Alberta landowners and advocacy groups file court application challenging regulator’s orphan well cleanup funding oversight

Two Alberta landowners and two advocacy groups took the province’s energy regulator to court on Tuesday, filing a judicial review application that puts a pointed question before an Alberta judge: is the Alberta Energy Regulator meeting its legal duty to make the oil and gas industry — not taxpayers — pay for orphan well cleanup?

The action targets how the regulator sets the annual levy oil and gas companies pay into the Orphan Well Association, the industry-funded body responsible for decommissioning thousands of abandoned wells scattered across Alberta’s rural landscape.

Landowners and groups seek judicial review of regulator

The application was filed Tuesday by two landowners alongside two advocacy organizations — the Alberta Surface Rights Federation and the Polluter Pay Federation. Together, they’re asking the court to review whether the Alberta Energy Regulator is actually doing its legal job: making sure industry, not taxpayers, carries the financial weight of orphan well cleanup.

The Orphan Well Association has decommissioned about 8,900 wells since 2002, but the backlog and its associated risks remain significant for rural landowners.

Lawyer Susanne Calabrese represents the landowners and spoke to reporters after the filing. The Alberta Energy Regulator declined to comment on the proceeding.

Annual levy set too low, applicants argue

The core argument is straightforward. The annual levy the regulator sets on oil and gas companies to fund the Orphan Well Association isn’t anywhere near enough.

This year, that levy landed at approximately $113 million USD — real money, until you learn it covers only about 11% of the total estimated cost to close the existing backlog of abandoned wells. Calabrese argued Tuesday that the regulator has been setting the levy too low year after year, producing a backlog that keeps growing instead of shrinking. “The safety net is falling further and further behind,” she told reporters. The funding, in other words, isn’t keeping pace with the problem it’s supposed to solve.

Health, safety, and financial risks mount for rural Albertans

Alberta currently has around 7,300 inactive oil and gas wells, most of them left behind after company bankruptcies — stranded liabilities sitting on land that often belongs to farmers and ranchers who had no say in any of it.

The risks aren’t abstract. Research has shown that abandoned wells can leak methane, contaminate soil, and pollute groundwater, and for landowners with idle wells on their property, there’s also real financial exposure tied to cleanup liability.

Landowner Dwight Popowich has spent years trying to get an inactive well on his farm dealt with. He was direct: most rural Albertans, he said, genuinely welcome oil and gas development — but they expect companies to hold up their end of the deal.

“That promise, to me and thousands of other Albertans, has been broken over and over again,” Popowich said.

Calabrese framed the levy shortfall as a systemic failure of oversight rather than a one-time miscalculation — a pattern, she argued, that has allowed the cleanup backlog to deepen while landowners absorb the consequences.

Background: Orphan well problem and industry cleanup record

The Orphan Well Association has been operating since 2002, funded by the oil and gas industry. In that time, it has decommissioned approximately 8,900 wells — a real number, but one that hasn’t kept pace with demand.

The estimated cost to remediate the remaining backlog now sits at $1.22 billion USD. Set that against this year’s $113 million USD levy and the gap the applicants are pointing to in court becomes hard to argue with. Both the Canadian federal government and the Alberta provincial government are currently pushing to expand domestic oil production, partly in response to an escalating trade dispute with the United States — a political backdrop that puts the regulator’s environmental enforcement record under broader public scrutiny, well beyond the courtroom.

At its core, this case is a question about who pays when the industry moves on. The applicants say the answer should always be the industry itself, and that the regulator has a legal duty to enforce that principle.

Applicants argue this year’s levy is far too low

Two Alberta landowners and two advocacy groups — the Alberta Surface Rights Federation and the Polluter Pay Federation — have filed a judicial review application challenging how the Alberta Energy Regulator sets the annual levy oil and gas companies pay into the Orphan Well Association.

The applicants argue this year’s levy of approximately $113 million USD, representing roughly 11% of the estimated $1.22 billion USD cleanup cost, is far too low. The regulator, they say, has a legal duty to ensure industry — not taxpayers — covers orphan well remediation costs, and has consistently failed to meet it.

Alberta has around 7,300 inactive wells, most abandoned after company bankruptcies. The Orphan Well Association has decommissioned about 8,900 wells since 2002, but the backlog and its associated risks remain significant for rural landowners. The Alberta Energy Regulator declined to comment. The case now moves through the Alberta court system, and its outcome could have real implications for how cleanup costs get allocated — and who ultimately foots the bill when oil and gas companies walk away.

Kelly Lippke

Kelly is an experienced writer with 15 years of experience exploring the big stories that shape our world, from tech breakthroughs and space exploration to climate, energy, and the fascinating quirks of science. She has a talent for turning complex ideas into sharp, memorable insights that stay with readers long after they’ve finished reading.