Alberta Landowners Sue Over Orphan Well Fund Levy
Two Alberta landowners have taken the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) to court over its management of the orphan well fund levy. The regulator is accused of breaking the law by not collecting enough money from industry to cover cleanup costs for a growing number of abandoned oil and gas sites.
Teresa Patry, a farmer in Vermilion, and Dwight Popowich, a landowner in Two Hills, say the AER is failing to follow Alberta's Oil and Gas Conservation Act. They claim that instead of applying a needs-based formula to set the levy amount, the regulator consults with industry groups and gets the numbers from them.
The court case alleges that this process allows the government to quietly shift responsibility away from companies that benefited from drilling on private land. Patry and Popowich are backed by the Alberta Surface Rights Federation and the Polluter Pay Federation, which is represented by Ecojustice lawyers.