FORT MCKAY, ALTA.—Just before 2 a.m. on June 20, 2016, a foul-smelling cloud of toxins from a Syncrude oilsands plant began slowly drifting north toward the hamlet of Fort McKay, 10 kilometres away.

Workers had been trying to restart the Mildred Lake plant after devastating wildfires that had ripped through the area six weeks earlier forced an emergency shutdown.

The restart didn’t go as planned. An estimated 10,400 barrels of untreated petrochemicals were released into a waste pond, creating a plume of toxic air that could cause headaches and possibly long-term health risks.

The plume contained hydrogen sulphide, which can cause breathing issues at lower concentrations and death at higher ones. It also held high amount of hydrocarbons — a group of compounds, some dangerous, found in crude oil. Two of the most toxic are toluene, which affects nerves, and benzene, a carcinogen. Officials couldn’t tell if they were in the cloud that day.

They also couldn’t determine if the plume would create an emergency until it reached Fort McKay, 10 hours after it was released, a Star/National Observer investigation has found.

Insiders would later say that the incident highlights a key problem facing the oil-rich province, which has long-claimed to have the world’s strongest environmental regulations. They say that pressure and lobbying from industry and economic interests are trumping science and strong oversight, putting public health and safety at risk.

The incident also reveals gaps in air quality monitoring, despite recent federal and provincial efforts in recent years to improve government oversight of industry.

For years, residents of Fort McKay have complained about rank-smelling air pollution from the oilsands plants that surround it, though long-term health effects have never been proven. But this plume was exceptionally pungent, and the Alberta Energy Regular (AER) didn’t have the data to know if it would put human health in danger.

“I personally cannot stay outside the (office) and breath[sic] the air outside, it is pretty bad,” wrote Ryan Abel, a Fort McKay First Nation employee, in an email obtained by freedom-of-information. “Definitely going to cause headaches, etc. for those breathing it in.”

As the chemicals inched toward the town, AER staff clashed over whether they should warn the community, say insiders interviewed by the investigation.

“We really didn’t know what the risks were going to be (for Fort McKay),” said one person with direct knowledge of the AER’s decision-making process that day, speaking confidentially for fear of professional reprisal.

Syncrude’s Mildred Lake plant is one of 11 oilsands facilities within a 30-kilometre radius, with more planned and proposed.

“Not a week goes by where you don’t smell anything,” said Jean L’Hommecourt of Fort McKay First Nation.

Sometimes it’s ammonia — one leak of it from Syncrude in 2006 sent four Fort McKay children and a teacher in to hospital. Other times, it’s sulphur or gasoline. The AER received 172 air quality complaints from Fort McKay between 2010 and 2014, a report by Alberta officials found.

Read More from The Price of Oil Investigation:

Oilsands waste is collected in sprawling toxic ponds. To clean them up, oil companies plan to pour water on them

This oilpatch town was overcome by a mystery gas. Now its residents are asking, what made us sick?

That rotten stench in the air? It’s the smell of deadly gas and secrecy

During the June 2016 incident, Syncrude didn’t communicate with Fort McKay until an hour after the plume had arrived, documents show. It was “far too late under these circumstances,” said Abel in an email.

Oilsands operators are exempt from AER rules that compel companies to warn communities if they release toxic substances, so Syncrude faced no consequences.

“This could have potentially impacted the community’s ability to enact an emergency response plan and undertake appropriate safety measures,” read the AER draft report on the incident, which was obtained by the investigation.

Syncrude spokesman Leithan Slade said the company is “continuously improving” its notification protocols. The AER, which warned Fort McKay five hours after the chemicals were released, said the community “would have been notified immediately if there was a public health risk.”

That afternoon, Health Canada warned Fort McKay residents to “consider sheltering indoors.”

The Fort McKay First Nation declined to comment for this story as did Abel. The McKay Métis didn’t respond to interview requests.

The Cree, Dene and Métis people who live in Fort McKay used to survive by hunting and trapping — now, good relationships with oil and gas companies have allowed the community of 750 to prosper. The First Nation’s businesses brought in $506 million in gross revenue from 2012 to 2016, according to a Fraser Institute report.

A sign outside the First Nation office tells residents to report odours with a 1-800 number. The Athabasca River Valley can act like a funnel for emissions, channelling releases from various oilsands operations toward Fort McKay.

Visitors can see the First Nation’s wood and glass administrative building, a shiny daycare centre and tidy homes with pickup trucks in the driveways. A few times per year, every member of the nation gets a share of the profits — in June 2018, individuals got a cheque for $1,700 each.

The affluence comes with a cost: air quality in Fort McKay sometimes exceeds air quality thresholds for toxic hydrocarbons and for harmful substances like hydrogen sulphide, found a 2016 study by the AER and Alberta Health.

Residents often smelled ammonia-like odour of cat pee, sewage, sulphur and tar-like bitumen. They sometimes had headaches, burning eyes and sore throats. Sometimes they wondered if they should evacuate, the study said.

The AER/Alberta Health study included recommendations that are still in progress. It did not mention the Syncrude release that had happened a few months earlier. AER scientists “were not allowed” to include it, or to publish the draft report about the incident, said the AER insider.

The AER said “finalizing the (draft report) was no longer necessary” because it publicly released the AER/Alberta Health study.

In March 2017, the AER fired the toxicologist who pushed to warn Fort McKay about the plume and co-authored the unreleased report, Monique Dube. The job posting for her replacement had lowered qualifications.

“The AER is conflicted. Its dual mandate to both grow the industry and protect the environment means having to choose one over the other,” said Gail Gallupe, president of the McMurray Metis in a statement responding to Dube’s firing.

“With (Dube) as chief environment scientist, we knew that we had a serious voice for the environment within the AER. We worry now that her voice is gone.”

The AER said it wouldn’t comment on Dube’s departure.

The first warning about Syncrude’s chemical release came at 1:38 a.m., when a company representative called the AER to report a gasoline-like smell. Though no one was evacuated, the company had workers “go to other facilities/buildings where they would be safe,” the draft report said.

Officials would later determine that naphtha, a solvent, had been released into a waste, or tailings, pond. It was supposed to be separated in a ‘recovery unit’ but there was an “operational failure,” AER briefing documents said.

Slade, the Syncrude spokesperson, said the incident stemmed from a “planned” but “complex” restart and wasn’t a leak. There was an issue that led to the machinery not working as planned, but the recovery unit didn’t fail, he said.

At about 4 a.m., the deteriorating air quality set off an alarm at the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association, which conducts air monitoring on the province’s behalf.

The monitor at Mildred Lake’s boundary showed levels of hydrogen sulphide three times greater than the provincial standard — “sufficient evidence” the release would cause odours off-site, the AER draft report said.

It also picked up maximum hydrocarbon readings about 75 times greater than the background conditions.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“These values are extremely high,” said the WBEA staffer who reported the hydrocarbon readings to the AER at about 6 a.m., according to the draft report.

The monitor at the Mildred Lake fence line couldn’t differentiate between harmless hydrocarbons and ones that could be poisonous, the AER draft report said. It measured total hydrocarbons, for which there’s no air standard.

That day, a monitor within the plant picked up large amounts of benzene. And once the plume reached Fort McKay, toluene was measured at levels above the upper limit of the community monitor.

But there were no air monitors between Mildred Lake and Fort McKay that could tell scientists if the chemicals released were harmful. The only air monitor capable of that was at the centre of the community.

AER scientists decided to warn the community. But their bosses rejected the idea, saying it wasn’t clear there was any risk, two AER insiders said.

Eventually, at 7 a.m., Dube — then-chief environmental scientist — circumvented her bosses and sent an email to the Fort McKay First Nation. It had been more than five hours since Syncrude reported the release to the AER.

“Air quality exceedances — IMPORTANT,” read the email, obtained by freedom-of-information. “We expect odours in the community this morning and today.”

“Another possible air quality episode for Fort McKay — yikes!” replied someone else in the email chain. Their name and organization were redacted.

Hydrocarbon levels were “the highest I’ve ever seen recorded in the region,” they added.

Officials waited as the plume crept north. It reached the community at 10:45 a.m.

With the right data now in hand, public health officials raced to figure out the risk: though not acutely toxic, there was a “strong odour” with “suspected health effects,” the AER draft report said.

“It’s getting bad there,” an Environment and Climate Change staffer wrote in an email at 1:30 p.m.

At 1:30 p.m. — 12 hours after the incident occurred — Health Canada issued its advisory.

The federal government sent the warning two hours after air monitoring confirmed the odour in the community. It spent the time assessing risks and drafting the statement, said Indigenous Services Canada spokesperson William Olscamp in an email. (The agency has since taken over Health Canada’s former responsibilities in First Nations communities.)

No injuries were reported. Though the plume caused air quality exceedances at the Mildred Lake fenceline, it didn’t breach standards in Fort McKay for hydrogen sulphide or specific hydrocarbons.

In general, energy companies must notify the AER of chemical releases — though there are exceptions, such as emissions from restarts or emergencies. The agency posts incidents, investigations and actions taken against companies on a public database available online.

An AER communications strategy document instructed staff to say the agency was “conducting an investigation,” but no record of one appears in the database.

The AER didn’t answer questions about the investigation’s outcome and said the incident didn’t meet criteria to be posted.

In a statement, the AER said it is working to improve overall air quality in the Fort McKay through a series of recommendations.

The provincial government has clarified emergency response roles among agencies since the incident, and created a 24-hour notification system that informs Fort McKay if air quality readings reach trigger levels for certain substances. Residents can also access real-time air quality data from the monitor in the community.

But the government hasn’t created trigger levels for hydrocarbons. It also hasn’t closed the air monitoring gaps that led to the initial confusion on June 20, 2016, and still wouldn’t be able to tell if Fort McKay is at risk until it would be too late.

The AER and the government that oversees it have come under fire in recent months after a National Observer/Star investigation revealed the cost of cleaning up the Alberta’s oilpatch could reach an estimated $260 billion. It’s also faced criticism for allowing oilsands companies to pursue an unproven technology to deal with their toxic waste, and for leaving legal loopholes that allow companies to avoid cleaning up old wells.

The Fort McKay incident raises further doubts about NDP-led government’s independence and ability to regulate oil and gas, said Alberta Liberal MLA David Swann.

“The government has some explaining to do,” he said.

The Jason Kenney-led United Conservative Party — which is leading in polls for the current provincial election, and has pledged to replace AER’s board of directors with one focused on “cutting red tape” — didn’t respond to interview requests. The centre-right Alberta Party declined to comment.

L’Hommecourt said the access to air quality data brings her some comfort. But still, she worries about the long-term effects of the constant industrial odours, and keeps gas masks at home.

New oilsands mines around Fort McKay continue to be approved. Suncor opened one in September, the same month that the AER held hearings for a mine proposed by Teck Resources Ltd.

“How (can officials) say they’re going to make things better... when they’re approving more and more projects,” L’Hommecourt said.

“Your roots are here but at the same time they’re being ripped out from under our feet.”

Correction — April 8, 2019: A previous version of this story included a photo caption that incorrectly stated there are 12 oilsands facilities within a 30-kilometre radius of Fort McKay. In fact, there are 11.

Emma McIntosh is an environment, justice and investigative reporter with Star Calgary. Follow her on Twitter at @EmmaMci

Read more about: