A spokeswoman for the Imperial Oil Ltd. says the company has sent a plan to the Alberta Energy Regulator as required for cleanup of a tailings leak in Alberta.
No new information about the spill and seepage event has been released by the company or the regulator.
The regulator says it’s in the middle of an investigation of how more than 5,000 cubic metres of tailings overflowed from one of its tailings dams at its Kearl site north of Fort McMurray.
That alone would make it one of Alberta’s largest spills, but Imperial must also deal with an unknown amount of toxic tailings that have seeped into groundwater and are pooling on the surface.
The seepage has been going on since at least May and still continues.
According to last week’s order from the regulator, Imperial’s plan is supposed to include ways to stop and clean up the leak and seepage as well as to study wildlife impacts, including humane euthanasia of affected animals.