Darcy Henton
Canadian Press
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
EDMONTON (CP) -- Northern Alberta's Lubicon Indian band, which has been fighting a land claim for 66 years, is loudly protesting a massive heavy oil project led by a company with close links to the Ralph Klein government.
The Lubicon Lake First Nation issued a warning Wednesday that it will oppose drilling by Deep Well Oil and Gas, along with Surge Global Energy, on Crown land the band considers part of its traditional territory.
Band members blocked access to an oilfield lease earlier this month when it discovered workers clearing trees on its territory without permission, Chief Bernard Ominayak said Wednesday.
"The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation has never ceded aboriginal title to our lands in any treaty and we have never been consulted about these leases or the company's resource exploitation plans," Ominayak said in a release.
"We will continue to oppose any further development until our concerns have been addressed."
Deep Well and Surge Global have acquired rights to nearly 13,000 hectares in the Sawn Lake area of north-central Alberta in a bid to extract an estimated 820 million barrels of heavy oil.
The companies announced earlier this week that the drilling site has been cleared and the first few loads of drilling rig have been racked at the site.
"What Surge and Deep Well didn't tell investors is that the Sawn Lake area is part of Lubicon traditional territory and that preparation of the lease was blocked," Ominayak said.
The band claims the companies plan to drill more than 500 wells in the area, but have not responded to repeated requests for a meeting. (FOL note: Lubicon Nation press release said the companies plan "up to 512 wells".)
Lubicon negotiator Kevin Thomas said the band raised concerns about the development last August when it became apparent that some of the wells were going to infringe on a one-mile buffer zone around future reserve lands.
He said most oil companies have policies of consulting with area landowners and residents before launching drilling projects, but that hasn't been the case with the heavy oil project.
"This company seems to act as if it is accountable to no one," Thomas said. "They feel they are well enough connected that the rules don't apply to them."
Deep Well is headed by Horst Schmid, a former Alberta Tory cabinet minister and commissioner general of Alberta Trade and Tourism.
Len Bolger, co-chairman of the Alberta Energy Research Institute, serves as an independent director for the company, while Scobey Hartley, a member of Klein's kitchen cabinet and a former Alberta Progressive Conservative Association executive, is chairman of another partner in the project, Welwyn Resources.
An official at Deep Well said the company's lawyer is drafting a response to the Lubicon claims, but didn't know when it would be released.
A spokeswoman at Alberta Energy said the province is looking into the situation.
An advocacy group called Friends of the Lubicon has launched a letter-writing campaign against the project.
"It is very close to the proposed reserve," said group member Stephen Kenda. "This just isn't another well being built. It's a major project which could have profound effect on the people."
He said the Lubicon are concerned that the extraction of the heavy oil will affect local surface and ground water reservoirs.
The band made international headlines in 1988 when some of its members blockaded roads near their community of Little Buffalo. That blockade was ended by machine-gun-toting RCMP.
Thomas said the band has been quietly negotiating with Ottawa and Alberta for the resolution of its land claim for the past six years, but the federal government left the table about a year ago.
He said the only issues outstanding are self-government and compensation, but the federal government hasn't given its negotiators a mandate to address those issues.
Defense Fund spokesman Stephen Best said the federal and provincial governments won't resolve the claim until it looks like it will cost them money.
"A lot of people are making money off Lubicon land as the Lubicon get poorer and poorer," he said.
"As a people they are being systematically destroyed, bit by bit, year by year."
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