SEPT/OCT 2014
H
business elite canada 177
of tailing ponds for those reasons.
“In situ oil development is really on our radar
because of course we’ve had a lot of incidents
with one company in particular that has re-
ally raised some questions about how we can
work together with industry to ensure that it is
done safely,” said Barter.
Hydraulic fracking is another area of concern
in which AER has more than 50 years of regu-
latory experience. Fracking is a high pressure
process of drilling and injecting fluid into the
ground in order to fracture shale rocks and re-
lease the natural gas inside.
“It’s not new to us, but the scale and the pace
of hydraulic fracturing operations in Alberta is
certainly gearing up. So we’re looking at en-
