Syncrude had just eight scare cannons deployed by April 28, according to its workers, because of broken boats, missing men and batteries and a massive snowstorm.
Syncrude Ltd. is on trial in St. Albert for the deaths of approximately 1,600 birds on its Aurora tailings pond on April 28, 2008. Judge Ken Tjosvold released some 990 pages of witness statements from Syncrude employees this week after a court challenge from an Edmonton newspaper. Government investigators took the statements in May and October 2008.
The statements, which were presented as evidence in the trial, suggest Syncrude was not ready to deploy its scare cannons by the start of migration season. Crews were short on staff, trucks, boats, batteries and started two weeks later than usual.
But employees said the biggest problem was a major snowstorm that hit the region days after they started work. "If we hadn't had that freak snowstorm," stated Dave Matthews, then head of the company's bird and ecology team, "we probably wouldn't even have heard of this incident."
Witnesses identified Matthews as the person in charge of the company's bird deterrent program. He is now deceased.
Short on everything
Matthews said he had no formal education in dealing with migratory birds and had not been trained to deal with them by Syncrude. He also said he was not familiar with the company's approvals from Alberta Environment or the provincial Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act.
Matthews said he asked his crew to start deploying deterrents on April 14, but that just two of his seven workers could initially get on site. A glitch with the ID card system kept several workers off site for a few days. One worker was late due to a funeral and two others were delayed due to missed medicals.
Matthews said he had 10 to 13 people on his crew in past years, but many of them had retired and not been replaced. "Our records for the previous years indicated that we were doing a good job," he said, so he and his associates did not see a need for replacements.
A shortage of rentals meant that crews had just one truck available to deploy the cannons instead of the usual four. By April 28, witnesses say they had eight cannons deployed on the shores of the Aurora pond. The company planned to put out 67 that season, according to previous testimony — down from 150 in previous years.
"We were going to set up more cannons," said Gordon Grandjambe, a member of Matthews' crew, "but we ran out of batteries."
Each cannon needed its own 12-volt cell, he said, and they ran out of those around April 21. It took two days to get more.
Crews were unable to deploy any cannons on the pond itself because all their boats were broken, said Lawrence Whiteknife, another crewmember. He also said that April 14 was a late start for the deployment program. "We usually start April the first all the time," he said.
Crews did not put out containment booms to corral bitumen into one spot, Matthews said — they used to, but stopped years ago due to a change in policy. When they put out booms on April 28 after inspectors arrived, they realized they were short on booms and had to make more.
Early warning
Rick Corcoran said he noticed birds flying over the pond around April 17 and asked Matthews when he would start putting up deterrents. An email from Corcoran to tailings team leaders dated April 17 said that he had "expressed my concern at the number of complaints surrounding birds landing in the pond due to a lack of deterrents" that morning. "He [Matthews] will send someone up today to put out a few deterrents."
Matthews, expressing his personal opinion, said the birds landed on the pond because "we were the only open body of water around." When asked if, given this fact, it would have been useful to have scare cannons on the surface of the pond when the birds arrived, he replied, "Yeah, it would have been, if we could have got there."
The trial continues next week.
