Tar sands fever threatens Edmonton farmland

Edmonton has been shielded for years from the full repercussions of pell-mell growth in the Alberta tar sands five hours to the north. Now the region is getting a taste of the environmental and social maelstrom buffeting those communities as plans steamroll forward for as many as nine massive oil upgraders just northeast of the capital city, in an area euphemistically termed the Industrial Heartland.

Three quarters the size of Edmonton and straddling the North Saskatchewan River, this land has attracted an epidemic of kitchen table dealmaking as corporations stake out terrain for industrial complexes that will turn tar-like bitumen into synthetic crude oil. Projects completed by 2020 in “Upgrader Alley” could tally $46 billion or more and produce one-sixth of Alberta’s greenhouse gases, according to the Pembina Institute.

Among those impacted by the upheaval are Wayne and Luz-Maria Groot and their children, Luis and Ana Sofia. I’ve known Wayne for years as an unassuming member of our church congregation, an enviable cross country skier and a farmer whose rich loam yields bumper crops of potatoes. In late June and early July, as Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) heard arguments for and against a proposal by Petro-Canada Oil Sands Inc. to plant an upgrader on 36 quarters of farmland just east of the Groot fenceline, I came to know Wayne as a quietly eloquent advocate for a precious resource under siege.

Wayne’s father purchased this land in the early 1980s, when the family farmstead in Edmonton was slated for development. Since then, Wayne and his brother Don have developed a thriving seed potato business whose customers stretch from PEI to Mexico. With transportation costs escalating and an “eat local” ethic gaining steam, they began laying plans to sell table potatoes closer to home. Looking farther ahead, Wayne and Luz-Maria dreamed of passing the farm to a fourth generation.

Changing landscape

All that changed a few years ago, when rumours began circulating that huge swathes of farmland around them were being secretly optioned at lottery prices. No sooner had Petro-Canada closed in on one side than Suncor bought up more than 20 quarters on the other—and urged the Groots to sell. Then, after the fact, local authorities rezoned the land to allow heavy industry.

With sinking hearts, the Groots realized they could well be losing all their neighbours in return for a corporate complex whose early forays had been divisive and bullying rather than neighbourly. What’s more, Alberta could be losing a prime chunk of agricultural land even as alarm bells ring about worldwide food scarcity.

Galvanized into action, Wayne joined other residents in intervening against the Petro-Canada proposal. As Citizens for Responsible Development, they spoke passionately against losing the silence, the starry night skies, the ability to let children roam, the expectation that surrounding air and water will not cause harm. They also sounded the alarm about squandering irreplaceable farmland, which one resident termed “tantamount to sacrilegious.”

“We have an amazing and unique situation for growing potatoes here,” Wayne said. Besides rich soil, adequate rainfall, nearby markets, water for irrigation and pest-killing cold winters, the land benefits from a river valley microclimate that adds precious frost-free days to a short growing season.

Petro-Canada proposes to stockpile the top layers of farmland for reclamation when the tar sands are depleted. Wayne and his neighbours are skeptical that soil built up over thousands of years can be returned to its original form a century later, particularly for growing root crops.

The Government of Alberta terms securing its prime agricultural land “a provincial priority,” Wayne noted, quoting a letter received days earlier from Premier Ed Stelmach. “It is time we started acting on these priorities,” he said. “There is no reason that heavy industry should be built on these soils.”

Nor is Wayne alone in blaming lack of political leadership for the fact that short-term fossil fuel production continues to trump our long-term need for food. “The Province of Alberta is a culprit in this,” says Jim Visser, retired potato farmer and long-time advocate for soil stewardship. Not only potato production, but a thriving market garden industry is at risk, he notes. “The capacity we are losing now can never be replaced.”

Industry growth

For decades, the province has encouraged industry to locate along this prime stretch of the river despite the quality of soils found there. With oilsands extraction mushrooming beyond the north’s ability to cope, pressure grew to pipe some of the bitumen to the Edmonton region for upgrading. Anticipating an influx of taxes and jobs, local governments were happy to comply, despite vocal protests.

To their credit, the four rural municipalities involved hoped clustering the forest of towers and tanks and cooling ponds would create some synergies, including feedstocks for an existing Agrium plant that was threatening to close. But their belief that Upgrader Alley will translate into “improved quality of life for all,” as Sturgeon County Mayor Don Rigney told the ERCB, is already proving false for residents living near the one existing upgrader.

Only now, with two more upgraders approved, another five applications submitted and land purchased for a ninth, is the province moving ahead on an overarching land-use framework that pays some attention to the cumulative effects of incoming industry. The resulting Capital Region Integrated Growth Management Plan is supposed to impose “limits on impacts, rather than on development” based on thresholds being set for land as well as air, water and biodiversity.

Numerous voices are calling for a moratorium on upgrader construction at least until those frameworks are complete, particularly given escalating concern about the tar sands’ climatic impacts from such significant markets as the United States.

Public interest?

But an undercurrent of inevitability prevails, a sense that upgrader approvals will roll onward like the monster mining trucks up north, blind to what lies immediately ahead. After all, the bitumen is already being mined, the land already assembled and rezoned, the community torn apart, the plant extensively designed.

The ERCB is provincially mandated to approve natural resource projects that are in the public interest, taking into account social, economic and environmental effects. But nowhere is “the public interest” defined. After reviewing a decade of board decisions in a study sponsored in part by the ERCB, Alberta’s Environmental Law Centre concluded that the term has been used as shorthand to justify decisions based mainly on the views of the businesses being regulated. “The result is that the public interest, by default, becomes defined in terms of economic interests.”

John Hiemstra, political studies professor at The King’s University College, challenged the board to take a far broader view. Given that life is “only partly about economics, and depends more on the quality of human relations, the integrity of creation, the justice of our communities, and the ability of us all to flourish,” he said, “we need to start considering an economics of enough as the key element of the public interest.”

Wayne challenged the board to break with the past. “It is no longer acceptable to frivolously give the green light to these projects,” he said. “I believe that this project cannot be approved until we, as a province, especially in these complex times, have a clearly defined and debated understanding of what actually is the public interest.”

Despite the odds, Wayne professes hope. Hope that the ERCB will at least demand a safer, less destructive facility than the norm. Hope that economics will delay this project, as it has others, giving the land a reprieve until saner times prevail. Hope that the light shed on this case by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, local media, the Globe and Mail and others will by some miracle inspire the ERCB to consider everyone when weighing the public interest, future generations included.

For himself, Wayne hopes he and his family can continue growing potatoes, that staple food—with farmers across the fence. As he often says, “I’d rather manage a farm than a bank account.”

Edmonton writer Cheryl Mahaffy coauthored Agora Borealis: Engaging in Sustainable Architecture and appears in the anthologies 100 Journeys, Big Enough Dreams, Edmonton on Location and Outside of Ordinary. Active in liturgy and music at Fellowship Christian Reformed Church, she also writes formagazines, non-profits and other clients, with particular focus on justice and stewardship.

the Catalyst, Summer 2008, Vol. 31 No. 3