There were plenty of strong opinions, but little grand-standing during the government well site reclamation meetings.
With a push of a button, farmers could say if they were strongly opposed to an opinion or not opposed and there wasn’t a raised voice in the packed meeting room.
With a hand-held key pad given to each person at the meeting, organizers got an instant reaction to some of the government proposals to change the way well sites are reclaimed.
Often it takes an educated guess to separate the farmers from government officials at meetings, but with the key pad, there was no guessing.
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At the Camrose meeting 42 percent were farmers, 18 percent were from the oil and gas industry and eight percent were contractors of the industry.
The opinions from the 10 meetings will be tallied and taken back to government.
More than 80 percent recommended that a full inspection of each well site remain. Another 14 percent were undecided and only five percent were opposed.
Almost three-quarters of the meeting strongly recommended the oil company do tests of the site before any work was done, about the same amount recommended to continue or strengthen rules recommending topsoil and subsoil be removed separately.
If an oil company cannot get the land back to its original condition, it may attach a list of justifications to the reclamation certificate. There was almost full approval that the landowner get a copy of those justifications. Almost the same number of people were opposed to the idea, saying that no justifications should be allowed.
The majority of people said they wanted the landowner kept more involved in the reclamation process.
About 75 percent said they would like an informal appeal process at the local level before it went on the the formal and more expensive environmental appeal board.
