Ottawa calls for joint oil sands oversight

Federal panel says current regime lacks co-ordination, leadership

By Jeff Lewis

December 21, 2010

Ottawa is calling for a shared regulatory approach to monitor future oil sands impacts. “The pace and scope of change in the oil sands region, the challenges of managing in a multi-jurisdictional setting and the significant and growing expectations of stakeholders require no less,” concludes a report released Tuesday, compiled by a review panel appointed by former federal environment minister Jim Prentice.

The critique comes one day after Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner announced the creation of a new panel to track industry impacts in the bitumen belt. Released under the title, A Foundation for the Future: Building an Environmental Monitoring System for the Oil Sands, the federal report suggests current monitoring of oil sands development is weighed too heavily toward studying “legacy environmental conditions” associated with surface mining, when “it is the potential environmental effects associated with the likely rapid expansion of in situ extraction projects that could be the most concerning in the future.”

More work needs to be done to assess baseline conditions in the Peace-Athabasca delta, the authors say. Collective monitoring of by all levels of government and industry stakeholders lacks coherence. There is no “data management framework where information can be uploaded, organized, and accessed in a standardized and co-ordinated manner.”

Areas where additional monitoring and research are required include: groundwater hydrogeology, aquifer sustainability and water quality; ecosystem impacts; the connection between surface and groundwater systems; and cumulative impacts of multiple “environmental stressors” on aquatic ecosystem health, the report contends.

The authors reserved their harshest criticism for the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program (RAMP), arguing the industry-funded apparatus is neither systemic, holistic nor adaptive. “While environmental data is being collected on water quality and ecosystem parameters, the program suffers from a lack of scientific leadership,” the report says. RAMP is too permit-oriented, the report argues, and has additionally failed to produce “world-class” research in a “transparent, peer-reviewed format and it is not adequately communicating its results to the scientific community or the public.”

“Future scenarios of climate change, technological change and fast-paced industrial development have not to date catalyzed thinking and action,” the report continues, calling for an overhaul to the status quo. “Until this situation is fixed there will continue to be uncertainty and public distrust in the environmental performance of the oil sands industry and government oversight.”