Love her or hate her, Roxanne Walsh says she’s here to stay and she won’t shut up until the Turner Valley gas plant has been cleaned up

To others, she’s a town menace, a costly merde disturber and down right pain-in-the-rear for a tight-knit community.

Roxanne Walsh is the woman who – with the help of a few concerned citizens and petitioners – prompted the Alberta government to invest  $11 million, thus far, into the first stages of cleanup work needed at Turner Valley’s historic gas plant.

The gas plant lies uphill from the Sheep River, which is the main water source for the communities of Turner Valley, Black Diamond, and Okotoks.

Walsh and her supporters believe that containments from the plant are slowly seeping into the areas main waterbed and into the Sheep River. Walsh wants a full remediation of the plant.

A small town makes its mark on Alberta’s in oil and gas history

Roxanne Walsh has received a great deal of appraise and verbal abuse in her seemingly neverending fight to have Turner Valley's historic gas plant cleaned up.

Photo: Theresa Tayler/Calgary Journal

The celebrated industrial site is an integral part of Alberta’s oil and gas history.

Founded in 1914, the opening of the plant kicked off Alberta’s oil boom, helping Turner Valley become the largest oil producer in the British Empire.

It was shut down in 1985 and a few years later (1988), the holder of the plant, Calgary’s Pembina Corp., owned by the Mannix family, donated the site to the province.

The Alberta Government has maintained from the get-go that they acquired the plant in order to turn it into a historic site and museum.

“There’s an old joke that goes something along the lines of the Mannix family getting out of an expensive gas site cleanup and sticking it to the government under the disguise of a donation.  It’s an interesting rumour. But, I guess, just a rumour,” says Walsh with a sly smile spread across her face.

“You’ve got to have a good sense of humour to do this kind of work, it takes a lot out of you. The bottom line is I think people in this town have a right to clean-water,” she says.

Walsh’s unexpected road to becoming one of southern Alberta’s most notable environmentalists

Her involvement started in 1998, when Walsh moved to Turner Valley from Calgary because she was looking for affordable and safe place to put down roots.

“At the time, this seemed like a great community. It was close to Calgary and my job in the corporate world downtown,” she says.

Walsh didn’t take much notice of the old plant down the road from her new home until 2001, when two nurses from the nearby Black Diamond Hospital began raising concerns about high rates of multiple sclerosis and brain cancer in the area.

“There was a lot of anecdotal evidence about brain tumors and other issues… I was, of course, thinking, ‘Why did I move here? Should I be thinking about moving?’”

By 2004, some Turner Valley residents were beginning to talk about whether their beloved old gas plant was really safe enough to be living next to.

The mayor at the time, Kelly Tuck, asked residents to urge the province to clean up the site.

“The floods of 2005, well that really kicked things off for me,” says Walsh.

That summer, floods washed away and eroded much of the riverbank and hillside next to the gas plant and sent it sailing down the Sheep River.

The same year, Walsh was one of four other’s to co-found the Turner Valley gas plant committee for a safe historic site.

Walsh and the Turner Valley gas plant Committee spent the next year researching documents about the gas plant. They wrote to the provincial government and began stirring up plenty of controversy as well as support for their cause.

Their efforts were rewarded between 2006 and 2007, when the province invested $3 million into a containment wall, meant to stop any toxins from leaking through, to sit between the gas plant and the Sheep River.

According to the province other $8 million in public money has gone towards “assessing, remediating and managing the environmental issues at the site (including work on the flood protection, groundwater containment and treatment systems).”

In 2008, Walsh took the town of Turner Valley to a hearing in front of the provincial Environmental Appeals Board regarding the building of a new water reservoir, which was located near old gas well sites.

Walsh was successful — the hearing determined the town must upgrade its water testing system significantly. Turner Valley now tests its water monthly for toxins.

The Environmental Appeals Board also ordered the town to pay Walsh’s legal and consulting fees, she was awarded $76,067.61 in the hearing.

This summer (June 2009), Turner Valley’s Dingman No. 2 sour gas flare, on the historic gas plant site, was extinguished as part of the province’s cleanup process.

Another solid triumph for Walsh, who had been pushing for the extinguishment of the sour gas flare for years due to concerns the flare was emitting toxic hydrogen sulphide.

From 2006 through 2007, Walsh sat on the Turner Valley gas plant resolution advisory panel. A hit-and-run accident (her vehicle was struck by a drunk driver in 2006) left her with health problems and Walsh decided to leave the panel.

“Ironically (the accident) was on the bridge by the old gas plant,” she says. “It wasn’t an easy time and I had to take some time to heal.”

Julie Walker, one of the four co-founder of the Turner Valley gas plant committee for a safe historic site, says Walsh is uncompromisingly passionate about the greater environmental picture and environmental integrity.

“Roxanne truly felt that people would recognize the universal impact that our water connection is,” says Walker. “The fact that people do not seem to care enough about the water quality to get engaged, or write letters of support or get out of daily routine to lend their voice was a rather shocking thing to all of on the Turner Valley gas plant committee for a safe historic site.”

Turner Valley gas plant history/ Roxanne Walsh’s push for remediation timeline:

1914: The Turner Valley gas plant is built.

1985: Gas plant stops operating.

1998: Government receives gas plant in form of donation from the Mannix family (The Province of Alberta paid $3 for the plant).

2001: Two nurses at the Black Diamond Hospital raise alarms about high rates of neurological disorders and brain cancers in the area, which they feel, may be attributed to sour gas flaring and water quality in the area.

2004: Kelly Tuck, Turner Valley mayor, asks residents to urge the province to clean up the old gas plant and restore it to a historic site.

2005: Walsh co-founds the Turner Valley gas plant committee for a safe historic site.

2005: Floods erupt through southern Alberta, the Turner Valley river banks erode as well as dirt down from the gas plant, it’s all sent down the Sheep River.

2005: After the flooding the provincial government allocates 3 million to clean up damage and build a river containment system.

2006: The more floods hit the area creating more problems with erosion and raising more concerns about water quality.

2006: Environment Canada puts plans ahead to build a better containment wall between the gas plant.

2007: Walsh launches an appeal with Alberta Environment to investigate the new town water reservoir. The hearing for that appeal ended in January 2008.

2007: The province completes a $3 million containment wall on the south side of the old gas plant, which is designed to stop containments from the gas site running in to the sheep river.

2008: Rust-coloured puddles surface near the historic gas pant, Alberta environment says they’re not harmful. The province assures residents there’s no proof they’re coming from the old gas plant and they may be forming from a natural source.

2008: Alberta government asks for bids to clean up 94-year-old gas well in turner Valley Dingman no 2. But in 2009 the province pulls back due to budgetary restraints.

2009: Dingman No. 2 sour gas flare is choked out.

An adversary advocate

There are some solid reasons why not everyone — for example certain members of town council and a hefty percentage of the town’s population — is happy about Walsh’s dedication to advocating for the full remediation of plant.

For one, it’s a costly commitment for a government to take on. According to the governmental arm the remediation efforts fall under, Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, about $30 million more would be needed to remediate the land and restore the historic plant into a museum – money provincial officials says, due to the current economic recession, just isn’t in the budget at this time.

However, on Sept. 4, the province issued a press release stating the government “accepted the recommendations contained in a report submitted by the Turner Valley gas plant resolution advisory panel suggesting the gas plant be considered as a viable historic site and priority be given to its protection and preservation… The panel members indicated what has been done thus far on clean up of environmental issues had been satisfactory but recommended that appropriate monitoring and funding of the site continue.”

The work, however, will not happen this year because of those pesky, aforementioned, budget restraints.

Turner Valley’s rich history in the oil and gas field means some families have been living in the town for generations and have vested interests and emotional ties to the plant.

“Many of them worked at the old plant or had family members who worked there. It’s part of many of them and their family history,” says Walsh, adding she supports preserving the site and turning it into a museum as long as it’s safe to have the public walking around.

According to the province the water quality in the area is safe. Regular sampling and testing of the Sheep River show no unsafe levels of contaminants found in the water.

Walsh isn’t buying it; she believes while the government has made some great steps forward in cleaning up the site, a full remediation of the plant is needed as a matter of public health.

“Roxanne has always had an investigative thinking process and has always been a problem-solver, so this work stimulated the best of her mind,” says Walker.

Dealing with controversy

Love her or hate her, Roxanne Walsh says she’s here to stay and she won’t shut up until the gas plant has been cleaned up and spruced up.

“There are some who have come up and thanked me, mainly privately. And then there are those who are very hostile — letters put in my mailbox, letters opposed to me sent to the local newspaper, that kind of thing. Since getting involved with this stuff, I’ve pulled back a little bit from the town, just to keep my world balanced.”

Roxanne lives in the heart of town. Her home, like most on her sleepy street, is modest but well taken care of. There are no mansions on the streets of Turner Valley.

The surrounding Rocky Mountain-area and foothills tell a different story —acreages and subdivisions surrounding town worth millions (most of which have their own well-water supplies).

Just a 15-minute drive from Turner Valley’s main street lies in the heart of Alberta’s pristine and environmentally protected Kananaskis Country, and a short jaunt in near any direction will lead to some of southern Alberta’s most-renowned cattle ranches.

While wealth may seem to line the landscape of the small town of Turner Valley (population of about 2,000), Walsh says those who live in the quaint community’s borders are, for the most part, anything but rich.

“I have heard from different sources that welfare recipients were encouraged to move here in the ‘60s and ‘70s because it’s a low cost area to live … Unfortunately, while it’s not always true or fair, there is a certain kind of stereotype that group usually gets lumped into,” says Walsh.

She says while there’s no way to prove her suspicions, she can’t help but wonder if the population’s socio-economic status hasn’t played a role in why the gas plant wasn’t cleaned up to begin with. The town’s population doesn’t seem to hold a lot economic or political pull, in her view.

“Now that I put the picture together, well… I see why some things might be the way they are,” she says.

What’s next

Walsh says the next step in her fight is to continue working to guarantee high quality drinking water in Turner Valley and surrounding communities.

“Some people have called me a fear monger, but I feel we have a right to answers about that site. I do it because it’s the right thing to do. I care about the environment and the children and people who don’t have a voice,” says Walsh.

“The triumphs are bitter sweet. We have a containment wall and that’s more than we had before. The flare is gone and the water reservoir is being tested more frequently. There’s still work. What are the long-term affects of being exposed to these chemicals? They may be safe in small doses, but what about the long term?”