Province’s green credentials blasted
Alberta has work to do, Pembina says
Alberta is not yet the environmental leader Premier Alison Redford describes, the Pembina Institute said in a new report.
Tailings ponds are expanding, greenhouse gas emissions are set to double by 2020, and there is a seven-year delay in a promise to restrict water use from the Athabasca River at key low-flow times, the environmental think-tank and research group said Monday.
But Environment Minister Diana McQueen said the government’s environmental record is solid and its policies are ahead of most other jurisdictions in Europe and the United States, where the province is seeking new markets for Alberta bitumen.
“We welcome the Pembina report and we’re glad to see it recognizes some of the important pieces of work we’ve done,” in the last couple of years, said McQueen.
In a report highly critical of the province, the institute said the government is making good progress in only two of 19 areas of environmental concern — the new federal-provincial monitoring agency and a recent decision to set aside more than 1.2 million hectares of land for conservation to offset the impact of the massive northeast open-pit mines and in situ development in the boreal forest.
But slow progress in all other areas is causing problems in the search for new markets for Alberta bitumen, said Pembina Institute policy director Simon Dyer, one of four authors of the report. The report is an update of an in-depth look at environmental issues in the oilsands, a 2011 study called Solving the Puzzle.
“The failure to properly regulate has a direct economic impact” on the province, Dyer said. “We can’t afford not to address these issues urgently.”
The conservation zones laid out in the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan are an important step forward, but they have not yet been legally identified, noted Dyer, adding that much more land must be set aside.
Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb, carbon capture and storage has not produced results and taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $15 billion in cleanup costs, says the update.
McQueen acknowledged that Alberta’s $15 a tonne levy on excess GHG emissions is not high enough to achieve the province’s own emission reduction targets. But Alberta was first when the Stelmach government established the levy in 2008.
“We were the first in North America and we are renewing our climate change strategy now,” said McQueen. “So I think Alberta has shown leadership.
McQueen declined to comment on reports of a proposal to raise the carbon levy to $40 and reduce emissions by 40 per cent. “It’s too early in the process (with the federal government) to talk any numbers,” she said.
As for the expanding tailings ponds, McQueen said under the LARP, a new tailings ponds management framework is being devised that will add regulations provided in Directive 74 from the Energy Resources Conservation Board.
“These other issues we will address as we move forward under the LARP,” she added.
But so far, Directive 74 has been ineffective in reducing the size of tailings ponds, mainly because seven of nine oilsands projects were exempt from regulations, said Dyer.
Tailings ponds “will increase by 40 per cent” if no further steps are taken and new bitumen production goes ahead as planned, said Dyer.
Redford’s speeches to Washington audiences ring hollow given this lack of progress, said Dyer. “Sadly, Alberta has a very long way to go — though it’s constructive that the premier has noted there is room for improvement.”
He said the government continues to delay action, though most problems could be dealt with through regulation.
The Redford government can move quickly when it wants to. In a matter of months, it set up the new single regulator that the energy industry has been pushing for, said Dyer.
Rachel Notley, New Democrat environment critic, says the government is relying on public relations — “vague statements and speeches in Washington” — rather than implementing good environmental policy. That’s because the government sees its job as representing the oil industry to the people, not the reverse, she said.
“This report clearly shows when it comes to specific environmental protection measures, delay and inaction are the real PC record.”
On air quality, there’s moderate progress under the LARP, which established some air pollution limits for nitrogen dioxide that are close to the World Health Organization benchmark and for sulphur dioxide. The government outlined steps to take when pollution goes above those benchmarks.
Still, the government does not require companies to use “best available” technology to reduce pollution, said Dyer.
Redford told Albertans that “world class environmental stewardship was one of her priorities in her election campaign,” but so far it’s not happening, said Dyer.