ERO # 019 9286 Posted 2024…

ERO # 019 9286
Posted 2024 11 25 schedule to close 2025 01 09

Working on wells and associated works without the consent of an operator in limited circumstances to prevent, decrease, or eliminate a hazard to the public or to the environment | Environmental Registry of Ontario.

Private Natural Gas Well Association SUBMISSION (2025 01 09) to MNR Environmental Registry Posting (ERO) # 019-9286 seeking proposed changes to the OGSRA.
Delivered via email to:
Andrew Ogilvie MNR Manager Resource Development Section
Katy Field Manager MNRF Petroleum Operation Section
CC: Bobbi Ann Brady MPP Haldimand Norfolk
Hon. Sam Oosterhoff MPP Niagara West Assistant Minister of Energy
Submitted to ERO Posting on 2025 01 09 at 1445

The Private Natural Gas Well Association (PNGWA) is pleased to make the following submission in reply to the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) posting of November 25, 2024, on the Ontario Environmental Register (ERO) # 019-9286 – where it is proposing significant changes to the Oil Gas and Salt Resources Act
The Private Natural Gas Well Association has a long history of working with the MNR & MNRF beginning in 2007 and continuing to the present. The PNGWA’s efforts have been to assist private gas well operators who have found themselves to be non-compliant with the OGSRA & Regulations from when it was introduced circa 1997. The PNGWA has also worked along with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), The Christian Farmers Federation of Agriculture (CFFA) and the Haldimand Federation of Agriculture IHFA) dealing with private gas well matters.
The PNGWA views the Proposal as detailed on the ERO website to be a very complex undertaking and generally extending far beyond the interests of the average licenced private gas well operator.
The PNGWA is of the view that private gas wells are located on land owned by the operator. This is clearly a distinction that sets a private well apart from all that is contemplated for the commercial type of operations for the referenced activities in the ERO proposal, such as carbon dioxide and other types of sequestering storage, where the land is leased from a land owner, and the where such operators can vanish whether it be by insolvency or be stranded by the complexities with changes of entity ownership, leaving an abandoned operation that needs some form of remediation. The MNR and later MNRF has a long history of being faced with commercial petroleum well operators who fail and become insolvent causing wells to be abandoned.
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The PNGWA only began to receive notices of this ERO #019-9286 beginning on Dec 27 2025, when some private gas well operators received a hard copy of a single page letter issued by the MNR Development and Hazard Policy Branch/Policy Division dated December 5 2024. Other private gas well operators received their copy via Canada Post, regular mail envelopes on Dec 8 2025, postmarked 2024 12 31 from Peterborough. The letter encouraged the recipient to review and submit a comment on the posting website address.
When the posting was opened, it was learned that comments or submissions were due by Jan 9th 2025. The PNGWA has received a number of questions from well operators generally summarized as “What is this?”. Frankly we have been rush to make any form of response by the deadline.
Now the PNGWA has had a long history of meeting and communicating with MNR And MNRF staff, so this is concerning that no advance or even current communication was received to help understand what this is about. The PNGWA Secretary has an alert filed with the ERO posting system to alert us to anything that is posted with Natural Gas in the title. As you can see the title only mentions wells and does not differentiate gas wells, oil wells, solution wells, storage wells or even water wells. As we missed being advised of the initial posting. We only started to become aware of this posting by some members who reached out looking for guidance on what to do with this notice.
Our secretary did attempt to reach out to Andrew Ogilvie, the designated contact via phone on Jan 8th at 12:36 pm and was directed to leave a voicemail. A message was left asking for a return call, but as of 9:00 p.m. this evening, there has not been any call returned.
Now here it is late on the evening of Jan 9th and we are trying to compile some form of response to the posting.
The following concerns are raised for consideration and hopefully can be recognized and woven into the fabric of the proposal.
1. There is no mention or analysis referenced that perhaps whatever hazard to the public that might be corrected using the provisions of the Abandoned Works Program that provides the MNR with some great remedial tools. Can this be recognized and included in content.
2. How is a “Hazard to the Public or the Environment” evaluated or defined to hopefully resolve ambiguity and avoidance of inconsistent application actions? Are there established metrics to quantify what volumes and rates of uncontained releases cause an event to escalate to the level where the implied actions are put into force.
3. The forced entry onto a private property as stated in the proposal, raises a number of privacy concerns, along with operating and functioning concerns that may be more adequately addressed by some specialized agricultural groups. However, a few illustrations that come to mind that have rigid and strictly enforced hygiene protocols that prohibit unauthorized personnel to enter a property to ensure compliance ( avoiding disease transmission and genetic contamination) with their governing and certifying agencies are listed:
3.1. Chicken Farms
3.2. Turkey farms
3.3. Pig Farms
3.4. Certified Organic farms
3.5. Pesticide and Herbicide applications during various times pose a hazard to people not observing Personal Protective Equipment requirements.
3.6. Landowners may also have authorized land use for sporting and rodent control activities in progress. These activities could pose a risk to unknown personnel charging about without the landowner’s knowledge or approval.
4. The PNGWA was made aware by some members of the necessity to adhere to some of the protocols noted above while we were working to develop a Private Natural Gas Well (2007 to 2012) Policy. It did take the MNR some time to recognize the validity for the need to train their inspectors to observe the demands to ensure compliance with protocols.
5. The PNGWA referenced the Ontario Regulation 245/97 and the Private Natural Gas Well Policy in a previous submission to ERO 019-7507 on Oct 15 2023, to illustrate how private gas wells (among other entities) have always been excluded from the need to post any form of security. Now this proposal indicates or leads readers to believe that there are securities currently in place to be used as an interim step to recover Ministry induced costs that may be associated with whatever activity it determines to be necessary address to remedy its concern. The reference as to how costs are to be recovered from posted securities should be clarified or amplified to avoid any misunderstandings when an action is commenced under the new Section 7.0.13 added to the Oil Gas and Salt Resources Act subsection(8) of this section is troubling where the provision to use force is stated. Hopefully this overreach can be removed from the Act. Has this been copied in from an American based procedure per chance?

6. Bill 228, Resource Management and Safety Act is refenced as a Supporting Material. Please note that it is impossible for the PNGWA do any form of meaningful review of this document of some 60 or so pages. We are a volunteer group and have not had any sufficient amount of time to analyze what is embedded in the fairly complex legal descriptions within this all-encompassing Act.
The PNGWA has always supported the conservative use of natural gas giving due consideration to the safe and environmental needs this natural resource requires. Licensed private gas well operators work to prevent gas leaks and maintain their wells and associated works.
This proposal is respectively submitted on Jan 9th 2025 at 10:48 pm .
Private Natural Gas Well Association
pngwa@outlook.com