No need to suspend monitoring: biologist

SCIENTISTS CRITICIZE ALBERTA’S MONITORING SUSPENSION, LACK OF CONSULTATION

Shutting down a broad range of Alberta’s environmental monitoring over pandemic fears wasn’t necessary, says the head of a group responsible for such work. Most monitoring could have been done safely, says Jay White, president of the licencegranting Alberta Society of Professional Biologists.

“We’re trained to deal with dangerous, toxic biological hazards in our day-to-day work,” White said Monday. “The virus is no different.”

Alberta’s own chief scientist says he wasn’t consulted before the government temporarily shut down much land, air and watermonitoring requirements in the oil and gas industry in what it said was an attempt to keep workers and communities safe from COVID-19. “Nothing came to me,” said Fred Wrona.

“The process at the (Alberta Energy Regulator), that was done by their organization. I didn’t see any of that.

“I think being more inclusive ... certainly including my office, would have been useful.”

Government spokespeople have said it has been too risky to move people into and out of the field, find places for them to stay and keep them and their contacts safe.

White, who said he was speaking as head of his consulting company and not on behalf of the professional society and its 2,000 members, said ways could have been found if the people who do the work had been asked.

“Take two trucks instead of one. We’re out in the field. We’re widely spread apart. If we’re within that two-metre zone, we wear a mask. We make sure we’ve got hand-sanitizer kits in all the vehicles.”

It should have been up to the people who actually do the work to decide how safe it is, he said.

“Most if not all of our work could be done with PPE protective controls. If there can’t be ... controls, then you don’t do the work. But that would be left up to us.”

The suspensions will mean permanent holes in Alberta’s monitoring record, White said.

“We’ve already missed snowpack analysis. We’ve already missed the spring freshet (runoff surge). That’s going to be a data gap for 2020.”