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Stop oilsands projects until monitoring is improved: Panel
News Articles Featured | Canoe.ca | April 08, 2011
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Approval for new oilsands projects and water licenses should be suspended until the federal and Alberta governments put in place new monitoring procedures, a study by a panel of experts found.
Current programs are not adequate, the study’s authors, David Schindler,Andrew Miall and Adèle Hurley said during a forum, held by Toronto University’s Munk School of Global Affairs Program on Water Issues.
“Project approval and licensing have been carried out on an individual project basis, with little or no attention paid to cumulative environmental effects,” the authors said. “There are serious questions about the efficacy of provincial environmental management. The scientific input is poor and the process flawed.”
This week, U.S. President Barack Obama weighed into the debate over the oilsands, which contain the largest recoverable reserves outside of Saudi Arabia, saying they are potentially “destructive.” Canada is the biggest supplier to the U.S., with 1.9 million barrels of oil flowing across the border each day.
U.S. legislators are considering whether to approve new pipelines from Alberta to refineries near the Gulf of Mexico.
The oilsands may also be set to throw a wrench in the works of a major trade accord between Canada and the European Union. According to reports the federal government is threatening to take a European Union directive on fuel quality to the World Trade Organization as it would penalize Canadian oil.
The Council of Canadians on Friday slammed the government’s attempts to force the EU to water down its environmental protection laws.
“It’s disturbing enough to think that the government of Canada is running around the world acting like a lobbyist for the oil industry, but it’s appalling that what this means in practice is that they are attacking clean energy policy in other countries,” said Graham Saul, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada.
The Munk School panel recommends a transparent and fully accountable system of monitoring that is out of the reach of day-to-day politics.
It should be independent from industry, have national scientific leadership and should have stable funding for at least 25 years, it said.
Tagged with: david schindler, monitoring, alberta government
