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John Gulley speaks with the voice of authority
developed over 35 years; few people can match his longevity of oilsands experience. He is a senior oilsands
advisor with Golder Associates, an engineering and
environmental company operating under the banner “Engineering
Earth’s development, preserving Earth’s integrity.” Now a
global company, Golder has more than 7,300
employees – 3,000 in Canada, where the company began.
“I started working with what was then Great
Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor) in 1976 on a project that was about deterring
birds from landing on tailings ponds,” Gulley says. “I’ve
seen significant changes in the way companies produce oilsands,
the way regulators work, and of course major changes in the way oil companies
deal with the environment.”
Today, his specialty is to work with companies as
they prepare their environmental impact statements. Given that background, he
has a clear view of the way oilsands regulation
functions. Top of his list is the idea that regulation doesn’t improve
industry performance. As an example, he cites ERCB Directive 074, which was
issued in 2009.
“Many people believe it will actually change
the way companies operate,” he says. “In fact, it reflects work
the industry has been doing for many, many years. The companies have been
searching and researching ways to deal with (environmental) problems for many
years. The directive put in words the industry’s achievements.
I’m not convinced that regulators and stakeholders play a large role in
identifying problems.”
Science and technology
In Gulley’s view, advances in scientific
technology have led to the biggest changes in environmental protection.
Monitoring systems began tracking oilsands data
about 1970, and “their existence and the way we use them hasn’t
really changed in recent years. What has changed in
the last 35 years is the volume of data we can record and the level of
accuracy that’s now possible. The information we use to prepare an
Environmental Impact Assessment, for example, is staggering. (Data on
wildlife and habitat) has lagged, but we’re developing that now.”
According to Gulley, the increasing analytical
capability of the lab has created a whole new world of environmental science.
One result is that data from the industry’s early years has become
irrelevant. “The detection limit of a chemical or an element –
mercury, say – may have been 1.0 in those days. (Today we measure the
same element at 1/1000th of a unit, instead of one.) You may have hundreds of
data points from (the early) years, but you don’t really have any data.
Thirty-five years ago when you talked about polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
compounds you didn’t have a list of 150 compounds (as you do today).
You had a single PAH number (for all of them).”
Better labs, better techniques and more data have
helped create better environmental management. “The amount of data that
we have and our knowledge of the environment enable us to predict the
potential effects of (oilsands) projects as we move
forward. When we look at cumulative effects we have a lot more certainty now.
We now have a great deal more confidence.”
Progress in the oilsands
industry has created an increasingly complex sector. Today there are three
distinct groups of producers. The pioneers – Suncor, Syncrude and Cold Lake – are the first group.
Producing facilities that have been constructed in the last decade or so,
many of which use in-situ production, are the second. Then there are those in
the planning stage. “There’s a difference in each of their
operational requirements,” says Gulley, “and we have people
dealing with all of them.”
The regulatory system
The rapid advance of technology has made the
environmental regulatory system both flexible and robust. “You have to
adhere to a guideline number rather than to a technology,” Gulley
explains. “This gives operators quite a bit of flexibility. They
don’t have any flexibility around the number – for example, they
can’t say ‘I’m going to achieve 12 instead of 10.’
How they meet the required number is up to the operator.”
He pauses for effect, then
notes a recent announcement by the federal government that they are going to
become involved in the choice of technologies to reduce carbon emissions.
“This is quite a departure from the way this has traditionally been
done. Perhaps the industry should be alarmed.”
Two features of the traditional regulatory system
make it so effective. First, if an operator doesn’t meet one of the
criteria in its operating permit, by law the company has to report that fact
to the authorities. That’s the first level of protection. The second is
that the values required in the operating permits are
“protective,” in the sense that they are far more restrictive
than necessary.
Consider two examples, each based on the same
operating permit. The permit specifies that a particular discharge into water
can be no more than five even though the best scientific thinking says a
discharge volume of 50 would be enough to protect the environment.
On the one hand, imagine that the producer hits a
level of seven for one day. The company must immediately report the
infraction. The regulator may do nothing because the science has shown that
higher values are safe, but the producer will still need to take swift action
to reduce the discharge to the permitted rate.
On the other hand, imagine that the operator reports
discharges of 500 for five days in a row. The regulator would act quickly.
Penalties could include fines or a halt to operations.
If regulators and stakeholders play a large role in
identifying problems, what role do environmental NGOs play? “The
Pembina Institute and other environmental NGOs provide perspective. Their
goal is to control, minimize and in their words ‘protect the
environment’. I review every one of their documents. I look at their
information, and I compare it to ours, and it’s as though we live in
two different worlds. I would consider our data to be more scientifically
based,” he modestly reflects.
However, he says, “They provide a voice for
many people who otherwise wouldn’t say anything. Have they driven
improvements? Yes, in my view they have. They push companies to be better,
they push regulators to be better, and they increase everybody’s
awareness of the oilsands. Do I agree with
everything they say? No, I don’t.”
Peter McKenzie-Brown
Language Instinct
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