sure there is the movie based on real events, "Erin Brockovich", and many Canadians should remember the "Walkerton Tainted Water Scandal". This is a new story out of Canada. Northern Alberta, Canada to be exact, in a little town called Worsley. Population: approximately 50. This town's economy relies heavily on the forestry industry and the oil/gas industry. Many gas pipelines run through and around the town of Worsley. Companies such as Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) and Baytex have quite a large investment into the town and surrounding areas. There are also numerous natural gas processing plants in the area as well. In fact, there was a tank fire there in 1997, but you'll be hard pressed to find the story about that on the internet.

Our story begins around April 2000, with one of the residents of Worsley, a former employee of these gas and oil companies, Jim Reamsbottom. A father of four children, three of which were born prior to 2000, he's a simple man who lived in a secluded area on the outskirts of town. His water is diverted from a local creek, to a dugout for his personal use, since there are no treatment plants there. His property is between two separate gas processing plants approximately one half mile away from his property on either side. One night in early 2000, Jim witnessed excessive flaring coming from both plants. Flaring is the burning of natural gas that cannot be processed or sold. It disposes of the gas while releasing emissions into the atmosphere. Gas processing plants remove the water, hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide and natural gas liquids from the raw natural gas to produce the market-ready natural gas. This excessive flaring took place for two months straight at one of these plants and has never stopped, even since they produced a sulfur acidification program and documents. Jim said the flares were large enough to read a book by at two in the morning, even with the light from the flaring one half mile away.

Now, Jim worked for one of these plants in late 1995 through 1996. In his time working there, he witnessed a breach in the spill containment berm surrounding the plant (see video documentation here). The breach was in the southeast corner of the processing plant property near the flare stack. For the time he was working there, and any time afterwards, the breach was never repaired. The plant had been struck by lightning two times prior to 2000, which caused a leak of contaminants.

June of 2000 brought a lot of rain to the area (four inches), and a spring runoff to the west of Jim's house (also the direction of the plant he worked at) was flowing with water for the first time in many years. There is also a field in the southwest direction of Jim's house where a fenced in area was put up at this time by one of Jim's neighbors, an owner of a herd of cattle. Around mid to late June fifty cows with calves were placed in this fenced in area to feed on the brome grass. The field was never disturbed prior to this other than for harvest.

July 6, 2000 began with non stop cow calls and continued day and night up until July 9. On that morning around 6:30AM Jim awoke to reduced sounds coming from the cows. He looked out his front window and saw a cow laying on the ground, with it's legs straight out and not touching. He went out to the field and upon further examination, noticed the stomach area was severely enlarged, to the point that it looked like it was just about to burst. There was no loose skin, and the nostrils and anus were festered with bubbles. This was one of three dead cows found that morning.

The rest of the cows that were alive were mothers with one or two calves. Many of the cows were down on the ground, others staggering around, looking disoriented. The calves were beginning to look the same way, due to the fact that they were feeding on breast milk. Jim contacted the cattle owners and informed them of the situation. They came down to the field, and of course were very upset. Jim had mentioned to them in passing that the containment berm was open under the flare stack at the plant to the west, approximately 100 meters away from where they were standing.

At this point Lothar Reucker (Canadian Natural Resources Plant Manager) had stopped at the well with no containment berm 100 meters away, got out, saw Jim and the cattle owners in the field, and immediately got back into his truck and left without saying anything to anyone.

Jim then went back to his house and contacted Gregg Smith of Alberta Environment and told him that there was a containment berm that was open under an active flare stack. Jim had explained to Gregg that when he worked for that plant (CNRL), Lothar Reucker instructed him to dig out the existing breach with a shovel and release the contents.

Gregg Smith then drove out to meet Jim and the cattle owners. Jim instructed him where tests should be conducted. What was the test? It was a routine water analysis, on a containment berm release. Certainly not a proper test for a chemical/sodium release from a containment berm.

The story does not end with this though. Jim has been conducting research and collecting samples on his own for many years after this, and has some astounding revelations. Astounding enough, that it got the attention of the oil/gas companies in the area, and his life has not been the same since.

Suggested links:
Video documentation
Introductory documentation
Animal Health Investigation
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