IBC2000-7 Plenary Sessions 

Bringing the Buffalo Home
An innovative reclamation project turns mining land into a home for a herd of Wood Bison and provides opportunity for Aboriginal people

Jim Carter
President and Chief Operating Officer
Syncrude Canada Ltd.
Ft. McMurray  AB   Canada

The following article was originally presented at the International Bison Conference in Edmonton, Alberta in August 2000.  The conference covered a wide array of bison topics including production, marketing, genetics, history and much more.  This article has been reprinted with the permission of the IBC2000 Chairman.

Abstract

Syncrude Canada Ltd. is one of Canada’s largest producers of crude oil.  But instead of drilling for it, Syncrude mines oil sand, extracts heavy oil known as bitumen and upgrades it.  This huge energy project covers some 300 square kilometres of northeastern Alberta and lies within the historic range of wood bison.   This area has also long been used by the First Nations people of Fort McKay. Syncrude President and Chief Operating Officer, Jim Carter, will tell how mined areas are being successfully reclaimed to support Wood Bison ranching in partnership with the company’s Aboriginal neighbors.  Syncrude’s innovation in custom building new landscapes to support bison ranching will enhance its long-term economic value to the people of Fort McKay.  Indeed, what began as a research study in 1993 with 30 repatriated animals is now a successful operation supporting 250 head of high quality, award-winning stock. The future aim is to grow the operation as more mining land is reclaimed and make it commercially sustainable.

Bringing the Buffalo Home

Thank you and good morning everyone. It’s great to be here.

And it’s especially great for me to share the story of how a major surface mining company like Syncrude—which produces crude petroleum—can come to the podium at a conference like this… because I won’t be talking so much about oil as I will about bison ranching, which is something that, at first glance, might seem entirely unrelated to Syncrude’s reason for being.

I think it’s a unique story… In fact, I can’t think of too many other businesses of our scale, sector or size, for example, that raise and manage a herd of wood bison… at least not as a key part of their environmental management program.

And, certainly, it’s a story of innovation because it’s about sustainable development with a twist… about how we do a lot more in the area of land reclamation than just replacing the soil and planting tree seedlings.

And just so that I don’t come across as a little too self-serving here, let me make it clear that it’s not just a Syncrude story. There have been many different people and organizations involved in the development of the plot-line.

I should also add that I can’t talk about it from the perspective of a rancher or even a wood bison expert… because I’m an engineer by training and a business executive by day.

But I hope that I can make it interesting. And if I’m after an outcome a little more concrete than just generating awareness of what we’re doing, it would be to spark some two-way feedback… a discussion that will hopefully teach us all something that we can take back home and use to good effect.

You know, it’s a policy at Syncrude to strive for continuous improvement in all we do. So if you can share your experiences and perspectives with us, our prospects for doing even better will no doubt increase immeasurably.

Now, along those lines, I would certainly invite you to visit our facilities if you get the chance. Syncrude is based… appropriately enough… in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which is about 450 kilometres north of here, close to the City of Fort McMurray. We’d be very pleased to take you on a tour of our general operation and of the Beaver Creek Wood Bison Ranch in particular.

The ranch, of course, is the focal point of why I’m here today. And I suppose I should mention that while almost everything having to do with Syncrude’s business operations are done on a grand scale, at 280 head, our bison herd is quite modest in comparison… about five percent of the world’s wood bison population.  But the present size of the herd is not the really the story. There’s much more to it, and for the sake of clarity, I’m going to break it down into four parts.

First, there’s the nearly tenfold increase in the size of the herd over the last seven years, which was achieved through a combination of natural growth and the acquisition of new animals.

Second, there’s the high quality of the animals being raised.

Thirdly, there are the incredibly unique partnerships involved getting the project off the ground and keeping it going into the foreseeable future.

And finally, there’s the land itself… the land that has yielded a natural resource in the form of oil from oil sand, and that now supports and sustains other kinds of natural resources… like wildlife and the natural environment.

I’d like to start there. I’d like to tell you why I think this land is so special. And to do that, I’ll tell you a little about Syncrude and how we work.

Syncrude's Operations

First of all, the oil sands resource is large enough to nearly defy the imagination. Spread across an area about the size of Ireland, it has been estimated that there are between 1.7 and 2.5 trillion barrels of bitumen in place in four separate Alberta deposits… including the Athabasca deposit where Syncrude is located. And, of this amount, about 300 billion barrels are considered to be recoverable using technologies that are available right now. This puts the oil sands on par with Saudi Arabia and makes it one of the largest deposits in the world.

In fact, if all the oil in the oil sands could be recovered, the world’s oil demands would be met for the next 100 years.

Syncrude produced its billionth barrel of oil in 1998, and is today the world’s largest producer of light sweet crude from oil sands… and the largest single source of oil in Canada. We now account for about 13 percent of the country’s oil needs, and the industry as a whole accounts for about a quarter.

And the long-term outlook from this point is for more development to replace declining production from conventional sources.

In fact, looking ahead, total investment industry-wide over the next ten years or so is slated at more than 30 billion dollars while production is expected to more than double to 1.8 million barrels a day.

Syncrude’s share of that is valued at eight billion dollars and clustered under a suite of capital investment projects called Syncrude 21.  This is the largest single investment by a company in western Canada and one of the largest in the country.  At the end of the day, we’ll be producing in the neighborhood of 465,000 barrels a day, or about 25 percent of Canada’s energy needs.

Now that’s a very small bit of background… where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. And my point in relating it is just to give some context to a bison ranch in the middle of it all. I bet it seems just a little out of place at this point.

Reclamation

Maybe so. But let’s look at it from a slightly different angle. Yes, we produce oil. And, yes, it’s true that there’s no real connection between oil and wood bison. But there is one between overall corporate performance and environmental management. We cannot, for example, dig huge holes in the ground, lay waste to the land, and leave things worse than we found them.

And whether it’s because the general public would not stand for that kind of irresponsible behaviour, or whether it’s because we wouldn’t be able to stand ourselves as amoral human beings, I suppose it doesn’t really matter much why we don’t go that way. It’s enough to know that we can’t.

Now, our commitment to doing what’s right by the environment extends beyond the land. It also applies to air and water quality as well. But since I’m being relatively precise here today… since I’m talking about wood bison… let me stick to the issue at hand… reclaiming the land once the mining is done.

We do disturb a lot of it. Our current plans, for example, indicate that about 300 square kilometres (or 117 square miles) of boreal forest could be disturbed. And since Syncrude is not the only producing company in the oil sands, the figure could well exceed 1,000 square kilometres.

Now short of shutting down the mining operation altogether, some level of land disturbance is unavoidable. We mine and excavate oil sand. We don’t drill for oil and then pump it up to the surface. On our leases, the bitumen ore is relatively close to the surface, and the most efficient way to recover it, basically, is to scoop it up and send it to the plant for extraction and upgrading.

It should be noted, I think, that we have made a number of major advancements in the way we do that over the last ten years. Draglines, bucketwheels and conveyor belts, for example, have given way to more to more energy-efficient and land-friendly shovels, trucks, and pipelines. They generally allow us, today, to disturb less land at any one time, and to reclaim it as we go.

We’re doing that now, and new or improved technologies hold a lot of promise for the future. And, as far as the past goes, I’m sure we considered ourselves pretty advanced back… let’s say in the early 1990s… too. For the most part, our land reclamation record was pretty impressive. We’d restored more than 1,000 hectares of mining land to a condition better than or at least equal to what had been there before.

I think it might be important to briefly visualize what amounts to a unique opportunity to custom-build landscapes to support a particular land-use. The reclamation process starts with filling in mined areas, contouring, and the replacement of the topsoil. And it ends with re-vegetation. And, most of the area has and will continue to be restored to boreal forest eco-systems similar to what was there before the disturbance occurred.

Genesis of the Ranch

But, of course, the bison ranch is a little more unique than that, and while I can’t really point to the genesis of the idea of a ranch, I’d like to believe that if you set out to do something over and above what’s expected… if you make it part of your personal character or corporate culture to go above and beyond acceptable levels of performance… that good ideas will seem to come knocking on your door, and before you know it, these innovative ideas will become tomorrow’s realities.

And that’s basically what happened. Perhaps to put it a little too informally, in 1993 the Fort McKay First Nation came knocking on Syncrude’s door. Fort McKay is quite a small community, located very close to Syncrude’s mine-site.  In fact, they are our closest neighbor and much of our operation lies on lands traditionally used by the people of Fort McKay.  So when they approached us seven years ago, it wasn’t the first time we’d discussed various concerns and ideas.

It’s our policy to work as closely as we can with all the communities affected by our operations. And without getting into it too much, talking about new ways to reclaim mining land represented just one more building block in Syncrude’s long established relationship with the aboriginal people of the region.

Now, I’m not going to romanticize this too much.  And, besides, the reintroduction of wood bison into an area where they had once roamed freely wasn’t the original idea anyway. It was more along the lines of: “Why don’t we try something a little different than reforestation and re-vegetation? Why don’t we try putting the land back to something better than what was there before?”

That was the kind of basic thinking that led to the Beaver Creek Wood Bison Ranch project.

And as you can imagine, it didn’t happen overnight.  There were many issues to deal with, such as where the animals would come from… how would we actually be able create a range from reclaimed land that would sustain the herd… As a company, what would our role be… And what about the long term.  What was there to be gained from the effort?

These were just some of the issues that had to be considered.  So as a result of some uncertainty and no baselines to go by, it started off as a test or as a pilot project to see if it would work.

At first, we thought about cattle. Then we thought about plains bison. But the Wood Bison Recovery Team…  which is an intergovernmental group established to promote the restoration of wood bison within their historic range… this team along with the Canadian Wildlife Service asked for wood bison. Bringing in plains bison would have complicated plans to re-introduce free-ranging wood bison into our region sometime down the road.

So, wood bison it was.

And where did they come from? Well, I can’t imagine that the group here today would travel here to Edmonton from all points of the world without knowing about a bison reserve very close by to the location of our conference. I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if a good number of you had already taken the short trip out to Elk Island National Park, which is just a little east of here.

And, in 1993, with the cooperation of the Canadian Wildlife Service, Parks Canada, and Alberta Fish and Wildlife, that’s where Syncrude got its livestock. Thirty head made the trip north to a small, 25 hectare plot of reclaimed land that not too long before had been used for our mining operation.

The Pilot Project

Now, I know it depends on how you measure it, but since 1993 on almost every measure I can think of, this project has been a success.

For one thing, five calves were born to the seven mature cows that first year and the calving rate has exceeded 80% during every year since then. That’s a pretty good indication, I think, that we were getting off to the right kind of start, a pretty good indication that it was possible to restore mining land in such a way that it could support a healthy and growing herd of wood bison.

Now, from the start, as I’ve said, this was a partnership. Syncrude, for example, agreed that we’d pay all costs for preparing the site and for keeping the herd.  One of our employees is responsible for day-to-day management and care… and the Fort McKay First Nation also supplies personnel under our manager’s supervision.  These same people are in training to take full responsibility for ranch management in the near future.

By 1995, through natural increase and additional animals from Elk Island National Park the herd had grown to 70 animals and, in that year, we added the Wood Bison Trail to the project. It featured a commemorative gateway and an extensive series of hiking and nature trails.

In 1997 we completed the Wood Bison Viewpoint which provides a vantagepoint for the public to check the project out. Then, in 1998 we declared the pilot project a success and applied to Alberta Environment, the provincial agency that regulates reclamation, for approval to make bison pastures a permanent feature of the reclaimed landscape.

Current bison operations

The herd today, has grown to 280 animals supported on a land base of 340 hectares of reclaimed land… over the last seven years that’s a more than one-thousand percent increase in land, and a more than 700 percent increase in the size of the herd.

From a corporate point of view, it’s a success because we’ve shown in quite a significant and remarkable way that we can tap in to the natural resources the land has provided to us. And we’ve shown we can return that land to a state that is as productive or more productive than the original. And I think that is the basic definition of sustainable development.

And there is another economic angle here as well. Because although our main line of business is the production of oil from oil sand, another opportunity has emerged.

The herd of 280 includes 90 mature cows and 80 calves born this year. We’re keeping the cows for breeding purposes, and the males are sold into the commercial bison market.

We take pride in the quality of our stock. One of our 1999 males, for example, recently placed first in its class at the Wild Rose Classic here in Alberta and was also named Reserve Grand Champion.   And I am sure you would agree that there’s a value to a prize-winning animal that goes beyond the value of the award itself. It shows us; for example, that our herd management, breeding and feeding systems are working incredibly well, and that we’re able to produce the kinds of animals the market wants.

And as for the future, subject to regulatory approval, our current plan is to expand the land base to about 2,000 hectares and the herd to upwards of 1,200 animals. Well before we get to that point, it’s our intent to turn the full operation of the ranch over to the good and completely capable hands of the Fort McKay First Nation as a long-term, sustainable business opportunity.

For now, as I said, we’re hanging on to the females to help stock a growing land base. But we do anticipate sales in the near future. We’ve registered a portion of the herd. And our intent is to register the entire herd before the books are closed on the foundation stock registry for wood bison. Our goal, basically, is to become the supplier of choice for top quality wood bison breeding stock. Of course, we welcome inquiries and visitors to our facilities.

Summary

Now, I think I’ll recap briefly, and then stop the story so that I can turn it over to you for questions or comments.

Here are some of the highlights:

• From an immense land and natural resource base, Syncrude is a major oil producer;
• Many people, including aboriginal communities are potentially affected by our operations and it is incumbent upon us to build the most productive and mutually beneficial relationships that we can;
• One of the ways we do that, is to manage those aspects of operations which might affect the health of the environment as responsibly as we can;
• From our perspective, the Bison Ranch is a part of that effort and can be considered mainly an environmental initiative;
• But, best of both worlds, it is more than that… it also represents a significant source of economic opportunity to the local community.

And, we hope it will represent a source of high quality wood bison breeding stock for many of you.