Indigenous communities in Canada’s oilsands region on Monday called for Alberta’s energy regulator to be disbanded and replaced following a months-long toxic tailings seepage from Imperial Oil’s Kearl oilsands mine.
Community representatives were testifying to a parliamentary committee in Ottawa about the impact of the leak and ongoing concerns about oilsands tailings management.
Imperial, a unit of Exxon Mobil Corp, first detected discoloured water near its Kearl site last May, but the company and the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) failed to update local First Nations communities when testing showed the water contained tailings, a waste product of mining.
The tailings seepage only became
