By Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal, June 18, 2011
EDMONTON — A collection of environmental groups from the United States and Europe are calling on the Alberta government to form an independent panel of experts to assess concerns with a new provincial land-use plan for the oilsands region.
The 16 groups, including the National Wildlife Federation and the Rainforest Action Network, purchased a half-page ad in Friday’s Edmonton Journal in which they published a letter spelling out misgivings with the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan.
The letter said an independent panel is needed to “conduct an assessment of the LARP and recommend improvements to ensure the air quality, water quality and quantity, biodiversity and ecosystem health are not compromised.”
The groups said the plan fails to: halt water withdrawals during times of low flow on the Athabasca River, set limits on water pollution, secure caribou habitat, and protect aboriginal land use and treaty rights. They ask the province to halt further oilsands development until the proposed panel completes its work.
“There’s been lots of panels over the years on the tarsands, but I don’t think the environmental groups or the aboriginal communities have been too happy with many of those,” said Denny Larson, director of the California-based Global Community Monitor, one of the signatories to the letter.
“But those groups do believe in the (panel) process if it can be set up right — something balanced and independent.”
Larson, whose group trains communities to use environmental monitoring tools, visited the town of Fort Chipewyan a couple of years ago.
Duncan MacDonnell, a spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, said it’s important to note the regional plan is currently only a first draft. The province has been soliciting public input for the past several weeks and will now use those contributions to make revisions, he said. A more finalized plan is expected to be ready later this year though that will be a decision of cabinet.
“So this (letter) is all a bit premature,” MacDonnell said. “In reality, there is no formal plan yet.”
Ken Winston of the Nebraska Sierra Club said his group signed the letter out of concern for the welfare of aboriginal communities in northeastern Alberta.
He said the oilsands issue is gaining greater traction in Nebraska, as it’s one of the states on the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that will carry Alberta oil to refineries in the southern U.S. Environmental groups have opposed the route, which they say will threaten an ecologically sensitive aquifer.
Many in that state also believe the pipeline will increase the U.S.’s dependence on “foreign” oil, when the country should be focusing more on generating its own wind energy or biofuels, said Jane Kleeb of the advocacy group Bold Nebraska.
Other signatories to the letter include Greenpeace, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, the U.K. Tar Sands Network and the Belgium-based Transport and Environment group. The letter says Canada is causing international resentment by “campaigning relentlessly against clean energy rules in the United States and Europe.”
The ad was published to coincide with International Day of Action Against the Tar Sands, which featured a series of events in more than 50 cities around the world on Friday and Saturday.
Included was a film screening in Wellington, New Zealand, students getting tarred at various British universities, a bike ride in Oslo, Norway, and a panel discussion in Minneapolis.
In Edmonton, about 50 people attended a Friday rally outside the legislature, where an activist wearing a mask of Premier Ed Stelmach dumped a jug of oil on himself. Attendees said the province needs to invest more heavily in green jobs.
kgerein@edmontonjournal.com
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