Federal lab not testing Athabaska for oilsands pollutants

[slowpoke]

I just discovered that the feds have a lab situated on the Athabaska river, about 150 km downstream from the oilsands operations. Turns out they're only checking for pollutants from the pulp and paper industry. Priceless!!!


"For years, development of the Alberta oilsands has been plagued by controversy over whether the project is releasing deadly chemicals into the vast Athabasca River system.

Fortunately, the federal Environment Department operates a permanent laboratory on the Athabasca, downstream from the oilsands, and has been testing the water quality of the river for more than two decades.

Unfortunately, the lab has never tested for chemicals from the oilsands.

Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan made the rather stunning revelation Tuesday in a scathing report on the government’s overall water-quality testing programs.

Vaughan found that Environment Canada is not monitoring water quality on federal lands, and even where it is conducting tests "good-quality data and information may not be available when and where it is needed."

As a result of these and other government shortcomings, the commissioner concluded: "Environment Canada is not adequately monitoring the quality and quantity of Canada’s surface water resources."

Perhaps nowhere is that more apparent than the bizarre water monitoring of the Athabasca — testing for just about everything but oilsands pollutants.

Focused on pulp and paper
Environment Canada has operated a water-quality monitoring station in the area of the oilsands since 1989, located on the Athabasca about 150 kilometres downstream.

The station was originally built to monitor the effects of the pulp-and-paper industry on the water quality and ecosystems of the river.

As the oilsands project grew into a sprawling industrial behemoth, environmentalists and aboriginal bands in the area began to complain about possible pollution of the river, and its impact on everything from fish stocks to human cancer rates.

Despite all the growing oilsands controversy over the past two decades, Environment Canada has been monitoring the Athabasca only for pollutants associated with the pulp-and-paper industry."...



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/12/07/f-weston-oilsands.html#ixzz17dn3bPyx

 

[Possum Trot]

They have been doing this since 1989 I read. A seperate report with recommendations is due out before the end of the year.

 

[slowpoke]

They have been doing this since 1989 I read. A seperate report with recommendations is due out before the end of the year.

In July, the feds cancelled an 18 month investigation into oilsands water pollution and destroyed the draft copies. Does anyone here seriously believe that the feds really want to find out how much damage the oil sands are doing to that watershed? I think they're falling all over themselves to keep this away from the rest of the world - including our trading partners who are beginning to question whether they should continue to buy our dirty oil.


OTTAWA — Federal politicians from the government and opposition benches have mysteriously cancelled an 18-month investigation into oilsands pollution in water and opted to destroy draft copies of their final report, Canwest News Service has learned.


The aborted investigation comes as new questions are being raised about the Harper government's decision to exempt a primary toxic pollutant found in oilsands tailings ponds from a regulatory agenda.


The government is in the process of categorizing industry-produced substances that could either be toxic or harmful, but has excluded naphthenic acid — a toxin from oilsands operations — from the list, and left it off another list of substances that companies are required to track and report.


The exclusion is "alarming" according to a letter sent Tuesday to Environment Minister Jim Prentice and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq, since the federal and Alberta governments have already identified it as a primary source of pollution in liquid waste dumped into ponds after companies extract oil from the region.


"Naphthenic acids are one of the main pollutants responsible for the toxicity of tarsands tailings to aquatic organisms, and have been shown to harm liver, heart and brain function in mammals," wrote Matt Price, the policy director at Environmental Defence, an independent research organization based in Toronto. "Naphthenic acids are also very long-lived, taking decades to break down."



Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/Poli...raft+reports/3242727/story.html#ixzz17dtKlWxU

 

[oldjones]

If you value your civil service and consistently staff it with the best so you can demand quality implementation of government policy, then you'll get a staff that will speak truth to power, and warn you that 'it's different out there; we should test for different stuff'. If you constantly demean and belittle them, cut their resources, leave vital jobs unfilled, and pay frozen so you attract only lickspittles, unable to succeed elsewhere, then you'll have to give them every bit of direction to get even the most mediocre results.

This government's clear and loudly proclaimed direction is: Nothing must impede Alberta's lust to extract wealth from the oil sands, whether at the cost of future generations, nearby neighbours, or of the planet. Someone else will be in power then.

Whyever would you imagine a contract PhD looking out for a permanent job would say them nay?

 

[slowpoke]

If you value your civil service and consistently staff it with the best so you can demand quality implementation of government policy, then you'll get a staff that will speak truth to power, and warn you that 'it's different out there; we should test for different stuff'. If you constantly demean and belittle them, cut their resources, leave vital jobs unfilled, and pay frozen so you attract only lickspittles, unable to succeed elsewhere, then you'll have to give them every bit of direction to get even the most mediocre results.

This government's clear and loudly proclaimed direction is: Nothing must impede Alberta's lust to extract wealth from the oil sands, whether at the cost of future generations, nearby neighbours, or of the planet. Someone else will be in power then.

Whyever would you imagine a contract PhD looking out for a permanent job would say them nay?

Unfortunately, the opposition has been equally complicit in not making a stink about it. They obviously don't want to be seen as troublemakers in the eyes of AB voters. The fact that they didn't complain very loudly when the gov't suppressed the results of that study on oilsands water pollution is probably the most disappointing part of this. You expect the gov't to cut corners but the opposition is supposed to blow the whistle and hold them to account. We're probably lucky the press exposed this or we'd never have know WTF was going on.

 

[oldjones]

That'd be the HM Loyal Oppos, the NDP has been quite vocal and unheard, as usual. Ditto Ms. May.

What the Iggman doesn't seem to want is an election. The damned things cost a lot and the process of campaigning is acutely painful for all. To say nothing of the fact that his side winning hasn't yet come up on the dial. He's just not got a pols balls, and like Harpo, claims it's we not he who's afraid of going to the polls. So, as you said he stays stumm.

But out here where we live and vote, there's just as many heads in the oilsands. As with every other type of mining, oil-mining simply piles up the waste, toxic by-products and pollution on vacant land for the future to pay the costs, after the profits are gone and the shell company's been looted and bankrupted. The world's too small now, with all of us on it, wanting to be Californians; we can no longer afford such stupidity. We need to stop it. Stelmach says the technology will come—like the Messiah—to fix the pollution. Fine: when it does you can begin taking the oil out again.

We're equally complicit in not making a stink. Suncor and Stelmach are the only one's doing that. And Harpo's laaughing all the way down to his Alberta-bound-up rump.

 

[anon1]

We need WikiLeaks on this.

 

[slowpoke]

We need WikiLeaks on this.

Yes but only because the opposition is afraid to criticise Alberta. Gutless assholes the whole lot of them!!!!

 

[train]

Yes but only because the opposition is afraid to criticise Alberta. Gutless assholes the whole lot of them!!!!

Bingo. But hey somebody has to pay Ontario's bills now and Alberta is the only candidate.

 

[slowpoke]

Bingo. But hey somebody has to pay Ontario's bills now and Alberta is the only candidate.

That may be the case but AB certainly can't claim that their wealth was the result of thrift or good management. Their petroleum economy was basically handed to them by mother nature - ie dumb luck. Meanwhile, the AB gov't spends almost 33% more on a per-capita basis than ON - and they do it without collecting provincial sales tax. You'd think with all that easy cash they could at least manage to NOT poison the Athabaska river watershed. But no, that would cost too much so they get their friends in Ottawa to not measure the pollution and to take certain chemical contaminants off the list of substances that were previously not allowed.


Check the provincial gov't spending table in this U of C paper. AB spends much more than ON.

http://policyschool.ucalgary.ca/files/publicpolicy/albsp2.pdf

..."Table 1 shows some fairly wide variations on total expenditures per person between provinces.In 2009, Newfoundland has the highest per capita spending, with total expenditures nearing$13,000 for every man, woman and child. Ontario has the lowest, with total expenditures justshy of $8,000 per person. In other words, Newfoundland is spending almost 50 per cent more than Ontario in per capita terms."...

 

[capncrunch]

Seriously now... is anyone surprised that a report criticizing oilsands development in Alberta is choked off at the source?

Remember all the pandering to Quebec that took place during most Liberal regimes? There's no reason to think that the Con regime won't protect it's base in Alberta at any cost.

 

[slowpoke]

Seriously now... is anyone surprised that a report criticizing oilsands development in Alberta is choked off at the source?

Remember all the pandering to Quebec that took place during most Liberal regimes? There's no reason to think that the Con regime won't protect it's base in Alberta at any cost.

It's been quite a while since the Libs were in power so I can't recall any specific examples of pandering. It was claimed that the sponsorship scheme was designed to play up the benefits of federalism in Quebec but that was all about preventing them from separating. And there were a couple of symbolic concessions regarding Quebec's special nation within a nation status but Harper was at least as instrumental as the Liberals in allowing that. Are you talking about government jobs or defence contracts going to Quebec or what? It was always perceived that Quebec got special treatment to keep them from separating but no specific examples of pandering come to mind.

I do remember that Harpo threw something like an extra $8 Billion in equalization payments at Quebec shortly after he was elected for the first time. He claimed he was fixing the "fiscal imbalance" but I think he was trying to fix the ballot box imbalance and maybe get a majority next time round. Needless to say, it didn't fix either imbalance.

 

[wet_suit_one]

Folks, that's business in a democracy. What the heck did you expect? Something different?

 

[oldjones]

"That's business", would be accurate; "…in a democracy." only distracts from the point. Dictatorships that I'm aware of don't seem to have higher environmental standards.

 

[landscaper]

It's been quite a while since the Libs were in power so I can't recall any specific examples of pandering. It was claimed that the sponsorship scheme was designed to play up the benefits of federalism in Quebec but that was all about preventing them from separating. And there were a couple of symbolic concessions regarding Quebec's special nation within a nation status but Harper was at least as instrumental as the Liberals in allowing that. Are you talking about government jobs or defence contracts going to Quebec or what? It was always perceived that Quebec got special treatment to keep them from separating but no specific examples of pandering come to mind.

I do remember that Harpo threw something like an extra $8 Billion in equalization payments at Quebec shortly after he was elected for the first time. He claimed he was fixing the "fiscal imbalance" but I think he was trying to fix the ballot box imbalance and maybe get a majority next time round. Needless to say, it didn't fix either imbalance.

Don't remember pandering??? how old are you?

Just off the top of my head a CF 18 maintenace contract worth several billion was handed to Quebec despite a lower bid from a Manitoba company.

 

[slowpoke]

Don't remember pandering??? how old are you?

Just off the top of my head a CF 18 maintenace contract worth several billion was handed to Quebec despite a lower bid from a Manitoba company.

The pandering you're referring to was done by Mulroney - in 1986.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/oh-no-not-another-cf-18-controversy-82578627.html
..."In 1986, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government awarded a maintenance contract for CF-18 fighter planes to Quebec-based Bombardier rather than the better and cheaper bid from Winnipeg's Bristol Aerospace. The issue was so polarizing it helped spawn the Reform Party."...
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I was responding to the following question from capncrunch:

"Remember all the pandering to Quebec that took place during most Liberal regimes?"

If you look closely, you'll notice that he was asking about examples where LIBERALS pandered to Quebec. Mulroney was NOT a Liberal. I'm beginning to think there are at least as many examples of Conservative gov'ts panering to Quebec as there are for the Liberals - maybe more!

 

[oldjones]

Guys! They're politicians. By definition that makes them panderers, whatever the party label.

On this board, of all places, we should understand that pandering is a necessary activity in delivering what we want, even if we don't want to look too closely. Like sorting the compostables outta the waste-stream.

The moronic myth is that a particular party label can make the dirty business sweet-smelling and sanitary, or that a pol who's a star somehow cannot stink.

Eventually the Harpo fans will learn it too.