Nine of 10 oilsands mining operations in northern Alberta have been given failing grades in a report card put out this month by the Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Canada.
The report card graded oilsands operations in areas like environmental management land impacts air pollution and water use. Syncrude and Synenco were tied for the lowest grade with 18 per cent. Only one operation Albian’s Muskeg River Mine got a passing grade with 56 per cent. The rest received a failing grade of 43 per cent or less.
None of the companies graded has publicly reported targets to reduce water withdrawals from the Athabasca River according to the report card and none of the operations has set voluntary limits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The report also points out that after 40 years of oilsands development the Alberta government hasn’t certified a single hectare of land as reclaimed.
“The poor environmental performance reflects badly on the oilsands mining companies which include the largest and most profitable major oil companies in the world” says Rob Powell of WWF Canada. “These companies have both the expertise and the resources to do much better.”
A coalition of environmental groups including the Pembina Institute is also legally challenging the government approval of an Imperial Oil mine. The Kearl Oil Sands project was approved by a joint provincial-federal government panel last February. However the environmental groups — which include the Sierra Club of Canada the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta and the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition — say the project’s environmental assessment was flawed and are challenging the approval in federal court.
The panel had decided the Kearl project is “unlikely to result in significant adverse environmental effects” even from the toxic tailings that are a byproduct of oilsands mining. "The… project will strip-mine an area larger than 20000 football fields of undisturbed boreal forest and leave behind toxic tailings ponds visible from space" says Chris Severson-Baker of the Pembina Institute. “It is unthinkable that the joint panel would deem this scale of impact insignificant.”
The environmental groups are pushing for the project to be halted until another assessment is done. (JK)