 | | CREDIT: Chris Schwarz, Canwest News Service | | With elders at his side, Chief Vern Janvier, right, announced Wednesday the Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation is taking the province to court. | |
Environmental groups were shocked Wednesday to learn Imperial Oil Ltd.'s $8-billion Kearl oilsands mine has received Ottawa's blessing to proceed.
Cabinet approval for the controversial oilsands project was granted May 15 -- just one day after a federal court upheld the removal of a key water licence for Kearl.
The removal of the water licence had been heralded by four environmental groups as a big win in their battle to prevent the growth of greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands.
"I think there has been an end run here," said Simon Dyer, oilsands program director at the Pembina Institute. "From our perspective, the project seems likely to proceed but substantive issues have not been dealt with."
The water permit allowing Imperial to disturb fish habitat during construction at the site of the future oilsands mine north of Fort McMurray could be handed back as early as today by federal minister of fisheries and oceans Loyola Hearn.
Should that occur, it would put Kearl back on the rails more than a year after it received its original cabinet approval and following a complex legal battle that threatened to delay the massive oilsands mine proposed by Imperial and partner ExxonMobil Corp.
The news about Kearl emerged the same day the House of Commons Environment Committee agreed to proceed with an in-depth study of the impact of oilsands development on Canada's freshwater supplies.
Conservative members on the committee have been accused of trying to postpone the study, which kicks off on June 16.
"Canadians want to know more about the state of our national water supplies generally and the relationship between the oilsands and water more specifically," said Quebec Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia.
Also Wednesday, aboriginal leaders from Chipewyan Prairie Dene First Nation south of Fort McMurray filed a legal action that accused the Alberta government of breaching its constitutional duty by granting oilsands leases to MEG Energy Corp. -- land located in the "breadbasket" of the First Nation -- without consultation.
"Our lakes, our land and the animals and fish we have relied on for thousands of years to support our way of life and cultural values are being destroyed by out-of-control oilsands developments," said Vern Janvier, chief of the First Nation.
Meanwhile, the four green groups fighting Kearl -- The Pembina Institute, the Sierra Club of Canada, the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition and Toxics Watch Society -- are holding out hope that if Hearn re-issues the project's water permit, he will use a means available in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to add conditions around mitigating the project's greenhouse gas emissions.
"We are talking about a 50-year project and while there has been a lot of talk about carbon sequestration and storage, talk is cheap," said Dyer. "It's a fundamental issue we have here: a project is going forward with no mitigation requirements."
Approval of Kearl from the federal government occurred May 15. While Ottawa's position was posted on the government's website seven days later, the green groups fighting the project did not learn about the development until Wednesday.
Dyer and lawyer Sean Nixon of Ecojustice, which represents the four environmental groups, both suggested there may be another judicial review ahead if Hearn provides an identical water permit to Imperial with no air quality conditions attached.
Ottawa this spring released a more detailed account of its Turning the Corner climate-change blueprint that was first announced a year ago. While the plan calls for establishing a carbon capture-and-storage target for Alberta's oilsands by 2012, details beyond that are thin.
The four green groups last Friday wrote to Hearn, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister John Baird urging Ottawa to consider two options for Kearl: do not approve the project; or require that carbon capture and storage (CCS) be part is its design, along with a clear deadline for the application of CCS technology.
Imperial Oil spokesman Gordon Wong said it is unfair to accuse the company -- as Dyer does -- of attempting to "shoe-horn the project in" before firm carbon capture and storage rules are in place around 2012. Kearl is due to produce first oil in 2011.
"The process for this project began years before the federal government ever issued any CCS guidelines," Wong said. "I'm saying a project of this magnitude takes a lot of planning and work."
A federal court ruling by Madame Justice Daniele Tremblay-Lamer asked a joint federal-provincial panel to provide an addendum to its environmental review, which it did on May 6. The panel's view on the impact of Kearl's emissions did not change.
"The Government of Canada accepts this opinion," says the new Kearl environmental approval from Ottawa. "The Government of Canada notes that, with respect to mitigating factors for greenhouse gas emissions specifically, the addendum references (i) emission intensity targets imposed by the Government of Alberta; and (ii) proposals by Imperial Oil to reduce GHG emissions."
jharding [at] theherald [dot] canwest [dot] com
