The Action Surface Rights Association fights against abandoned oil wells
By Kate Ayers
Staff Writer
Farms.com
The Action Surface Rights Association will appear before the Supreme Court to appeal energy companies being able to abandon oil wells on farmland.
The Redwater Decision allows bankrupt energy companies to walk away from wells without having to remediate the land back to its original state, according to a CBC news article Thursday.
“It didn’t seem like anybody cared about the landowners’ position,” Daryl Bennet, a Taber, Alta. farmer and surface rights group member, said to CBC.
“Industry is able to walk away from the requirement to return the land back like it was when they first took it.”
Since the 2016 Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench ruling, over 1,800 orphaned wells has resulted in more than $100 million in liabilities, according to the article.
And Alberta producers are left to deal with the consequences.
“The company has come in and they’ve said they don’t have to follow any of the terms of the lease anymore. (Farmers) can’t get a loan on their land because of existing pollution,” Bennet said to CBC.
“There’s noxious weeds being spread from lease to lease by the operator. (Companies) can do whatever they want.”
The land and landowners are being disrespected, he said. And Alberta farmers can’t legally refuse oil drilling on their property.
Farmers’ lease payments are dropped once the company walks away and the Orphan Well Association, a non-profit organization that manages the reclamation of abandoned wells, can’t keep up, according to the article.
The source of the problem lies in federal legislation and a three-year economic downfall that left many energy company operators with no other choice than to abandon oil sites, according to Jim Ellis, president and CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator.
The original judge on the case concluded that federal bankruptcy is a higher priority than provincial environmental rules, according to the article.
The Action Surface Rights Association is supported by farm groups across Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and the National Farmers Union.