Surface rights leader to oil & gas companies: “We’re done with you people.”

“There's no social license left for these clowns.” says Alberta Surface Rights Federation’s Bill Heidecker, about unreclaimed wells on members’ properties. “Just get off.”

Alberta Surface Rights Federation President Bill Heidecker at a Warburg town hall on October 14, 2025. Photo: Rimbey Review.

Warburg, Alberta – “Current status: I’m annoyed” said Bill Heidecker, at an October 14th town hall in Warburg about the impacts of aging oil and gas wells on members of the Alberta Surface Rights Federation (ASRF). But Heidecker, who is the President of the ASRF and a landowner himself, was just getting started.

The rest of his presentation included some of the most scathing and direct public criticisms from a leader from the United Conservative Party’s rural base towards Alberta’s oil and gas industry, and governing party: “All they want is to double production, get this oil out of the ground, get it to market, and to hell with the landowner, and the rural Albertan. And I’m pissed off. It’s got me fired up. I find it telling, insulting, and extremely hypocritical.”

“All they want is to double production, get this oil out of the ground, get it to market, and to hell with the landowner, and the rural Albertan. And I’m pissed off. It’s got me fired up. I find it telling, insulting, and extremely hypocritical.”

Heidecker was reacting to the recent announcement that Premier Danielle Smith had directed Energy Minister Brian Jean to “implement [the Mature Asset Strategy (MAS)],” an oil and gas industry plan to weaken well reclamation standards and potentially shift billions of dollars in cleanup costs to the public.

Heidecker’s Surface Rights Federation had participated in consultations about the MAS on behalf of thousands of farmers, ranchers and other landowners that are affected by leaking wells, overgrown weeds, and unpaid rents by oil and gas companies – only to find almost all of their recommendations ignored, in favour of ones requested by industry.

“[The MAS] sounded good. End of the day, it was an incredible disappointment. We’re having weakening reclamation standards — in our mind it’s going to let industry off the hook, and taxpayers may well be footing the bill. In my opinion, the Mature Asset Strategy is nothing but an official pathway for industry to legislatively reduce their cleanup obligations.”

“In my opinion, the Mature Asset Strategy is nothing but an official pathway for industry to legislatively reduce their cleanup obligations.”

Heidecker’s speech was a barn-burner and a call to action for rural landowners to take action against the UCP government over the MAS betrayal. What follows are six key takeaways from his speech, with video from the evening.

1. ‘Zombie wells,’ weeds, and Bitcoin mines: the new realities of hosting oil and gas wells

Heidecker described the deep frustrations of landowners trying to deal with increasingly rogue oil and gas companies, about wells on their private land:

“We’ve got problems with fraud and the reclamation process. More and more orphan wells. And then worse are the zombie wells, where the company, the wells are not yet put into the orphan well fund – but even worse, there’s no one that is at the company any more because it’s defunct or on life support. Nobody’s answering the phone. Those are even harder to deal with when you have problems.

Again, the weed control issue is getting worse and worse. And I’m not sure how many people know, but you can be charged with a criminal offense for entering the lease even though it’s on your land, under the Critical Infrastructure Act. So now you’re in the Catch-22 where you’ve got weeds on the lease, the county won’t help you; they probably give you a weed notice. You can’t contact the law company because they’re defunct and you’re not allowed to go in there. So it’s a terrible situation. And those weeds are gonna cause you a great deal of harm, especially if you’re an organic farmer.

Nothing seems to ever be in our favor. And then on top of all this, we’ve got new well site activities that have not been explored and well-vetted as far as what the regulations should be – you know, educating the landowner. Things like Bitcoin mining and brine mining. End of the day, it’s all more stress on the landowner. More costs. More imposition, and more aggravation.”

2. New pipelines mean “more wells, more problems for us”

According to Heidecker, the idea of “clean” oil and gas being advanced by the Alberta and federal government is “a complete farce.” “From any landowner, municipality, and rural Albertan, that is not their experience. What I’m getting told by most landowners is: either never again or FOGO. And FOGO, if you don’t know what that means, there’s an ‘off’ and a ‘get off.’”

“Now, as I noted, there’s an indication … that the Mature Asset Strategy is gonna be pushed into the spring. But here’s what really gets me fired up. In the last week or two, what do we have? We have a commitment of taxpayer dollars to go [and] back a new pipeline. What does a new pipeline mean? That means more wells. More problems for us.

“There’s a nonstop promotion of this responsible energy narrative. In my mind, that’s a complete farce.”

There’s a nonstop promotion of this responsible energy narrative. In my mind, that’s a complete farce. From any landowner, municipality, and rural Albertan, that is not their experience. What I’m getting told by most landowners is: either never again or FOGO. And FOGO, if you don’t know what that means, there’s an “off” and a “get off.” So that’s what it is. Most people are fed up. Just get off. We’re done with you people. And we’ve got this responsible – why is there this promotion of this responsible energy narrative? It’s because of this hard press on the Feds for a new pipeline. What is that for land owners? It’s just going to double our problems.

And then last week … there’s a commitment in the Premier’s mandate letter to Brian Jean, the Minister, to implement the Mature Asset Strategy. That’s in the mandate letter. That’s what she’s laying out for him to get done this year. And there’s not a single reference in that mandate letter – or any of the rhetoric coming out of CAPP, the Minister’s office, the Centre of Energy – about repairing relations with land owners. Or getting our house in order, which is what they should be doing. Not a peep. To me, it tells you where we rank on this. All of this. It’s very telling. All they want is to double production, get this oil out of the ground, get it to market, and to hell with the landowner, and the rural Albertan. And I’m pissed off. Like, honestly, I’m so pissed. This last week, it’s got me fired up. I find it telling, insulting, and extremely hypocritical.”

3. UCP: stop complaining about feds when you’re disrespecting your own base

Heidecker called the Alberta government’s “pissing and moaning” about mistreatment by the federal government “hypocritical” as they ignore the wishes of their own base:

“And then there’s these accusations of all these injustices that the Feds have done on Alberta. And there’s like nine different acts or something, that they want to repeal. Okay, I doubt I’m going to get many fans – and I’m not a fan – of the previous Prime Minister. But it is incredibly hypocritical to be pissing and moaning constantly about how bad we’ve been treated or Alberta’s been treated – when the treatment to landowners and rural Albertans by the province and by the government of Alberta – I see it’s equally bad. And those are the people who put the current government in power. Landowners, rural Albertans, those who vote. Those are the people that – they make governments. Oil companies don’t vote. They don’t make a government. Yet, it’s rural Albertans and landowners who are being extremely disrespected.”

4. Landowners are done subsidizing oil and gas

Heidecker laid out how landowners are being aggressively pursued by oil and gas companies to “take a haircut” on their annual lease payments – and threatened with a hearing if they refuse. He described the same approach at the consultations for the Mature Asset Strategy – an expectation that landowners and municipalities should reduce payments to benefit the industry. Heidecker forcefully argues that as a commodity business, oil and gas should have prepared for downtimes– just like farmers have to:

“So at the end of the day, I feel the industry’s concerns are prioritized, and landowner issues are marginalized.” And throughout the whole thing, especially in our working group, Working Group One, there seems to be this underlying narrative that industry’s problem was unforeseeable. Which, if anyone here is a farmer – we work in commodities, and we work in a renewable commodity. And we know you’re going to have times of low production and low prices. We’re talking about people that are working in a depletion, or an extraction industry, and a commodity. They know bloody well that someday the prices are gonna be low, but they have no production.

So it’s hard to feel sorry for them, to be honest. And that they are looking for financial consideration from both landowners and municipalities.

“The message was that we as landowners and municipalities should be willing to take a haircut to save these guys, [to] keep on with jobs in the community and what have you. That’s ridiculous.”

We went in: the message was that we as landowners and municipalities should be willing to take a haircut to save these guys so that they could keep on with jobs in the community and what have you. That’s ridiculous. We pushed back hard on that. We weren’t about to take a haircut. We didn’t participate when prices were high. It’s because we’re not a shareholder. We aren’t a joint venture partner. All we are is getting compensated as landowners for our loss of use and adverse effect of having these wells. That’s not something we’re gonna entertain. So we said no to any sort of financial consideration.”

5. “Hypocritical” that renewables are forced to put up cleanup bonds for new installations

Heidecker described the “hypocrisy” that renewable installations — that degrade much more slowly than oil and gas wells — are forced to put up cleanup bonds, when O&G isn’t.

“Some more hypocrisy. They forced the renewable guys to put up collateral. Had these guys? No. So the decline rate on solar is about 2% per year, the panels degrade. Maybe with wind, maybe it’s probably about the same, because there might be some more downtime, maintenance as they get older – but this, or this. Your oil or gas wells, your decline is like THIS. And those are the guys that get the break, and don’t have to put up any collateral. And on top of that, we see in their track record.

“… shuffling these from strong hands to weaker and weaker hands, to basically nothing but some guy in a garage with no intention of ever cleaning this shit up. Completely hypocritical, completely.”

For shuffling these from strong hands to weaker and weaker and weaker hands, to basically nothing but some guy in a garage with no intention of ever cleaning this shit up. Completely hypocritical, completely.”

6. Landowners are facing new activities on well sites – ones they never agreed to

Installing multiple “industrial-level” fracking wells on a single well site. Local water sources being poisoned by brine mining. Bitcoin mines on well sites that run loudly 24/7 near peoples’ homes. Data centers that are drying up local water sources and leaving farmers at a loss. These are all new challenges facing landowners in Alberta. Some of these leaseholders agreed to a host a single well site on their land a generation ago, and are now having to contend with intense new extraction projects that they never signed off on.

BH: “There’s massive issues with, is anybody here from Ponoka, that area? Okay, so is there not some serious issues with the fracking and the use of fresh water in that area?”

Audience: “Right by our house. Right by our house.”

BH: “Can any of us as landowners get access to that same fresh water for irrigation? No chance in hell. But we’re gonna pump it down a hole, destroy it, and never be back on the water cycle again. That’s good management, right? Yeah, yeah, brilliant.

So we’ve got these current issues, like the fresh water and the fracking. These fracking jobs, these big wells now, these aren’t your grandpa’s old well where they come and put one hole, and they’re there for what – three, four weeks in the old days?

Audience: “Maybe a week. Maybe a week or so.”

BH: “Okay, well now I’m telling you – we’re putting, what, upwards of eight, a dozen wells in one spot. Drilling for upwards of what, a year, year and a half? That’s a massive industrial site out in the country. Regulations haven’t kept up with that. And that’s a huge imposition on the neighbors in the community. None of that’s being kept – is anybody invited, any of you to conversations to update our regulations as we improve and enhance the technology? No, nobody’s called you.

“We’ve got all these energy-adjacent activities: lithium brine mining. Bitcoin. Data centers. What are all the implications of those? What is the water usage of the data center?”

We’ve got all these energy-adjacent activities: lithium brine mining. Bitcoin. Data centers. What are all the implications of those? What is the water usage of the data center?”

Audience: “Huge. Huge.”

BH:” That’s my understanding. Has there been any consultation with anyone on any of these issues? Bitcoin mining, that’s important, because of how much noise those things make. One in Staedtler, I think it was – 10 Gen Sets out in this guy’s field? Bitcoin mining. Did he sign up for that? When I sign up for a well, I expected the oil to come out of it. Not in 10 years for it to be Bitcoin. And you as a landowner, should you have a chance to agree to whether it’s gonna have a change in use? I would think so. I’d expect that. And I’d also expect that to be a new taking, right? But no, we’re just gonna repurpose this stuff. Your father or your grandfather might have signed on this at least 40 years ago. You might be looking for it to finally be gone. Now we’re gonna put brine mining on it. What do you know about brine mining?

Nothing. You would think there would be some education, some consultation. Let’s talk to the counties about what sort of regulations they need to modify for all these new things. Has there been any of that? But we’re gonna re-implement this stuff in the spring. That’s what Mr. Jean’s mandate has been. Who thinks that’s intelligent? I see no hands. Thank you.”