Timoney cites discrepancies between the public records and FOI data as evidence of the AER’s misreporting. The Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) Field Inspection System (FIS) database reports 514 tailings spills in the bitumen sands region. However, an FOI request, filed by Timoney, revealed that many of these incidents are composed of multiple spills. The FOI data presents the information as 989 primary spills.

The practice of monthly reporting allows multiple spills to be recorded as one spill, the study found. This makes it difficult to track their true number. Tailings spills are also reported, haphazardly according to Timoney, under a variety of different names. FOI data reported 627 spills as “tailings,” 215 spills as “process water,” and 89 spills as “bitumen slurry,” in addition to nine other names for tailings spills.