managing environmental risk

Environmental site assessments - Our normal business operation generates environmental risk from such things as backup power generating systems, fire suppression systems and contaminated property remediation. We direct our efforts based on the probability of risk (the type and age of infrastructure) and the potential severity of impact.

To assess and monitor risk, we conduct regular site assessments. TELUS field team members or environmental advisors completed 597 site assessments in 2006, in excess of our target of 550 for the year. All of our 88 high-risk sites were assessed. These assessments are comprised of 11 categories of environmental risk, including generators, batteries, pole storage and chemicals, and are based on federal and provincial legislation, accepted industry practice and our own management practices. During the year, we altered our assessment protocol to ensure compliance issues were completely and adequately monitored.

Spills, releases and effluent - TELUS team members are trained to report all spills and releases to our 24-hour network operations centre (NOC). Working with the NOC, our environment team ensures spills are reported to regulators as required, within the appropriate timeframe, and investigates the root causes of all spills. We added a spill response process for our wireless operations in 2006.

One spill in 2006 was not reported to regulators as required. The reporting process failed to disclose the release of eight litres of glycol from a generator system. The glycol was fully contained by protective measures in place, so there was no risk to the environment. However, our internal policy required this release be reported within 24 hours, which was not done.

Overall, the number and volume of spills decreased substantially in 2006. The significant trend of fewer spills and no large spills indicates that training and mitigation practices, including fuel system upgrades, are yielding positive results.

Because of the nature of our business, we have no effluent other than domestic wastewater, which is common to all companies.

Chemical management - TELUS uses numerous chemical products and/or hazardous materials in day-to-day operations. These include cleaning products, compressed gases and lubricants, asbestos insulation, lead in batteries and beryllium in old radio equipment. We manage the risk to team members posed by these chemicals through Workplace Hazardous Material Information System (WHMIS) and transportation of dangerous goods (TDG) training, as well as education on material safety data sheet (MSDS) retrieval. We also publish policies related to proper handling of many hazardous compounds on our internal website.

An overhaul of our chemical management process was initiated in 2005. Changes include use of a web-based service from an external provider for MSDS management, which provides access to more than 3.5 million MSDS. This has been rolled out in conjunction with the development of a list of chemicals approved for use at TELUS sites and a modification of the chemical inventory process to a statistical sampling basis. The new process has been substantially implemented to this point, with the approved chemical list near completion.

TELUS has a chemical disposal process at most facilities. Yellow bins specifically designed for chemical disposal are used and the final disposal is done by personnel certified in hazardous waste handling to ensure the materials are processed appropriately. All hazardous materials generated by TELUS are recycled, re-used or disposed of at licensed facilities.

Environmentally sensitive lands and biodiversity - TELUS owns or leases a number of facilities across Canada including data centres, central offices, radio and wireless towers, manholes, copper and fibre-optic cables. Specifically, we use 3,700 buildings, representing a total area of 11 million square feet, and more than 3,000 cellular/radio sites across Canada. In addition we have numerous lines, placed aerially, below ground or under water, most of which are within rights of way (ROWs). These ROWs, estimated at more than 150 million square metres for Western Canada alone, pass through many types of environments including sensitive areas such as grasslands and boreal forests. We do not have a reasonable way to estimate what percentage of our footprint affects these various landforms. There has not been a significant change in our total footprint year over year. We currently have policies in the air emissions section of this report. and training in place to reduce the environmental impact on water, soil, vegetation and habitat associated with service installation or maintenance.

Our environment team led one class-screening assessment and supported six impact assessments related to water crossings in 2006. We also completed four construction site assessments, two related to drilling mud overflows and two related to site disturbances during construction.

In 2006, we entered into a partnership with BC Hydro and the provincial government in which regular activities such as cable replacement have been authorized to proceed without requirement of formal approval, if it can be demonstrated that no environmental impact is expected. We also generated a regional pest management plan in 2006 for our sites and ROWs in the southern interior of B.C. The plan allows for chemical application in dealing with knapweed, especially in the ROWs. All other pest management is proposed to be done through mechanical means.