Environmental group, Elders raise alarm on northern Alberta Suncor expansion

An environmental lobby group and an Indigenous Elder are speaking out against Suncor’s plan to build a wall dividing a wetland north of Fort McMurray.

The Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA), which has been trying to protect the area for decades, says the Fort Hills mine expansion would build a 14-kilometre wall with mining on one side and a protected area on the other.

“They were given permission to mine half of the McClelland Lake Wetland complex so long as they could guarantee that the other half would be protected,” explained conservation specialist Phillip Meintzer.

But Meintzer says such a environmentally vulnerable area is not the place to experiment.

“It’s a huge experiment because there’s not even a test case for this, there’s no example of this being done elsewhere,” he said. “Suncor keeps saying that it’s going to be relying on their ‘tried and tested’ tailings technology that they use in their tailings ponds.

“But we’re seeing more and more evidence these days of even tailings ponds are failing or leaking or seeping so that doesn’t give us much confidence.”

Meintzer explains approval of the project was awarded by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) in September 2022.

But he says an AWA report from April 2023 found several major concerns with Suncor’s plan.

In a press release, Elder Barb Faichney, who was on Suncor’s Sustainability Committee, says since the project was approved, the company no longer seems to be receptive to their concerns.

The AWA says the committee was created to inform the development of Suncor’s Operational Plan for the McClelland Lake Wetland Comples, but participation on the committee “has meant that most of the Indigenous communities involved have been unable to express concerns publicly.”

Because of this, the organization says Elder Faichney is the first Indigenous community member to express their concerns with the project.

Born in 1954, she grew up in the area of McClelland Lake and the greater wetland area.

In an AWA press release, Faichney said McClellan is “the land we were raised on, and now Suncor are going in and destroying it.”

When reached for comment, Suncor told CityNews it would be inappropriate to comment out of respect for the integrity of the ongoing McClelland Lake Wetland Complex Operational Plan review by the AER.