Note that there was no routine monitoring by Env Canada for oil sands tailings ponds seepage or leakage for a five-year period. We know from past experience that this job must not be left to the AB govt or industry associations.
Failing to exercise close oversight of this industry's pollution amounts to deciding that the health and lives of the Indigenous communities downstream and the ecosystems they depend on are just the price to be paid for bitumen revenue.
But even when the federal Minister of Environment acknowledges this, what is his proposed solution?
"developing regulations on safe contamination levels, similar to those that guide sewage plants and metal mines."
To start with, this is an admission that pollution of the Athabasca River, its tributaries, and surrounding lakes has been permitted go on for decades unregulated.
And that it will continue in the absence of standards for "safe contamination."
The response from the minister also tells us how the game is normally played in Canada. We don't stop the contamination, even when we have strong grounds to believe that it is poisoning life. Instead, we make a political call about how much life, and whose, is sacrificeable.
The industry should never have been permitted to create toxic tailings lakes next to the Athabasca River. It should have been required to develop safer storage methods before the mining was ever approved.
That is what would have happened if the river mattered. If the people mattered. If "development" and "economic prosperity" were consistent with ecological sustainability. That is what govts would do now; they would require that the tailings ponds be removed.
And by "removal," I do not mean dumping their contents into the Athabasca River.
The minister knows there is no "safe" level of contamination--that the poisoning of the water system is incremental and cumulative. The minister knows that he should be guided by the precautionary principle, not an L50 test for fish mortality (or some other such "standard").
The regulatory regime is based on trading ecosystem health for short-term economic and political benefits. This is not a necessary trade-off, as those aligned with corporate interests proclaim. It is a political choice.
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I've worked on climate policy since the 1990s, with a focus on Alberta since 2002. I gotta tell you, fellow Albertans, that our govts have never had much more in their tool kit than than ineffectual, fossil fuel industry-vetted approaches to GHG emission reduction. 1/ #abpoli
In fact, all we really have to show for 25 years of Alberta govt. "climate" policy is inflation: (1) inflation in GHG emissions; (2) inflation in the environmental costs to be borne by Albertans; and (3) inflation in the costs of govt. propaganda campaigns. 2/ @albertaNDP
@albertaNDP In 2002, the Klein govt. spent $2 million to convince Albertans that ratification of the Kyoto Protocol would destroy our economy. In 2024, the Smith govt. is spending $7 million to persuade Albertans that a cap on GHG emissions from oil & gas will do the same. 3/ #ableg
The People's Testimonial in #yeg begins, without university leaders attending to listen to those affected by their decisions. @ualberta
This event was held August 1st @UAlberta, providing an opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to share their experiences of the People's University for Palestine encampment that was violently removed on May 11th by the EPS, at the request of @BFlanaganUofA . 1/ #abpse
@UAlberta @BFlanaganUofA There were 100 in the lecture theatre and more following online. This is an impressive turnout for mid-summer, when few students are on campus and many faculty are also away. Attending were mostly students and faculty of @UAlberta. 2/@The_Gateway @thegriffmag @UASUualberta
@UAlberta made the national CBC news this evening, with the headline that its faculty have expressed non-confidence in President @BFlanaganUofA following his decision to shut down the People's University for Palestine camp on May 11th. 1/ #UAlberta @fac4pal
Two days. That was the executive's tolerance limit for a peaceful demonstration by students who were trying to get their attention. Trying to get them to talk to them, and to be accountable for the university's investments. 2/
This is where we've come, after the imposition of corporate-style management on our universities. Executives who act like CEOs who don't have to answer to anybody except the boards that appoint them. 3/
There is high-quality, independent scientific research establishing that the waters downstream and downwind of the oil sands have been contaminated by toxic chemicals produced by bitumen extraction & upgrading. 1/ #abpoli@abndpcaucus#Alberta@KeepersOfWater@APTNNews
Notably, it is not Alberta Govt agencies that have done this research. Events like the one described in this article are not one-offs; they happen continually. "Leaks" and "spills" are the industry's way of releasing pollutants. It's the same in the petro-chemicals sector. 2/
These corporations are poisoning us incrementally, while govts responsible for protecting public health and the environment are complicit--complicit because they refuse to carry out effective monitoring and enforcement. 3/
Put together the timeline for getting CCS infrastructure up and running, its cost ($70B+), predictions that global demand for oil will peak before 2030, and the economic logic that drives the decisions of the oil sands producers. 2/
It is entirely rational for these corporations to conclude that they will not recoup the investment in CCS. It's a bad bet. It's a huge chunk of the profits that can be gouged out of the Earth while demand holds. 3/
Naturally, a guy who sells commercial and office real estate thinks this is great news: "According to businesscouncilab.com’s report Alberta’s Economy: An Overview, real estate has replaced manufacturing as the second largest . . . contributor to the province’s GDP." 1/ #abpoli
But should the rest of us be cheering this development as a form of diversification of Alberta's economy? What does it mean for the creation of good, sustainable livelihoods? How stable is this form of economic growth? 2/
Note how guy holds up Ontario as an example of a big success story for real estate investors (the "tsunami" of "savvy investors"). This doesn't translate into affordable housing or employment. 3/