An independent study of the carbon capture and storage site near Weyburn, Sask., was announced Jan. 17 after allegations from one couple that the site is leaking.
The International Performance Assessment Centre for Geologic Storage of Carbon Dioxide said experts from around the world would examine the land owned by Cameron and Jane Kerr.
The Kerrs held a news conference on Jan. 11 and asked for an investigation of problems they had documented on their farmland.
They said they noticed changes in surface and ground water in 2004, a year after they dug a gravel pit for EnCana, now known as Cenovus.
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Water was foaming and bubbling, explosions could be heard in the gravel pit and unusual algae growths were seen in ponds. They also said there were dead animals near the ponds.
They moved off their land and into Regina because of their concerns.
Last summer, they hired Paul Lafleur of Petro-Find GeoChem in Saskatoon to study the soil gas on their property. He found unusually high carbon dioxide and methane levels.
“The provenance or source of the high concentrations of C02 in soils of the Kerr property is clearly the anthropogenic C02 injected into the Weyburn reservoir,” Lafleur concluded in his report.
About 8,000 tonnes of anthropogenic, or man-made, carbon dioxide arrives in liquid form by pipeline each day from Great Plains Synfuels in North Dakota. It is injected into the Cenovus enhanced oil recovery project to help extract oil and permanently store the carbon dioxide.
Carmen Dybwad, IPAC chief executive officer, said experts will determine if there is in fact leakage and what the cause might be.
“The object of the review is not to determine fault or whether any leakage could have been avoided,” she said.
Dybwad said there are many cases of natural releases of carbon dioxide that produce small geysers.
The releases could also have been methane or brine.
The IPAC-led study will include analysis of air, soil and water. Experts will also look at the plants in the area.
The methodology used by Lafleur, and studies by others such as the Petroleum Technology Research Centre, will be examined. The scientists will also talk to the Kerrs.
The Kerrs could not be reached for comment Jan. 17 on whether the IPAC study satisfies their request for an investigation.
Ed Dancsok, assistant deputy minister of energy and resources for Saskatchewan, told reporters that officials had been working with the couple off and on since 2005.
Air, water and soil samples were taken in 2007.
“The results of that work was that there was no direct apparent evidence that the project itself was causing the source of concerns,” he said.
The ministry has sent Lafleur’s work to industry experts and is waiting for comment, he said.
Dancsok said there have been no other complaints about potential carbon leaks.
“The residents that live directly over the project have not raised any concerns with us,” he said.
Provincial energy minister Bill Boyd said the ministry would take a closer look at the Kerrs’ concerns. He would not call for a halt to the carbon storage project.
“There are always people that feel that they are somehow or another wronged either by individual circumstances, by where they live or by the government or something of that nature,” he said. “If you’re going to essentially slow down industry and have a significant economic impact on the province because of somebody’s maybe not so well founded concern, I think you have to be very careful about those kinds of circumstances.”
Dybwad said even if several studies all concluded that the carbon storage project is causing problems, it wouldn’t mean the end of such work.
“It’s certainly not the death knell,” she said. “It’s really important that we understand what happens.
“If it’s going to continue, it has to continue in a way that everybody perceives and understands it to be safe.”
She said that all the results of the study will be made public. The study will take months, not years, she said.
