Oilsands group restores funding

CEMA to get $5M annual budget back

In a sudden reversal, oilsands companies will restore funding to a key environmental agency in the province’s northeast after meeting with Environment Minister Diana McQueen.

McQueen said Wednesday she was pleased the Oil Sands Developers Group agreed to renew a $5-million annual budget for the Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA).

The oilsands group last week halved CEMA’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, and called for an immediate review of the agency, suggesting it was time for it to wind down.

CEMA, set up in 2001, devises policies to reduce air and water pollution from open-pit mines and to protect wildlife, and produces technical reports on how to safely store toxic tailings ponds.

Most of its budget comes from industry.

The oilsands group’s decision announced Wednesday “is an important signal for me and Albertans and industry as well” of the continued importance of CEMA’s work in helping to devise strong environmental policy, McQueen said.

She said her department has begun a review of “what policy issues” need to be addressed by CEMA as three new initiatives get underway in the region, including a new federal-provincial monitoring panel (awaiting new legislation), the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) and the energy department’s proposed single regulator to approve oilsands projects.

“It will be good for us all to come together in the New Year and talk about all these things at play and look at all the things we need done,” said McQueen.

Her review was a key factor in convincing the oilsands group to restore funding for a full year, said Ken Chapman, its executive director.

“As the minister indicated, that review won’t be finished until the second half of 2013, so we will fund through the year,” Chapman said.

Basically, there was poor communication between the industry and government, said Chapman.

“We didn’t know this review was going on and government didn’t know we were worried about how policy issues will be handled under the new regulatory regime.”

CEMA executive director Glen Semenchuk said he’s “surprised and pleased” with McQueen’s handling of the situation and the speedy reversal by the oilsands group.

“The review will force everyone to sit down at the table and see what needs to be done and who will do it,” Semenchuk said.

CEMA was established by the Klein government as the oilsands expanded in 2001. Rather than develop environmental policy in-house, the government set up an agency which involves industry, environmentalists, First Nations and federal and provincial officials.

The oilsands group is not hoping for CEMA’s demise, but rather wants clarification on what research the government wants CEMA to do, Chapman said.

Chapman said the industry is not concerned that CEMA’s work is starting to show that the growing footprint of mine expansion (the cumulative effects of each new project) is hitting some thresholds that could damage wildlife and increase air pollution to levels of concern.

That was an issue in the recent hearings into the proposed Jackpine mine expansion.

“That is government’s role and the regulators to deal with that and they will have good, valid third-party science to inform them (from CEMA),” he said.