January 13, 2022
5616 54a Ave.
Rocky Mountain House,
Alberta, T4T 1H6
Nixon, Jason, Honourable
Minister of Environment and Parks, House Leader,
323 Legislature Building
10800 - 97 Avenue
Edmonton, AB
T5K 2B6
Subject:
Source Water Extraction in Alberta
Dear sir:
Got a phone call
about a water extraction system set up on Prairie Creek to pump water to tanks
located 1.5 kilometers east for a frac job.
So, on Wednesday,
January 12, my wife Sandy and I took a road trip to see what was going on.
The extraction was
located SW of Rocky Mountain House, so we took Township Road 380 towards
Prairie Creek where we saw site #1.
Site #1
Several Things
occurred to me:
1] The tanks were
just filled as no snow appeared on the surface.
2] Why fill the
tank and allow the water to freeze.
3] Where was the
source water for these tanks secured?
Travelling west along Township Road 380, on the north side of the road at the Priaire Creek bridge was saw was can only be assumed
as the location of the pumps and
heaters for the transfer of water to the tanks located 1.5 kilometer east.
A
witness to the pumping system said the discharge line travelled under the
bridge and then along the east ditch to the tanks previously shown.
Site #2
Travelling further
along Township Road 380, we encountered another Frac site where the frac was
occurring.
In this case, a source water hose was in active use filling the tanks in the next picture.
So now the trek began. We followed the hose north to Secondary Road 752, westward to Range Road 91 and NW for the
next approximately 30 kilometers to the Ram River While
following the hose, we saw about 7 booster pumps and two heaters.
In Summary there
is a number of questions:
1] Why was Prairie
Creek the source water during the lowest flow of the year?
2] Why was this
location on Prairie Creek selected as it is located 2 kilometers upstream of
the major spawning location on the stream?
3] As Prairie
Creek is closed to angling during this period to protect spawning fish, why was
water extraction allowed?
4] As the company
at site #2 pumped water near 40 kilometers to their frac, wouldn’t it been
possible to add another 2 kilometers of transfer hose to fill the tanks @ site
#1?
I have the contact
information for the person who witnessed the pumping activities and have his
permission to share only if you call me for access.
Regards,
Don Andersen
Director, Central
Alberta Chapter of Trout Unlimited