Alberta First Nation angry at Imperial’s silence while tailings pond leaked for 9 months – CBC
Mar 02, 2023
Band members have been harvesting food from land adjacent to the spills, chief says
A northern Alberta Indigenous leader has accused Imperial Oil Ltd. of a nine-month coverup over a massive release of toxic oilsands tailings on land near where his band harvests food.
Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said Thursday that Imperial executives had several chances to tell him in person about the leak after it was discovered in May 2022.
He learned about it after the province’s energy regulator issued an environmental protection order on Feb. 6.
“During that nine-month period, ACFN had many meetings with them, including a sit-down, face-to-face between myself and the vice-president in November,” Adam told reporters Thursday. “Each meeting was an opportunity where they could have come clean, but they chose to hide the fact from us over and over again.”
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