SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. – Ranchers have shared their land with the energy industry for more than 50 years, but the relationship can be uneasy.
Rick Leslie, an Agriculture Canada land resource technician based in Saskatchewan, said the two sectors often view the land differently.
What an oil company employee once told him was a wasteland was actually an expanse of native prairie, he told participants in a recent tour hosted by the Prairie Parkland chapter of the Society for Range Management.
“It’s perspective.”
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Both sectors have learned lessons over the years.
For example, the energy industry used to plant crested wheat grass in its land reclamation projects after a pipeline went in the ground.
“That was a huge mistake,” Leslie said. “Every acre of crested wheat is an acre out of production.”
The same problem is now occurring with slender wheat grass. The characteristics that make these grasses desirable for reclamation also make them likely to invade and take over native grass.
“Now we are very particular on the seed mixes we allow in AESB (Agri-Environmental Services Branch, formerly Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration) pastures,” he said.
Native seed mixtures are now the norm, even though they can take a long time to establish.
Leslie said grazing intensity in those pastures is directly related to reclamation success.
Keeping invasive plants out of these sites remains a challenge.
Leslie showed a photograph taken in spring of downy brome sprouting on top of a mower after the previous year’s work.
“Clean equipment is crucial,” he said.
Other risks to native grass include soil contamination, erosion and compaction, loss of wildlife habitat and water contamination.
“The (energy) industry tries to wave the cheque and all the promises that go with that,” Leslie said. “Try to think long term.”
He said some companies have promised one access point and one or two wells on a property, only to have 300 wells and 30 to 40 access
points several years later.
Brian Weedon, who has ranched northwest of Swift Current since 1974 and deals with several oil companies, has mixed opinions about them.
“Some companies don’t even know how to spell responsibility,” he said.
Leslie said there is often an internal disconnect within companies or between the different stages of drilling and well operation.
He said it can be difficult obtaining concessions from the operating side of an oil company.
Fencing is an example.
“(Operations) don’t like to fence, don’t know how and can’t find the money for it,” he said.
Leslie urged ranchers to ask at the outset for an all steel structure with swing gates that won’t require as much maintenance as a barbed wire drop gate. All equipment should be fenced off and surrounded by a buffer zone.
Weedon, a crown land lessee, said he doesn’t have much say, even though he lives with the potential problems of well blowouts, leaking pipelines and contaminated water.
“There are landowner rights and lessee issues,” he said. “There really are no lessee rights in my view.”
Leslie said oil companies “are much more creative when challenged,” such as when they are asked to work in winter to decrease the risks to range health. He said oil companies are taking steps to reduce their footprint at the drilling stage.
Many now place reusable rig mats on top of the ground so heavy equipment doesn’t disturb fragile soil.
