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For carbon capture and storage technology to successfully contribute to climate mitigation efforts, the stored CO₂ must be securely isolated from the atmosphere and oceans. Hence, there is a need to establish and verify monitoring techniques that can detect unplanned migration of injected CO₂ from a storage site to the near surface. Noble gases are sensitive tracers of crustal fluid input in the subsurface due to their low concentrations and unreactive nature. Several studies have identified their potential to act as tracers of deep fluid migration to the shallow subsurface, but they have yet to be used in a contested situation. In January 2011 it was reported extensively in global media that high CO₂ concentrations in soils and related groundwater pollution had been identified on a farm property belonging to the Kerr family, located near to the town of Weyburn in Saskatchewan, Canada. The origin of this CO₂ pollution …