Alberta Landowners Sue Regulator Over Orphan Well Cleanup Funding
Alberta landowners seek judicial review, claiming regulator's low levy fails to cover C$1.66 billion cleanup backlog.
A group of Alberta landowners has taken the province's energy regulator to court, arguing that it has knowingly underfunded a program designed to shield the public from the costs of cleaning up abandoned oil and gas wells.
The legal action, filed in an Alberta courtroom on Tuesday, marks the culmination of years of friction between rural communities and the energy industry in Canada's main oil-producing province. The applicants include two individual landowners, the Alberta Surface Rights Federation, and the Polluter Pay Federation. They are seeking a judicial review of the Alberta Energy Regulator's obligation to ensure that industry, not taxpayers, bears the financial burden of well cleanup.
Alberta currently has roughly 7,300 inactive wells, most left behind after company bankruptcies. The industry-funded Orphan Well Association, responsible for decommissioning and reclaiming these sites, has closed about 8,900 wells since 2002. However, it estimates the remaining cleanup backlog will cost C$1.66 billion.
Lawyer Susanne Calabrese, representing the landowners, told reporters that the regulator has consistently set the levy paid by oil and gas companies too low. This year's levy is about C$154 million, only 11% of the total estimated closure cost. She warned that funding is not keeping pace with the growing backlog, creating health, safety, and financial risks for landowners, many of whom are farmers with wells on their property.
"The safety net is falling further and further behind," Calabrese said.
The Alberta Energy Regulator declined to comment on the legal proceedings.
Landowner Dwight Popowich, who has fought for years to have an inactive well on his farm cleaned up, said most rural Albertans support oil and gas development but expect companies to clean up after themselves. "That promise, to me and thousands of other Albertans, has been broken over and over again," he said.
Studies indicate that abandoned wells can leak methane, contaminate soil and groundwater, and impose significant cleanup costs. The case comes as both the Canadian and Alberta governments push to expand oil production amid a trade war with the United States, putting the regulator's environmental enforcement under fresh scrutiny.