March 22, 2017 - 5:35 PM
EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says $30 million the federal government is giving to the province for the oil and gas industry is good news.
She says her government will use the money to focus on reclaiming orphan oil wells and getting oilfield workers back to work.
Notley says they have been lobbying Ottawa for months for money to make sure orphan oil wells are safely closed and the land reclaimed.
She says the wells are a huge, long-standing liability for the province and the industry knows there needs to be a plan to deal with this issue.
Notley says details on how this will be done will come out in the next few days.
The Orphan Well Association said last month there were 1,590 orphan wells awaiting abandonment and cleanup in Alberta.
"We're not going to fix it overnight, but what we need to do is make sure that we slowly move towards a higher level of reclamation, a higher level of investment in that important task of securing these wells and making sure that our land and our water supply is safe," the premier said Wednesday.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2017