Phase 3 Assessing the Ecological Potential of Wetlands Surrounding Reclaimed Pads

There may be many instances where functioning forest ecosystems develop on pads and the surrounding ecosystem is not impacted, or is impacted minimally. If this can be predicted, pad removal efforts can be focused on pads where off-pad impacts are most likely to occur and lead to better understanding of reclamation techniques needed to reclaim pads left in place to minimize off-pad impacts. Findings will be used to develop a decision matrix of ecological criteria and pad characteristics to provide guidance into whether or not the pad should be removed. Potential outcomes: (1) decreased reclamation costs by leaving select pads in place; (2) increased availability of funds and effort for reclamation of peatland areas where pads are removed with potential for improved ecological outcomes; and (3) increased knowledge for reclaiming pads in place. Few in situ pads have been reclaimed, so 20 sites at conventional oil and gas pads were used in this study as a proxy for in situ pads. Site selection was completed in 2019 (LE0052), a pilot study (LE0078) was completed in 2021, and this study (“Phase 3” – LE0083) was completed in 2023. The Phase 3 goal was to identify changes to peatland ecosystems surrounding padded conventional oil and gas wellsites (referred to as “pads” or “sites”, the term excludes padded access roads) to determine if pads are impacting peatland ecosystems.

Wellsite pads smaller than 1 ha and lacking padded access roads, or with thin padding on the access road that is below surface water levels, are unlikely to have an ecologically significant impact on the surrounding wetland. Conventional wellsite pads did not statistically affect the plant community and while there were statistical changes in water chemistry, these did not result in an ecological effect to the plant community and changes were typically limited to 10 m of the pad. Based on these findings, padded wellsites without padded access roads could be reclaimed in place with minimal risk of impact to adjacent peatland vegetation and water quality; however, limitations for the application of these results to all padded facilities include limited range of pad salinity and pad size of the sites included in this study. Suggested next steps included (1) investigating whether in situ pads, usually larger than those used in the study, would show the same results; (2) following up with regulator to see if this provides enough evidence to apply to leave a pad in place in a wetland; and (3) look into whether there are positive biodiversity outcomes from reclaiming and leaving a pad in place.