Energy News
Oilsands monitoring and reclamation lambasted before Senate energy committee
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- Category: News
- Written by Joseph Caouette
The Alberta government's ability to regulate oilsands development was called into question by two expert witnesses before a Canadian Senate committee hearing in Edmonton in late November.
"Over the years, the independence of the ERCB [Energy Resources Conservation Board] has been reined back in over successive governments," said Steve Hrudey, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and chair of the panel that authored the Royal Society of Canada's 2010 oilsands report. In addition, he served as chair of the Alberta environmental appeals board from 2005 to 2009.
He was speaking before the Senate committee on energy, the environment and natural resources, which was visiting the city as part of a two-week western Canadian fact-finding tour. The group has been gathering information for over two years now as it works towards tabling its final report on a Canadian energy strategy in June 2012.
The speakers addressed a number of energy topics, including carbon pricing systems, the potential development of fusion energy and Alberta's deregulated power market, among others. But this being Alberta, the talk invariably turned to oilsands.
"There's nothing uniquely horrendous about oilsands development versus any other form of natural resources recovery," Hrudey said.
He was unsparing in his criticism of anti-oilsands advocates he feels are more concerned with scoring points than talking facts. "It's outrageous for anyone to say this is the most environmentally destructive project on the planet," he said. "That simply reflects that you're either chronically stupid, or you've never been anywhere."
But he also didn't mince words when it came to current oilsands oversight. In Hrudey's view, oilsands development needs to be overseen by a new arm's-length organization, which could then be expanded to address other environmental concerns in the province.
"It [the monitoring agency] has to be independent and it has to be highly competent, neither of which is an accurate description of Alberta Environment at the moment," he added.
As chair of the Alberta environmental appeals board, Hrudey would often be called upon to rule upon the decisions of Alberta Environment—and what he saw worries him.
"I saw it when I was chair of the environmental appeals board that the message seemed to be tell the minister what he wants to hear, don't tell him what the evidence says you should tell him."
A big part of the problem, according to Hrudey, has been the ongoing "dumbing down of the civil service" in Canada and the world at large. As an example, he points to a 2010 study from David Schindler, which drew attention to oilsands pollution. The initial response from the Alberta government was uninformed, according to Hrudey.
"It's like they couldn't read the paper," he said.
Schindler himself came before the senate committee to address the findings in his study and highlight what he sees as shortcomings in the industry's land reclamation program.
"The rate of digging is greatly outstripping the rate at which reclamation is even being attempted," he said. "Of the whole thing, only a fraction of one per cent has been reclaimed well enough to be certified."
And even that fraction is questionable, according to Schindler. He cast doubt on the long-term viability of Gateway Hill, a 104-hectare area of land north of Fort McMurray, Alta., which Syncrude Canada reclaimed in 2008.
"We're lulled to sleep by seeing all the beautiful images on TV every night of the Syncrude Gateway project, the wetland that they put onto a former tailings pond, which my wife, who's a wetlands scientist who works in reclamation in oilsands, tells me will never last because eventually the saline water underneath is going to kill vegetation," he said.
Schindler suggests that international criticism of the oilsands is best answered with strong domestic environmental programs, like an independent monitoring program and better reclamation practices. "We need a serious and well-funded world-class reclamation program," he said, arguing that the industry, if armed with tangible evidence and results, "could credibly go international."
"I think the day is gone when we can hide an industry that size away in the bush."
