Local News
Court dismisses family fight over gas wells
By STACY O'BRIEN
Mar 27, 2008, 04:14

The Alberta Court of Appeal has rejected appeals by members of a southern Alberta family who say they have chronic illnesses after being exposed to sour gas flaring.
Barbara and Larry Graff and their son, Darrell, appealed the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board decisions to dismiss their objections and to issue well licences to EnCana Corporation for two wells located within two and two and a half kilometres of their land, between Vulcan and Nanton.
The Graffs objected to the approvals for the licences for a number of wells on the basis that resource extraction near their home would directly and adversely affect them because their pre-existing health conditions make them sensitive to chemicals.
The EUB told the Graffs they needed to show direct and adverse effect.
According to Alberta Court of Appeal documents, over the past three years the Graffs would submit medical evidence to the EUB to review, but would request the board keep their medical reports and evidence confidential.
Because the board’s policy is to make all information submitted part of the public record, the Graffs would have to agree to the policy or make a confidentiality application, but the family members did neither and so the medical evidence was returned, according to court documents.
“It was not unreasonable for the board to require the parties requesting the review, on the basis that they suffered from an unusual sensitivity to natural gas well, to provide more than a mere assertion of that sensitivity,” said the Alberta Court of Appeal ruling, released Wednesday.
“The appellants failed to do so. On that basis, we find no error or denial of natural justice when the board declined to review their earlier decisions.”
The court further stated because both wells have been abandoned by EnCana, the Graffs have little to gain by the court ordering the board to consider their medical evidence at this time.
But Barbara Graff said the EUB, now the Energy Resources Conservation Board, had their medical reports and they asked for them to be put on the public record, but not on the Internet.
“We asked it to be put on the public record because we really want people in the province to know people can become injured like we have and it is a life-threatening problem. So we want people to know,” Graff said.
“We don’t want it put on the Internet because people all over the world can use that information in whatever manner they want and I don’t think it is fair to the people in the province to put their most private information onto the Internet in order to get standing with a public body.”
She said in the past they sent their medical evidence to the EUB and they put it on the Internet without the family’s permission and a privacy investigation was launched. “In this case we sent it in, and when we sent it, we felt that was giving them our permission,” Graff said.
But Bob Curran, a spokesperson for the Energy Resources Conservation Board, formerly the EUB, explained it is part of the board’s policy to either be given specific permission to have the information accessible to other parties involved in a hearing and through the Internet or for those people to file the information under a confidentiality provision that would only allow others involved in the hearing to see it. If one or the other things isn’t done, the information must be returned because to use it would violate the Privacy Act, Curran said.
“We’re satisfied that the courts upheld that we acted in an appropriate manner. We felt that we had and they clearly agree,” Curran said.
Graff said the decision has infringed on her family’s Charter rights of life, liberty and security and that it leaves people in Alberta with absolutely no options.
The family members say their health problems stem from a sour gas well owned by another company flaring out on their previous farm in 1998. Eventually they sold their original farm and bought their current farm that they thought was free of sour gas emissions. Then EnCana moved in and was issued licences for two wells — one was a sour gas well and the other a sweet gas well. Diagnosed with chemical encephalopathy — extreme sensitivity to chemicals caused by being exposed to toxic emissions — their chemical sensitivities are so extreme that in the past when the winds blew the wrong way they’ve had to drive in the opposite direction, often sleeping in their vehicle.
Graff said although the wells are covered over by dirt, they could be reopened at any time.
“This decision leaves the people of Alberta with absolutely no recourse and that was made very clear in this decision,” said Graff.
“But considering we have a corporate government with very long arms I’m not really surprised at that decision.”
Graff said they could pursue the issue as infringing on their human rights, but the case has already cost them more than they have.

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