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Environmental Groups Challenge Assessment on Alta. Oilsands Project

Posted on: Monday, 27 March 2006, 21:00 CST

By LISA ARROWSMITH

EDMONTON(CP) - Several environmental groups are asking the Supreme Court of Canada to hear an appeal that would broaden the federal government's environmental review of a massive oilsands project in northern Alberta.

The Sierra Legal Defence Fund, Prairie Acid Rain Coalition, Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development and the Toxic Watch Society of Alberta filed for leave to appeal to the country's highest court Monday in Ottawa.

Sean Nixon, a Vancouver-based lawyer for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, said they plan to argue that the environmental review done on the Fort Hills project by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is too narrow.

Federal officials only looked at how the giant oilsands project would affect fisheries habitat in a small creek that runs through an area which encompasses more than 200 square kilometres near Fort McMurray, Alta.

"The Supreme Court of Canada needs to put teeth into Canada's environmental assessment legislation," Nixon said.

"They need to interpret Canada's environmental assessment act that ensures there will be meaningful assessments of large projects," he added.

The application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court says the oilsands mining and processing project is one of the "largest-scale industrial activities in the history of mankind, with oilsands deposits in Alberta covering an area larger than Florida."

It alleges the Fort Hills project, led by Petro-Canada, will cause destruction of fish habitat with the creation of giant open-pit mines and questioned whether the lower courts and the federal government have properly interpreted federal environmental assessment legislation.

"Given the scale of these projects and also the intensity of developments that's projected for Fort McMurray, we feel they have to have a very active role in understanding some of the environmental implications which impact their jurisdictions, such as greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, as well as air emissions and water flow into next-door neighbour provinces and territories," said Dan Woynillowicz, a policy analyst for the Pembina Institute.

Denying a broader federal environmental review of giant oilsands projects is not in the public interest, argued Woynillowicz, especially when the Fort Hills project could impact water in the Athabasca River which flows into the Northwest Territories, or air emissions that could drift into Saskatchewan.

Chris Dawson, spokesman for Petro-Canada (TSX:PCA), which is the lead partner in the $5 billion project, said Monday they went through a rigorous environmental assessment and approval process in 2002 with the province of Alberta that included reviews of emissions, effects on watersheds and even the socio-economic effects on local residents.

"It was in fact one of the most rigorous assessments conducted in the oilsands to date," he said.

The process included a public hearing and approval from the Energy and Utilities Board, the province's energy regulator.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans was part of that review and was satisfied with the scope of the environmental assessment, something Dawson said has also been borne out by lower court rulings supporting the environmental review process.

"The Fort Hills partners have committed to 128 environmental compliance conditions that were set forth as a result of those hearings," Dawson said.

"And that covers everything from watershed management to proper protection of a portion of wetland that we're not allowed to mine."

"So clearly there was a thorough assessment and that resulted in an unprecedented number of commitments that we're bound to. We intend not only to comply with them, but exceed them," Dawson said.

Dawson said they will vigorously defend the lower court rulings and are opposed to the environmental groups seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Source: Canadian Press

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