Location:	Rocky Mountain House
	Date:	October 19, 2000
	Number of Participants:	11
Other Locations: October 17 Leduc October 18 Drayton Valley October 19 Rocky Mountain House October 23 Sundre October 24 Grande Prairie October 25 Red Deer October 26 Calgary October 30 Pincher Creek Summary Aboriginal Summary Response Forms	MEETING NOTES 1. Development Planning Coordination of surface and subsurface planning and development Fails to include people; sounds more like attempt by government and industry to gang up on people; well organized plan to further your own employment. Community or individual should have the opportunity to speak against development (i.e. city council meeting). Adjudication just allows companies to fix problems until they get it right &emdash; this is wrong. Need to address broader issues at sometime, but recognizes this isn't in the mandate. Should we promote sour gas at all? Can it be done in a healthy way for all aspects of environment and people? Add to comment about Crown Mineral Disposition Review Committee. There is more to this &emdash; there is a lack of stakeholder or public input on all subject areas, not just safety.   Coordination of planning and development of subsurface resources EUB ignores the proliferation process &emdash; needs to be more stringent and have stricter rules &emdash; likes the idea of involving municipality, they should have a say in order to help or defend citizens. Is this possible? What are you going to due for the people who have been and continue to be hurt living in the area of your approved developments &emdash; is it really okay to poison the people while the government boasts wealth? Your idea of coordinating resources fails to include the people. This sounds more like a well organized attempt by the government and industry to gang up on people. 2. EUB Role Content of regulations If the EUB is successful in their role, why are there so many coalitions?   Effectiveness of the field surveillance system and other enforcement measures Fire entire EUB and replace with advisory committee, EUB negligent and whitewashes concerns that advisory committee has raised. Use new technology to update old facilities. How can this body have clients and stakeholder and yet remain unbiased? Need to straighten all this out before another huge disaster. Need expertise in areas such as health. Have to extend ambient objectives (only have objectives for 8 compounds). Self-policing is wrong. EUB and companies should have to go through health authorities for public information (i.e. health concerns). This is an issue of confidentiality. To go further with confidentiality issues, will there be any guarantee for protection of information or who has access to this information (i.e. knowing a teenage daughter is home alone at night.)   Application and decision process Rubber stamps process for petroleum's applications &emdash; 99% success Application disputes are noted but what about the peritoneal stage? This is a huge issue. There is no process in place except for court or vandalism. EUB needs to be involved and mediate at operational stage. Mediation is discouraged by process. They can't make things as safe as before they got there. They want you to feel safe but the bottom line is money. In this case. What purpose does mediation serve especially when the company is 99% likely to win in court? Being bought off, paid off or moving are the only options. This doesn't give EUB credibility.   Relationship with Aboriginal people If people agree to any settlement then they have no worry if EUB will be impartial. EUB needs to give out more information prior to hearing. People have no clue what to do. 3. Monitoring Class and wells. Monitoring is not a stop valve. Comment made about being generally supportive. Refer to PAMZ meeting where a company said they will put in monitors &emdash; they need to be good monitors that offer sufficient warning and record when errors occur. Need correlation between monitors and risk assessment; test monitors. Exposure monitoring is important. 4. Jurisdiction Why is government responsible for aboriginal health and safety and not the general public. Too many politicians; need effective regulating body that makes ruling which respect requests and don't embezzle money form industry at public's expense. Agree with this directive but there needs to be a one-window approach to avoid missing issues, error, frustration &emdash; not just at the application stage. Gasp more crucial that overlaps (i.e. knockdown occurs and no one accepts responsibility - responsibility is a huge concern as well as confusion and frustration. 5. Industry Procedures and Personnel What will you do to help those who are hurt by living in the area of approved development? Slowly poisoning everyone. Need a moratorium on future development until process is 100% safe. Ferrier 7-7 to be used as exploratory in human consequence under the guise of information gathering in 'event consequence management'. Honestly believe they are right &emdash; need to admit anything can go wrong &emdash; no contingency for this. Only there when they want something and return only at next applications Address service and operation problems. Companies change ownership constantly and pass the buck in responsibility to previous owners. No shared knowledge between owners. Small companies need more expertise. EUB must be responsible for all of this. Procedures keep changing. 6. Emergency Response Planning and Preparedness Focus on lethality 'not dead, then okay'. Some things are works than being dead (i.e. lifetime disability); need more emphasis on livelihood, chronic issues, cattle, unborn fetus. ERP is scary; shrinking ERZ from 13 to 14km to make it 'manageable'; if they can't manage original amount of people, don't do it; influenced by models but models do fail. Need more exercises in evacuation. Is interruption to lives worth sour gas? 7. Understanding Health Effects Continued concern for health both short and long term effects. Update information on respiratory diseases and how they are aggravated by H2S. Is there more health problems than 50 years ago? This says nothing of the true health effects; doesn't address concerns of nausea, respiratory, cancer, etc.; avoids the real issue. Have support committee for comprehensive table (health). 8. Technical Knowledge Dispersion modeling Standardized method needed. Modeling is key in risk assessment and outcome of risk assessment is in deciding public health concerns and viability of the well.   Risk assessment Numbers too confusing; need common terms for people to understand. Numbers used to whitewash &emdash; numbers scam. Disagrees with risk assessment. Risk assessment only good for big numbers and lots of people &emdash; not for rural areas. Risk assessment brought in to be non-adversarial (reference to Class 4). Number crunching is appalling and without physical trails is unacceptable. 9. Setbacks Criteria for setbacks Agree this is a major issue. Present process of using 4 km feels like rubber stamp process. Doesn't take risk into consideration. Committee copping out by requesting another committee. Compensation for adjacent landowners; they lose current and potential development opportunity. Future development in recreation is not possible with current setbacks (i.e. Clearwater River area). Setbacks grossly inadequate; too close to schools, hospitals and homes; have to consider that setbacks last for 40 years. Industrial wasteland is short-term gain for long term pain. 10. Public Consultation by Industry Industry doesn't give confidence they know what they were doing. Change contact people all the time. Too may near lies in the information package sent out; information was not correct and out of date; contacts were non-existent anymore; leads to doubt; lost trust in the company after awhile. Industry doesn't do enough consultation. They address the well to be currently drilled and ignore future issues and development. EUB needs to start acting like regulatory body. Public awareness would mean EUB would have to do something to give the appearance of credibility Need true and unbiased information sent out. Public not taken seriously. Company and EUB claim they want you to feel safe. When there were meetings health of people and animals were glossed over; they focussed on policy; meetings should be a function of the EUB. 11. Public Awareness and Education Awareness issues not bad, but industry and agencies need to be proactive; how will people reach you? Where do you get unbiased information and who gives credibility; not necessarily available. As people become more aware, more objectives will be raised. 12. Aboriginal Issues Communication poor; leads to fear, confusion, frustration, safety issues. One pipeline company went broke and no one notified Band because it was sweet; point is the Band didn't know what was going on and if they should worry; can't just notify those directly in ERP. Difficulty with evacuation due to community set-up; communication barriers; need proactive. approach. 13. Implementation No comments 14. Non-mandate but Important Issues Wants to see committee comments on this section. Process has artificial limitations; not necessarily true that other committees covering issues. Need to research health effects; long term exposure. Explore intervenor funding. Flaring optimistic of committee who is addressing this. Research and monitoring &emdash; optimistic. Scope of process too narrow. Class 4 wells should not be on private land; moratorium needed; completely different that the rest of the issues; not judged on merit (i.e. nearby fish hatchery, mobile home park, Camp Caroline, acreages.); setbacks no different than others; compares to Bearspaw situation; is amazed on one had complained in his area until now. Disclosure document for real estate will state sour gas in area; how do you sell? Issues with seismic. Worry of public land; environmentalists protect this so companies go to rural landowners or small towns.