New study implies Alberta and federal politicians gambling with Canadians’ environmental wellbeing

They’re playing fast and loose with the truth. Premier Redford’s greenwashing speeches “ring hollow”

No 734 Posted by fw, May 03, 2013

“Pembina’s report lays bare how little progress has been made to improve the environmental impact of the tar sands. Over the past two years, substantial progress has been made on only two of the nineteen recommendations. And progress on one of those two is debatable….The Government of Alberta needs to move urgently to deliver on its overdue commitments…” —Andy Rowell

Canada’s “Hollow Promises” on Tar Sands by Andy Rowell, The Price of Oil, April 30, 2013

For the last three years, Canadian and Albertan politicians have toured the great cities of America and Europe, with one mission. To persuade the world that we could exploit the tar sands in an “environmentally responsible” way.

To many people, the concept of strip mining Alberta, and exploiting this dirty carbon-intensive fuel and then trying to greenwash it as green, is a disgraceful misnomer that has to be challenged at every level.

But as they have toured the capitals, the Canadian politicians have argued that they are making progress in reducing the tar sands toxic legacy. Albertan Premier, Alison Redford, has argued that Albertans would have “world class environmental stewardship” of the tar sands. They can have their carbon cake and eat it responsibly, they say.

But, as so often in the past, Redford and her fellow Canadian politicians have been playing fast and loose with the truth. Enter the respected Pembina Institute, one of Canada’s leading environmental watchdog organisations.

They have just released an update on the progress of some 19 recommendations they made two years ago on how there could be “responsible” tar sands development.  They have found that “very little progress has been made on the recommended policy improvements”.

The Canadian press is non-plussed: “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,” reports the Edmonton Journal.

Pembina’s report lays bare how little progress has been made to improve the environmental impact of the tar sands. Over the past two years, substantial progress has been made on only two of the nineteen recommendations. And progress on one of those two is debatable.

The Pembina Institute argues there was a need to monitor the impact on biodiversity.  Well, the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring was announced in 2012.

There have been problems with the monitoring plan from the start. Back in February we pointed out that the “Canadian press is reporting that nearly a year after the Albertan and Federal government unveiled a three-year plan to increase the monitoring of the tar sands, there are still no formal public results.”

Indeed the plan still is far off from being perfect: “Independent governance free from industry and government influence, plus a long-term and sustainable funding model, are the final key pieces that will determine the success of the plan,” says Pembina. So I would argue the jury is still out on that.

So the real one partial success could be the fact that the new Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, or LARP, which was released in August 2012, has increased the percentage of the land in the area that is protected from industrial activity to over 20% of the region. But Pembina was originally asking for 50 per cent and the land has not been legally protected.

Well that was the good news.

There has been “limited progress” on the following: protecting the Athabasca River, raising the pollution levy; mandating Carbon Capture and Storage for tar sands development; setting land disturbance limits; establishing compensatory offsets for impacts to biodiversity and wetlands; reducing reclamation liability; protecting woodland caribou; managing groundwater withdrawals; enhancing surface water monitoring; cleaning up tailings; and prohibiting end pit lakes.

And on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) the report is damning: “The Government of Alberta has acknowledged that it is not on track to meet its target to reduce annual GHG emissions by 50 MT below business as usual by 2020. Since Alberta’s GHG management plan is designed to support an increase in GHG emissions, it is not consistent with Canada’s target to reduce emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.”

All in all it’s not looking good. Simon Dyer, policy director at the Pembina Institute, argues that Redford’s recent greenwashing speeches to Washington audiences “ring hollow” given this lack of progress. He argues “The Government of Alberta needs to move urgently to deliver on its overdue commitments” and finally implement the recommendations outlined in the report.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I claim no ownership of such materials. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing.

Enbridge applies to pipe “highly corrosive” tar sands oil through Hamilton to Maine and on to China via supertankers

Given growing opposition to Northern Gateway, using existing pipeline connections could prove easier for Enbridge to win required approvals

No 484 Posted by fw, May 22, 2012

“Alberta media…are pointing out that the pipeline connections to the east coast of the continent are already in place and thus could prove easier for Enbridge to win the required approvals. That approval process is also about to get much easier as the federal government pushes through an omnibus budget implementation bill that transfers final decision making from the NEB to the Harper cabinet. The omnibus bill…will change more than 70 pieces of legislation in a single swoop, including a complete re-write of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that makes all assessments an option of the federal Minister of the Environment.” —CATCH News

In its latest, well-researched news update, CATCH, (Citizens at City Hall), a volunteer community group that encourages civic participation in Hamilton City affairs, reports that Enbridge proposes to use existing pipelines to export diluted tar sands bitumen through Hamilton on to Maine and via supertankers to China.

Here’s the CATCH story with my added subheadings, a few added links and text highlighting. To read the original version, click on the following linked title.

Tar sands pipeline through Hamilton, CATCH, May 22, 2012

The hearing on Enbridge’s application opens this week in London, Ontario

Hamilton is being tossed into the middle of the latest tar sands battle, as Canada’s largest pipeline company shifts its attention to Ontario in response to the growing opposition to the proposed Northern Gateway route through British Columbia. The first step is a proposal to reverse the flows in the Enbridge Inc pipeline from Hamilton to Sarnia so it can carry diluted tar sands bitumen (dilbit) toward the east coast, and the hearing on that application opens this week in London.

Westover, Ontario, part of Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, is hub of existing Enbridge pipelines

The village of Westover in Flamborough [Township, now part of Hamilton] is the hub of several Enbridge pipelines including line 9 which connects Sarnia to Montreal, the parallel line 7 between Westover and Sarnia, line 10 from Westover to New York State, and line 11 from Westover to the ExxonMobil refinery in Nanticoke [Ontario]. The portion of line 9 between Westover and Sarnia is the focus of the National Energy Board (NEB) hearings scheduled for May 23-25 in London’s [Ontario] Hilton Hotel.

Enbridge seeks to double capacity of pipeline that ruptured in 2010 dumping 800,000 gallons of bitumen into Michigan river

That 37-year old pipeline currently carries imported crude oil west to Sarnia. Enbridge is seeking permission to reverse that flow in a move widely reported to be part of a strategy to ship tar sands products to Portland Maine for export to global markets. In a potentially related move, Enbridge is also seeking to double the capacity of a pipeline running across Michigan into Sarnia – the same line that ruptured in 2010, dumping more than 800,000 gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River and costing the company over $700 million.

Enbridge application faces challenges from environmental NGOs

The implications of routing the highly corrosive “dilbit” through Ontario has caught the attention of the London Free Press which announced Friday that “Enbridge pipeline battle comes close to home” and noted the Westover-Sarnia pipe goes under the city’s Thames River. It is also being challenged by Environmental Defence, the Pembina Institute and Equiterre, as well as a Cambridge community newspaper.

Flow reversals mean higher pipeline pressures, implying higher risks

If approved, Enbridge says line 9 will transport between 50,000 and 90,000 barrels per day, but acknowledges that it is capable of carrying “beyond 150,000 bpd”. The flow reversal will mean higher pressures in the pipeline and some modifications to the Westover hub and a nearby densitometer located close to the intersection of Kirkwall Road and the 6th Concession of Flamborough.

Environmental concerns

An environmental assessment document submitted by Enbridge notes the presence of two environmentally significant areas and a provincially significant wetland near the Westover installations, as well as portions of both Spencer Creek and Fairchild Creek. However, crossings of major rivers such as the Thames, Grand and St Clair are likely of greater concern, as well as the prospect of tar sands refining in Ontario near the Great Lakes such as at the Nanticoke facility of ExxonMobil.

Enbridge’s Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipeline options face “massive opposition”

National and international attention has been focused on two other proposed routes for export of dilbit – the Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Northern Gateway pipeline across Alberta and northern BC to Kitimat on the Pacific coast. Both have generated massive opposition – with the Keystone XL blocked at least temporarily by environmental concerns in the United States, and the Northern Gateway facing unequivocal refusals by multiple First Nations to allow use of their lands.

The latter route would cross more than 1000 lakes and rivers on the way to Kitimat, but the use of supertankers to carry the bitumen to China and other markets is particularly controversial. Their passageway would be through the Great Bear Rainforest and other narrow and often storm-wracked coastal waters, and the memory (and the on-going ecological effects) of the disastrous Exxon Valdez crash in 1989 loom large in the debate.

Pipelines to the east already in place

Alberta media, on the other hand, are pointing out that the pipeline connections to the east coast of the continent are already in place and thus could prove easier for Enbridge to win the required approvals. That approval process is also about to get much easier as the federal government pushes through an omnibus budget implementation bill that transfers final decision making from the NEB to the Harper cabinet.

And Harper’s “Environmental Destruction Act” will make all environmental assessment optional

The omnibus bill – labelled the Environmental Destruction Act by Green Party leader Elizabeth May – will change more than 70 pieces of legislation in a single swoop, including a complete re-write of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that makes all assessments an option of the federal Minister of the Environment. The bill also eliminates habitat protection features of the Fisheries Act, shifts the start of the old age pension to age 67, rewrites unemployment insurance rules, and eliminates long-standing institutions such as the National Council on Welfare and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

If Harper were captain of the Titanic, bankers and oil execs would go first

Fair Use Notice: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing.

Stephen “Ethical Oil” Harper’s Budget Screws Mother Earth

Budget screws the planet for short-term gains

No 449 Posted by fw, April 1, 2012

"Ethical Oil" Harper (Image source: http://hamilton350.com/)

“This is known in the budget as “responsible resource development.” This perverse label includes putting hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere – pretty much the opposite of being responsible. Our penchant for planetary destruction just cannot happen fast enough. Under the mantra “one project, one review” environmental considerations will get lumped in with everything else, meaning that review processes for destructive mining and oil and gas projects will be fast-tracked.” —Marc Lee, CCPA

If the title of this post offends, it is intended to. It reflects my profound disrespect for a Prime Minister whose budget effectively mirrors his cold, calculating disregard for the “. . . more than 1,000,000 people per year [that are killed] from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.” (Source of quote: Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change to Protect Young People and Nature by James Hansen, et al).

Here, in bulleted format, is my summary of two critiques of those aspects of Stephen “Ethical Oil” Harper’s Economic Action Plan 2012 that are, to paraphrase Marc Lee, “perversely labeled as ‘responsible resource development.’”

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Critique

A budget that screws the planet for short-term profits, by Marc Lee, Behind the Numbers: A blog from the CCPA, March 29, 2012.

• Guts environmental assessment – this is a framework economic document that includes gutting of environmental assessment in the name of the economy.

• A colonial vision of the economy as a quarry for foreign interests

• Resource giveaway — the country is to open to any foreign investor who wants our resources, and Canadians will politely have to clean up the mess afterwards.

• McJobs budget — there will be some Canadian jobs in all of this, most of them will be of short duration in the construction phase

• Uses atmosphere as a C02 Dump — known in the budget [as] “responsible resource development” . . . . This perverse label includes putting hundreds of millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere – pretty much the opposite of being responsible

• Fast track to planetary destruction — our penchant for planetary destruction just cannot happen fast enough. . . . environmental considerations will get lumped in with everything else, meaning that review processes for destructive mining and oil and gas projects will be fast-tracked

• Major economic projects reflect obscene priorities — the six projects highlighted as “major economic projects” — three oil and gas pipelines, a gold mine and a uranium mine — are indicative of the government’s priorities. . . . Major Projects Office currently has 70 projects on file, and the budget foresees 500 projects over the coming decade.

• Document full of euphoric exaggeration – “oil sands … [will] generate wealth that benefits all Canadians” . . . “Canadians will only reap the benefits that come from our natural resources if investments are made by the private sector to bring the resources to market”

• Paradoxically, few jobs in resource sector — As for “jobs, growth and long-term prosperity,” . . . there are few jobs in the resource sector areas under consideration (mostly mining and oil and gas projects)

• As for “long-term” — this measure is focused on very short-term liquidation of Canadian resources for hefty profits but that imperil people in other countries and in the future.

• Environmental protection slashed — protecting the environment is also taking a hit as part of overall spending cuts . . .  Environment Canada will get cut by $20 million in 2012/13 rising to $88 million in 2014/15 (an 8% cut). . . . Parks Canada gets a $6 million cut this year, rising to $29 million in 2014/15.

• Indispensable environmental research body scrapped — The National Roundtable on the Economy and the Environment (NRTEE) has been scrapped, ostensibly because of an “expanded community of environmental stakeholders has demonstrated the capacity to provide analysis and policy advice to the Government” (NRTEE was one of the few federal voices that have acknowledged the challenge of climate change in a series of reports, while calling for action to reduce emissions, studying measures of doing so and making estimates of anticipated climate-related damages to the Canadian economy in future years. Their contributions clearly were not welcome in “don’t ask, don’t tell” Ottawa, and will be missed).

• “Climate” now a four-letter word — the term “climate” appears four times in the budget. Twice there is a passing reference to climate change, but really an afterthought. The other two times are in reference to investment climate.

*********

Pembina Organization’s Critique

Budget 2012: Canada won’t spare a penny for clean energy by Ed Whittingham, March 30, 2012

• Harper’s Doublespeak — Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government have been doggedly selling Canada as a “clean energy superpower”. While those words have always rung hollow to anybody tracking the global rise of the $1 trillion clean energy economy, after yesterday’s federal budget they simply ring false.

• One Big Step forward for Tar Sands, One Big Step backwards for humanity — The federal budget . . . will take Canada several steps further from environmentally responsible development of fossil fuel resources like the oilsands, while simultaneously undercutting progress on renewable energy and efficiency.

• Tar Sands – From Bad to Worse — When it comes to assessing and addressing the environmental impacts of oilsands development, things are poised to go from bad to worse

• Cuts to length of environmental reviews — New federal limits on the length of environmental review processes would also apply to projects such as the Northern Gateway pipeline

• Slash Environmental Assessment — the Harper government is slashing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s budget by 40 per cent and imposing arbitrary new timelines for the regulatory review of major industrial projects

• Changes to be retroactive — Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has confirmed changes will be applied to reviews on projects that are already underway, like the Northern Gateway pipeline review

• Harper’s “Faster is better” rule – the federal government’s new standard is not how well environmental assessment is done, but how fast. If this, my friends, is “responsible resource development” (the latest catchphrase out of Ottawa) then we’re in serious disagreement about the meaning of the word “responsible.”

• Fossil fuel industry still benefiting from past tax subsidies — federal subsidies to oil in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador totaled nearly $1.4 billion in 2009. There remains a significant amount of foregone tax revenue from the oil and gas sector.

• Harper screws the vulnerable — it’s hardly surprising that the government has decided to shut the doors of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE). . . . NRTEE has been “the only national organization with a direct mandate from Parliament to engage Canadians in the generation and promotion of sustainable development advice and solutions.” Wiping out this respected think-tank while Canada still lacks a credible plan for achieving its own 2020 greenhouse has reduction targets will make it that much harder for Canada to do its fair share in addressing the climate challenge.

• No support for renewables — Budget 2012 contains no new federal support for residential renewable power generation or energy efficiency improvements

• Won’t meet 2020 targets — In 2010 [Pembina] estimated that Canada needed a tenfold increase in renewable power production to hit the federal government’s 2020 target of producing 90 per cent of its electricity from sources that don’t produce greenhouse gas pollution. . . . this budget doesn’t reflect the level of effort that’s needed to achieve that target.

• Plug pulled on ecoEnergy Retrofit program — no new energy efficiency initiatives were identified in the 2012 budget, and the ecoENERGY Retrofit—Homes program (which encouraged efficiency improvements in Canadian homes), was unexpectedly wrapped up early this year.

• Overall, a Big Step Backwards — It’s clear the government has spared hardly a penny for clean energy, choosing instead to encourage and expedite decidedly irresponsible energy production. When you roll it up, Budget 2012 is a near bust for clean energy and a step backwards in protecting the environment for Canadians.

Fair Use Notice: This blog, Citizen Action Monitor, may contain copyrighted material that may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material, published without profit, is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. It is published in accordance with the provisions of the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada ruling and its six principle criteria for evaluating fair dealing.