Dennis Hryciuk, Journal Staff Writer
Edmonton, The Edmonton Journal, February 22, 1999

Designating this corner of Alberta a Special Places is considered a 'no-brainer' after local natives, oil companies and environmentalists worked out a compromise without provincial government involvement

The Hay-Zama region has become a special Place in all but name - an area of lakes, marshes and massive bird migrations whose nearby residents have agreed to work towards wilderness protection.

But unlike so many local consultations for Special Places, the different interest groups here - a First Nations band, oil companies and environmentalists - have reached a consensus that all can live with.

They didn't get there through the Special Places program but through a cooperative approach of their own.

It stems from the fact that the federal government has recognized the Hay-Zama in remote north western Alberta as an internationally significant wetlands area.

To deal with both that recognition and aboriginal concerns, oil companies have agreed to phase out drilling and production activities.

All that's left is for the Alberta government to formally designate the area as a Special Place that prohibits further industrial activity, environmental groups say.

"It's absolutely a no-brainer," says Cliff Wallis, a director of the Alberta Wilderness Association and member of the Hay-Zama committee that worked out restrictions on petroleum activity.

"We just want to see a commitment from the government to do something." Those important for an area that so far has escaped any serious spills or blowouts that could harm the environment, Wallis says.

But a report from the province's Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) notes that the risk of such dangerous accidents is increasing with time in a long-developed oil and gas zone.

New Drilling Rules

The EUB, as regulator of the petroleum industry, has done that after Wallis and representatives from other interested groups worked on protection measures.

Under those regulations, any new oil or gas drilling or production must be conducted outside the sensitive 420 sq. km. wetlands region.

Companies that still want to tap into production zones must now do so through directional drilling - boring into those zones sideways from outside the protected area.

Oil firms must also speed up the rate at which they drain oil and gas reservoirs to help hasten the phase-out of their activities.

As consultant Pat Cabezas puts it: "How do we preserve the environment and cultural matters without suffocating economic activities?"

The former oil company employee and now chair of the local committee says the current compromise seems to accomplish all those goals.

But allowing current production to continue helps preserve the roughly 500 oilpatch jobs that have been created in the region, Cabezas adds.

Aboriginal chief James Ahnassay says natives would have preferred seeing all oilfieds activities ended immediately in an area important as a food source.

:Our people have always lived in this area, hunting and fishing here," says the head of the 2,200-member Dene Tha band.

"It could be better, but in light of potential lawsuits, this is a compromise we have to make."

Ahnassay says he'd like to know more about the Special Places idea, which is being discussed among members of the local committee.

But Ron Arnasson, a district manager with Husky Oil wonders what it would accomplish.

"I don't know what the difference would be compared to the existing regulations," he says.

As matters now stand, Husky has worked out rules that it can live with Arnasson adds.

The company operates an oil well on the north shore of Zama Lake and has no plans for further activity, he notes.

But Wallis says providing a Special Place designation for the area, perhaps as an official Natural Area would provide an added measure of protection.

"If you draw a line around something and say there should be protection, it immediately raises the area in terms of what companies believe they can do there."

And that would be important for an area already designated by the federal government as a Ramsar site, notes Wallis, who is a botanist. Named after a city in Iran where 18 countries met and agreed to recognize and protect significant wetlands areas, the designation establishes the area as the equivalent of a world heritage site, Wallis explains.

"It's quite spectacular from the air," he says. Thousands of ducks and geese can gather on the lakes, while visitors can find bald eagles and a variety of songbirds.

Wallis says the whole process of reaching an agreement among the different groups started out as confrontational.

"But if you have the right facilitators, you can reach an understanding."

Provincial government officials are declining comment on the area while it is being reviewed by Premier Ralph Klein's office.