A New Community Resource: A report on Carbon Capture & Storage, Water & Your Land

It's been a while since my last post, but I have a good excuse! While I've travelled back and forth to the Cold Lake region a few times, I've really been spending my time crafting what I'm calling a 'technical report' about Carbon Capture and Storage.

Something that kept coming up in my meetings with residents was a lack of information about the technology and the proposed project. Then, at the start of 2026, a St. Paul resident shared a multi-page list of links about CCS that included various popular, news, and research sources. That's when I decided that one way I could give back to the folks who've so generously spent time and shared their thoughts, was to create a brief explainer document about the process and what it might mean for those living along the proposed CCS corridor.

While there is a LOT of information out there, information specific to the Oil Sands Alliance's Pathways project is still quite general, or, the available information features technology in a context that isn't quite comparable. As a qualitative researcher who has studied migration and whiteness, I too struggled to understand exactly what was happening, and the learning curve has been steep! I read short and long reports, watched YouTube videos about carbon capture and sequestration, and sorted through relevant academic articles. While this gave me some idea as to what was going on, I also sent various versions of this report (rumored to be in its 9th draft...I'll never tell!) to experts working in carbon capture and storage in Alberta. Through their patient and detailed feedback, you can now download and read the report by clicking on this link: Carbon Capture & Storage, Water & Your Land.

In addition to publicly-available information about the Pathways Project, the report provides a brief summary of relevant material from LICA's State of the Watershed report (2025), and then explores topics including: water use during the carbon capture process (it's a two basin question), legacy wells and the potential for groundwater contamination (depth is key), questions about pipelines and right-of-way agreements (it's a matter of now, forever, and always), and finally, regulatory accountability (how easily can members of the general public find information about the regulatory process? Answer: not very).

While this report is not meant to give legal or regulatory advice, it provides a list of questions that residents could ask representatives from the OSA, the AER, and/or their government representatives. This report does not argue that the Pathways project is certainly harmful.

My goal was to bring together information about this project in one place, in a way that reflects concerns raised by residents and points to areas where deeper community consultation and more collaborative decision-making are both warranted and overdue.

So, who is this report for?

This report is for residents of the Lakeland region (farmers, landowners, community members, and members of First Nations) who want to engage with this project. It's also for anyone in Alberta, or beyond, who is trying to understand what it looks like when a project of this scale is being proposed and how information is shared about it.

I've tried to write it in plain language, with links to original sources so you can follow up on anything that matters to you. Care has been taken to represent a range of perspectives and to be honest about where the evidence is uncertain or contested.

A note on process

There is one thing I want to flag: this report was assembled with the assistance of Claude AI. I've been transparent about this throughout the process, and it's noted in the report itself. AI helped with drafting, fact-checking, and organization but the research, the expert consultations, the community conversations, and the final judgment calls (and mistakes) are mine. I mention this because I think transparency about how we work matters, especially at a time when distrust and anxiety around contentious issues are growing.

What I'm asking of you:

Read it. Share it with a neighbour, a family member, someone who has been approached about a right-of-way agreement, or someone who just wants to understand what's being proposed in this region.

And if something in the report doesn't ring true — or if I've missed something — I genuinely want to know. That's been the spirit of this research from the beginning: not to tell people what to think, but to make sure we're all working from the best available information.

You can reach me through the contact form on this website, or sign up to the newsletter below for updates as the research continues.