Province caves to industry interests say conservationists
A provincial decision to scrap a proposed no-net-loss wetlands policy designed by a multi-stakeholder group is being met with frustration by environmental and conservation groups.
The Alberta Water Council a 25-member group of industry environmental and provincial government members proposed that destroyed wetlands be replaced on a one-to-one ratio or higher.
Two of AWC’s members — groups representing oil gas and mining industries — opposed that ratio arguing it was cost-prohibitive. The province sided with those two groups favouring replacing wetlands based on their value.
A spokesperson for Alberta Environment says the government accepted all of AWC’s recommendations except the no-net-loss policy “because it wouldn’t be practical to apply” provincewide because of “distinct geographical differences.”
“It’s silly to think that you would replace a wetland with a wetland in the north” says Cara Tobin. “That’s why we’re not doing it.”
Tobin was unsure whether the two dissenting AWC members the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Alberta Chamber of Resources provided details backing their claims that restoring wetlands could cost in the “billion-dollar range.”
Wetlands cover about 117400 square km of Alberta’s landscape and 90 per cent of them are peatlands — a type of wetland that CAPP’s vice-president of western operations David Pryce notes in a July 2008 letter is “impossible” to restore.
“That is pretty astounding” says Carolyn Campbell a conservation specialist for the Alberta Wilderness Association “that the regulator wouldn’t have insisted on some transparency from the industry about why it couldn’t afford it.” Campbell a former Wall Street economist says AWA’s analysis suggests a one-to-one ratio would cost industry about 50 cents per barrel of oil.
“This is something all other sectors said they could afford” says Campbell. “It is just nonsense that the oilsands mining sector says they can’t afford it.”
That fact that two groups can essentially override the overwhelming majority is “incredibly disappointing” says Terra Simieritsch policy analyst for the Pembina Institute.
“It undermines the process especially when those two members actually put in their letters of non-consensus at the last minute when it had actually been a three-year process” she adds.
