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Butte Action Committee for the Environment
Or BAC
A brief history
BAC, like a lot of grass roots organizations, started life as a direct result of something irritating the community.
The irritation was Petro Canada, who proposed to drill a water source well to be used for oil field injection into the oil
field that Petro Canada operates directly south of the Community Hall in Butte, Alberta. Petro Canada’s application submitted to the Department of Environment was for a well to produce 300 cubic meters of
fresh water from the 0 to 50 meter depth.
This concerned the residents of the surrounding area as most of them use water from the same depth for both themselves and their farming
operations. Further, other organizations were concerned as to the effect on the North Raven River
which lies directly north a short distance from the proposed water source well.
The initial meeting between the residents and Petro Canada was both loud and raucous. Residents formed a group to deal with the issue. The group met with Petro Canada several times. Petro Canada decided to move the water source well further west along the shores of the Clearwater River. This decision was only a
partial success as water was still being extracted from groundwater for oil field injection purposes.
But BAC did not stop with the Petro Canada issue. Next were concerns about the drilling of shallow water wells as sources for fresh water on rig sites in the local area.
A steep learning curve followed by both BAC and the regulatory authorities within the Department of Environment.
BAC had suspicions that many of the water source wells for drilling rigs did not have a licenses or were abandoned
incorrectly. The Department of Environment seemed unable to rectify the problem. When the Department of Environment
was presented with evidence of possible infractions, they took over 10 days to determine who in the Government was
responsible for enforcement and then took several more weeks to investigate. In that time the drilling
companies had finished operations and moved off the rig site. This issue is still ongoing with both the Department of Environment and the Oil Companies.
Unlike other grass roots single issue organizations, once the irritation of the issue is resolved, the organization folds.
But BAC was different. In a single meeting during the spring of 2000, the directors of BAC took a global stance on water
usage, decided to become informed and deal with fresh water usage. Recognizing that they could not take on the world,
they decided to oppose all applications utilizing fresh water other than for livestock and domestic consumption within
Alberta.
While bounding themselves by a geographic area, they also recognized they could and would supply assistance to other
groups dealing with water issues.
They have made presentations to a number of organizations and groups in many locations in Alberta and dealt with other
applications for water usage.
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