Playing the Blame Game

Something has gone very, very wrong in the Town of Calmar. About two years ago someone discovered a leaking well near the new elementary school. The well, which had been abandoned to the standards of the day, was seeping sweet gas into the earth. This well was out in an open space and was dealt with fairly quickly. But the town’s problems did not end there. Two more wells were found to be leaking, one of them in a park and the other in the new Evergreen Crescent subdivision. As time went on, more wells would be found. Ed Melesko, Director of Public Works for the Town of Calmar, would later estimate there were a total of 22 abandoned wells in the town. Town Manager Kathy Murphy recently bumped that number up to 26 abandoned wells during the July town meeting. Only three of the wells were leaking but that was enough to cause more trouble than anyone could ever have imagined for Calmar. After all, it’s Calmar - a sleepy, drive-through town where young couples start families and elderly couples retire. This is not a town where people get knifed on the street. Bad thing don’t happen there. Until they do. For residents and town council, the biggest questions still remain: who is to blame and what do we do now?
The wells were originally drilled by Texaco Canada. The wells were abandoned to the standards of the day in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Imperial Oil took over Texaco Canada in 1989 and became the licensed owners of the wells.

Under Alberta law, once a well has been abandoned for a certain period it can be taken off a land title. That’s how a subdivision got built on top of a leaking well. No one officially knew it was there and no one bothered to call the Energy Resources Conservation Board before they started digging. There is evidence to suggest that the developer did find the well and ignored it. That developer has now gone out of business, so no one can officially blame (i.e. sue) him. The Town of Calmar officially has no authority when it comes to wells. Town council is also not allowed to supersede another level of government, meaning they can’t tell the provincial or federal government what to do. Many residents are blaming council for not having all the answers, for not being able to magically fix this situation. But council technically can’t do much. Council met with Imperial Oil executives and MLA Diana McQueen to try to find solutions. So far, no solutions have been offered, at least not any that have satisfied residents. But the town has technically done nothing wrong and so they cannot be officially blamed.

It’s hard to know who to blame for this mess. No laws have been broken. Alberta law allows for this to happen. And that’s why it did. Several residents, mainly those who stand to lose thousands of dollars when they sell their homes to Imperial Oil so the leaking well in their neighbourhood can be re-abandoned, have cried out for regulations that would require abandoned wells to be identified on land titles. This is not a crazy request. It seems to be a rather simple request, one that, if done in the past, could have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble, time and money. Companies like Imperial Oil surely do not want the headache of having to deal with the discovery of leaking abandoned wells every year in different areas as other communities discover leaking wells in their own backyards, as they surely will. This situation is not just happening in Calmar. Calmar simply had the misfortune of being the first community to be outed as a centre for secret leaking wells and the subsequent fallout. During the next decade, there will surely be more communities like Calmar throughout Alberta. And these communities will all have the same questions as Calmar does right now. Who is to blame and what do we do now?

Right now, residents can’t do much but try to move on with their lives, as hard as that might be. But the one thing that we can all do, that all Albertans should do, is lobby the provincial government for stricter regulations regarding abandoned wells. All abandoned wells should have to remain on land titles forever. Legislation should be put in place outlining a protocol for what should been done in situations like this one, including how compensation for homeowners affected should be calculated. The provincial government needs to take immediate action to put in place laws that will not only help homeowners affected by leaking abandoned wells but that will also prevent these kinds of disasters from happening in the future. Otherwise, the Alberta government will be the only ones left to blame.