The Impacts of Oil and Natural Gas Activities on ALR Land in the Peace River Valley of Northern British Columbia Katie Eistetter 2015

Transcription

1 The Impacts of Oil and Natural Gas Activities on ALR Land in the Peace River Valley of Northern British Columbia Katie Eistetter 2015 Introduction, Background and Study Area British Columbia has one of the most progressive farmland protection policies in all of North America (Furuseth, 1981). In 1973, the Provincial government passed the Agricultural Land Commission Act (ALC Acts); arguably the most important piece of protective legislature for the agricultural land base. This provincial legislation introduced the development of the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC), which is an independent governance body that is responsible for administering the ALC Act (ALC Website, About the ALC). The Agricultural Land Reserve protects approximately 4.7 million hectares of agriculturally suitable land in British Columbia see Figure 1 for more details (ALC Website, ALR & Maps). The Peace River Valley has highly arable agricultural soil and supports a very large-scale agricultural industry. Although the growing season is short in the north, the summer climate and soil quality creates a perfect environment for agricultural production. There are multiple land use competitions for the agricultural land base in the Peace River Valley, namely from the oil and natural gas industry. This is due to the fact that this region is located on top of the world s third largest and richest crude oil and natural gas reserves, next to Venzuela and Saudi Arabia, known as the Montney Geological Formation (Energy Briefing Note, 2013). With the growing emphasis of the Canadian economy on oil and natural gas development, the region is experiencing an increase in resource development. Thus, this region presents an interesting opportunity to study the importance of effective natural resource management and the possibilities of mitigation of environmental conflicts. 1

2 The Agricultural Land Commission and the BC Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) have a binded contract known as the Delegation Agreement, which delegates the regulation of agricultural land and natural resource development to the BC OGC. Although both governance bodies view oil and gas activities as temporary, albeit likely long-term (ALC, 2012), oil and natural gas extractive activities have many negative impacts on the agricultural land base. The purpose of this project is to determine which areas of prime Agricultural Land Reserve in the Peace River Valley of northern British Columbia are most negatively impacted by oil and natural gas activities. Figure 1. ALR Land in British Columbia 2

3 Figure 2. The Peace River Valley Peace River Valley, Northern British Columbia ± Kilometers ALR Land Rivers Lakes BC/AB Border Peace River Regional District 3

4 Data Sources: Collection and Integration - Geogratis o Land Cover and Agricultural Data - Agricultural Land Commission o ALR Polygons and ALR Lines o Soil Capability: Canada Land Inventory (CLI) Rating - Natural Resources Canada o National Topographic Database Canada (NTDB) - DataBC o BC Oil and Gas Commission Shapefile Ancillary Features Facility Locations and Sites Petroleum Development Roads Petroleum Access Roads Sump Locations Pipeline Right-of-ways Waste Disposal Sites Well Sites Oil and Natural Gas Fields - BC Oil and Gas Commission o Statistical Information and Reports - UNBC GIS Remote Sensing Lab o Provincial and Regional Boundaries o BC Lakes o TRIM DEM Layers, 25 meter UTM projection This project required many different data sources in order to acquire the necessary information needed for an effective analysis. This included contacting the Agricultural Land Reserve and BC Oil and Gas Commission for consultations with regional planners and 4

5 professionals in the field, in order to provide additional information to fill any knowledge or data gaps. Criteria This analysis includes all Agricultural Land Reserve land with a Canada Land Inventory (CLI) rating of 1-4, as well as land that contains an oil and natural gas activity site. Additionally, this includes land within 500 meters of an oil and natural gas activity site, or petroleum development or access road. This agricultural land is considered to be more vulnerable due to its close proximity to extractive activities. Oil and natural gas sites include facility sites, well sites, waste disposal sites, and sump locations (see Appendix A for the BC Oil and Gas Commission s definition of these activities). Oil and natural gas activities that occur on prime quality soil are considered to have a larger impact on the agricultural land base, whereas lower quality soils are not as highly impacted by these activities, due to the inability to cultivate crops on this land (see Table 1). Table 1. Soil Capability- CLI Rating Scale SOIL CAPABILITY (Canada Land Inventory [CLI] Rating Scale) Soil Type CLI Rating 1 Excellent No significant limitations in use for crops 2 Good Moderate limitations that reduce the choice of crops, or require moderate PRIME conservation practices. AGRICULTURAL LAND 3 Moderate Moderately severe limitations that reduce the choice of crops or require special conservation practices. 4 Limited Severe limitations that restrict the choice of crops, or require special conservation practices and very careful management, or both. 5

6 UNSUITED FOR AGRICULTURE 5 Severely Limited Severe limitations that restrict their capability to producing perennial forage crops, and improvement practices are feasible. 6 Unsuited Unsuited for cultivation, but are capable of use for unimproved permanent pasture. 7 No Capability/ Pasture Land Soils in this class have no capability for arable culture or permanent pasture. 8 (W) Excess Water Excess water: Indicates the presence of excess soil moisture due to poor or very poor soil drainage. Risk of flooding from adjacent lakes or streams. Analysis and Methods For this project, a factor weighted analysis design was used. The oil and natural gas industry introduces many different environmental threats, each of which are dependent on a variety of factors. Various oil and natural gas activities have different types of impacts on the environment and surrounding land base, depending on the nature of each. For example, a well site has less impact on the land base than waste disposal sites or petroleum development or access roads. However, if a well site or a waste disposal site were to rupture or leak, the environmental costs could be devastating, regardless of the perceived environmental safety of the activity. Table 2 outlines the factor weighting scale implemented in this analysis. This particular analysis required a subjectively based consultation process with industry professionals. For this stage of the project, three long-term oil and natural gas workers were consulted for their knowledge and experience with the industry, its processes, regulations and their knowledge of the equipment. However, this procedure can be problematic due to it s subjectivity. Depending on the individuals that are consulted, different results may be rendered. 6

7 Table 2. Factor Weighting Scale FACTOR WEIGHTING SCALE FACTOR 1: SITES AND LOCATIONS C.R. F.W. - Facility Sites 2 - Well Sites 1 - Waste Disposal Sites 3 60% - Sump Locations 3 FACTOR 2: SPATIAL ARRANGEMENT C.R. F.W. - Facility Sites - Well Sites - Waste Disposal Sites - Sump Location - Petroleum Development Roads - Petroleum Access Roads à All areas within 500 meters of an oil an natural gas activity site, location or road FACTOR 3: SOIL CAPABILITY Required - CLI Classes 1, 2, 3 & 4 - VALUE= 9, 10, 8 & 2 à All areas with PRIME agricultural capability, according to the CLI rating scale. Any oil and natural gas activity conducted on this land causes more detrimental impacts on the agricultural land base % Procedure The first step was the data collection, compilation and integration. Shapefiles were downloaded and clipped to the appropriate case study layer the Agricultural Land Reserve within the Peace River Valley. Next, a digital elevation model was built using PCI Geomatics software. This began with unzipping the raster TRIM DEM layers in 25 meter UTM projection and mosaicking these layers into one large DEM, and then re-projecting it into Albers. This was clipped with the designated ALR boundary. A hillshade was then created using the DEM, and then also clipped to the chosen ALR boundary. 7

8 Figure 3. DEM and Hillshade 8

9 Figure 4. Hillshade Following this, all of the BC Oil and Gas Commission data were clipped to the ALR land within the Peace River Valley boundary and then using the Conversion Tools in ArcGIS, all shapefiles were converted to raster format in preparation for analysis. Then, the agricultural capability shapefile was clipped to the ALR boundary and reclassified according to the CLI ratings assigned to each area. This step ensured that all of the land being used in the analysis had the necessary CLI rating of classes

10 Figure 5. Soil Capability Within ALR Boundary Soil Capability Within ALR Boundary ± Soil Capability CLI Rating Kilometers 10

11 For the analysis, factor 1 was addressed first. The raster calculator was used to generate rasters for each site or location. The equations were designed as follows: con(isnull( sump_location ), 0, 3) Next, for factor two, the Euclidean Distance tool was used to create rasters of the distance from each site, location and road. Then the Raster Calculator was used to create a buffer raster within 500 meters of each activity site. Figure 6. Well Sites Distance- Euclidean Distance Tool For the third factor, soil capability, the Raster Calculator was used to select the specific areas with soil capability (CLI rating) of 1-4. Then, the final raster generation layers from all three factors were put into the Raster Calculator to determine the final output. 11

12 Results The results of this analysis determined that the Agricultural Land Reserve land within the Peace River Valley of northern BC has several areas of increased vulnerability of agricultural land. On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest, the areas of vulnerable agricultural land were displayed with a color scheme. Although a large amount of prime agricultural land yielded results of a 0 (brown) rating of vulnerability, there were multiple locations where the level of vulnerability was 1-3 (yellow) and 3-6 (orange). There were a small number of locations where the level of vulnerability was 6-10, and these are areas where there are multiple types of oil and natural gas activity in close proximity on prime agricultural land. See Figures 7-9 for more details. 12

13 Figure 7. Vulnerability of ALR Land Base Vulnerability of Agricultural Land Reserve Within PRRD Boundary ± Legend Prime ALR Land ALR Land Vulnerability of ALR Land Low: 1, High: Kilometers 13

14 Figure 8. Vulnerability of ALR Land Base Vulnerability of Agricultural Land Reserve Within PRRD Boundary ± Legend Prime ALR Land ALR Land Vulnerability of ALR Land Low: 1, High: Kilometers 14

15 Figure 9. Vulnerability of ALR Land Base Vulnerability of Agricultural Land Reserve Within PRRD Boundary ± Legend Prime ALR Land ALR Land Vulnerability of ALR Land Low: 1, High: Kilometers 15

16 Conclusions and Future Work In sum, this project yielded fairly successful results. Although there were several limitations to the research, the results proved to demonstrate the areas in the Peace River Valley of northern British Columbia where oil and natural gas activities negatively impact the ALR land base. Additionally, this analysis provided a clear rating scale of the level of vulnerability and negative impacts that these extractive activities have on the land base. However, there were a few limitations to the research that caused several issues. First, there were several gaps in the data downloaded from GeoGratis, which prevented the analysis from being conducted on cultivated cropland in the region. Moreover, the data on these activities were collected between , which indicates that it may not be entirely up to date with what is currently happening at these locations. Also, this data does not take into account oil spills, leaks and ruptures; therefore, some of the areas could have irreversible damage that is not documented or visible in the BC Oil and Gas Commission shapefiles. Future work for this project would include fine tuning the research by conducting interviews in the Peace River Valley with the BC Oil and Gas Commission, the Agricultural Land Commission, Natural Resources Canada, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, in order to determine the current situation of oil and natural gas activities. Also, documenting oil spills, leaks, ruptures and other equipment malfunctions that have environmentally devastating effects, as well as land reclamation errors and issues, would improve the accuracy of this project by determining the prime ALR land that has been permanently damaged or altered from oil and natural gas activities. Additional future work would include doing an analysis of the oil and natural gas activities by selecting the PROPONENT attribute, and determining which oil and gas companies are most prevalent in 16

17 the region, as well as informing which companies are causing the most environmental degradation to the agricultural land base. 17

18 References Agricultural Land Commission. About the ALC. Agricultural Land Commission. Maps and GIS: Agricultural Capability Geographic Information Systems Data. Agricultural Land Commission. Maps and GIS: ALR Maps. DataBC. Download Connect Portal. Energy Briefing Note: The Ultimate Potential for Unconventional Petroleum from the Montney Formation of British Columbia and Alberta. November Owen J. Furuseth, "Planning for Agricultural Lands in British Columbia-Progress and Problems." Environmentalist 1, no. 4 (1981). Provincial Agricultural Land Commission. Oil and Gas Development in the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR): The Non-Farm Use of Agricultural Land. August

19 Appendix A Facility Sites: (polygons) Polygon features indicating any grouping of equipment where water and hydrocarbon liquids are processed, measured, upgraded (i.e., remove impurities or other constituents to meet contact specifications) or stored prior to the point of custody transfer; or where natural gas is processed, measured, upgraded, or stored prior to entering the natural gas transmission and storage source category. This dataset contains spatial data collected through the Oil and Gas Commission s electronic Petroleum Application Submission System (epass) on or after October 30, The spatial data for all facility applications with a status of approved or leave to open are included. Petroleum Access Roads: (Polylines) With the implementation of the Oil and Gas Activities Act (OGAA) in October 2010, this dataset now contains data for all road applications received by the Commission, including access roads for well sites and prescribed roads. Before OGAA came into effect, access road applications applied to proposed construction of a road over any Crown Land without disposition preventing road construction, and when Petroleum Development Road designation was not necessary. This type of application was approved under Section 7 of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act. Spatial data is collected through the Oil and Gas Commission s electronic Petroleum Application Submission System (epass). epass submissions for road applications became mandatory October 30, 2006 and so this dataset contains spatial data for applications submitted on or after this date. All access roads or associated applications, including those with a status of proposed, cancelled, withdrawn or approved are included. Petroleum Development Roads: (Polylines) With the implementation of the Oil and Gas Activities Act (OGAA) in October 2010, Petroleum Development Roads are no longer accepted by the Commission. Minor amendments to existing roads are accepted at the Commission s discretion. Before OGAA came into effect, Petroleum Development Road (PDR) applications applied to proposed construction or to existing non status tenured roads over any Crown Land without disposition preventing road construction, and/or use of non-status, unencumbered existing access roads on Crown Land. Applications were approved under the Petroleum Natural Gas Act, Section 8 and were subject to the Petroleum Development Road Regulation. Only sections of the proposed PDR located on Crown Land were issued status under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Act, Section 8. PDR status did not apply to sections of road located on private lands or Indian Reserve lands. This dataset contains spatial data collected through the Oil and Gas Commission s electronic Petroleum Application Submission System (epass) on or after October 30, The spatial data for all PDRs, including those with a status of proposed, cancelled, withdrawn or approved is included. 19

20 OGC Sump Locations: (Polygons) Locations of sump sites used for drilling waste disposal. All Operators in British Columbia are required to handle and dispose of drilling waste in accordance with the requirements of the Oil and Gas Waste Regulation and the Oil and Gas Handbook. The Waste Disposal application requires that each company maintain an inventory of sump/pit data. A pit is an earthen excavation for purposes of containing drilling waste. A sump is a grouping of one or more pits found at a geographic location. Waste Disposal Sites: (Polygons) Polygons indicating drilling waste disposal sites as generated from upstream oil and gas operations. Drilling waste disposal areas include portions of the well site or remote sump where drilling wastes have been buried, spread on land, or mixed into soil. This dataset contains spatial data collected through the Oil and Gas Commission s electronic Petroleum Application Submission System (epass) on or after October 30, Well Sites: (Polygons) Polygon features indicating the location of the clearing or well pad. This dataset contains spatial data collected through the Oil and Gas Commission s electronic Petroleum Application Submission System (epass) on or after October 30, The spatial data for approved well applications is included. 20