To the Editor:
While residents and campers at Crane Lake are soaking up the pristine setting of untouched boreal forest, crystal clear water, and the trill of our namesake bird this summer, we're also plotting a battle. Recently, we learned that Birchwood Resources, a junior oil company based out of Calgary with no other developments to its name, is planning to build a steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) plant to extract oil a mere 300 meters from our shoreline.
This winter, unbeknownst to us, the company quietly received approval with no public consultation from the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) to build three test wells, one of which is already in production. We still have time to stop the plant, which will spew a host of toxic chemicals into the air, threaten the wildlife by cutting a large swath through the ecosystem, and potentially change the temperature of the lake, which would decrease dissolved oxygen levels, increase bacteria, and cause the water to become overrun with algae. On top of these concerns looms the troubling fact that there have been two major spills in less than a month in Alberta. This nascent company would not have the resources to handle a catastrophe on our lakefront.
We are not anti-development; many of us work in the oil industry. We simply believe preserving one of the cleanest lakes remaining in Northern Alberta is worth more than any amount of profit. We hope the Alberta Government will help us preserve our beloved slice of this province and decline Birchwood's application.
Alyssa Noel,
Crane Lake/Sherwood Park
