A flock of Canada geese is being cleaned up at an Edmonton wildlife rehabilitation centre after the birds landed on and swam in a lagoon at a northern Alberta Imperial Oil IMO-T facility where 900 litres of crude oil spilled late last week.
The 12 geese were spotted by Imperial workers at the company’s Mahihkan plant on Monday, about 30 kilometres northwest of Cold Lake, Alta.
Imperial told The Globe and Mail in an e-mail Thursday that the release of oil into the waste lagoon on July 21 was because of “an upset with key process equipment.”
The incident is the latest in a series of environmental incidents at Imperial sites.
The company came under fire earlier this year for failing to notify local Indigenous communities of a continuing leak from a tailings pond at its Kearl oil sands facility into the environment. Communities only found out after a separate incident, in which a drainage pond at Kearl overflowed, spilling an estimated 5.3 million litres of industrial wastewater laced with pollutants.
Various other oil companies have also landed in hot water with the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) for similar issues this year.
Almost six million litres of water with more than twice the legal limit of suspended solids was released from a pond at Suncor’s Fort Hills oil sands project into the Athabasca River in April. The next month, more than 30 dead birds were found at two separate oil sands tailings ponds operated by the company.
And Cenovus Energy Inc. was slapped with a non-compliance order in June after more than 1,000 litres of diesel spilled into a popular fishing lake and the surrounding area near one of its sites.
Imperial said on Thursday that it is continuing to recover the oil spilled into the lagoon at its Mahihkan plant. In the meantime, it has installed additional noise cannons, fencing, decoys and flags around the lagoon, and placed the site under 24-hour surveillance.
Containment booms have also been deployed to prevent the release from spreading further within the lagoon.
The 12 birds were taken to Northern Alberta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation, where they are being cleaned and assessed. Imperial said the geese are in good physical condition.
The regulator said in a notice on its website that AER field inspectors were onsite at the Mahihkan plant to oversee Imperial’s response to the incident on Monday, and visited again with federal officials from Environment and Climate Change Canada the next day.
The regulator directed Imperial to provide daily updates on the cleanup and preventative measures to ensure no more wildlife is affected.
The AER said it and Imperial have notified communities. Imperial said it regrets the incident.