[Newsbot]

Title: Cleaning up Alberta�s oilpatch could cost $260 billion, regulatory documents warn
Category: Environmental
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2018-11-01 09:53:08
Canadian

[DrCaleb]

But heaven forbid that we should tax them, and put that towards cleaning up tthe mess they left, amirite? No, the good people of Alberta should pay out of pocket so that oil company executives should get their rightful bonuses!

[bootlegga]

$1:

Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips also characterized Wadsworth’s estimates as a “worst-case scenario” in which the industry shuts down overnight.

“The fact is that there are certainly liabilities with orphan wells, with tailings ponds and with other activities on the landscape, but our government from day one has taken these matters seriously and we’ve actually seen pretty good progress on this,” Phillips said. “There’s no question there’s more to do, but we’ve taken it very seriously from the beginning.”

Goodness, I'm shocked to hear such reasoned discourse from Phillips.

As she notes, this estimate is a worst case scenario (and I'm sure Wadsworth's $58 billion one is best case). Odds are, the costs will fall in the middle somewhere.

It's things like this that justify a much bigger investment in the Heritage Trust Fund so we can mitigate problems like this down the road. Of course, thanks to Klein, the HTF is a shadow of what Lougheed had envisioned.