Ottawa and Alberta have hatched a plan to cut monitoring of Canada's massive Love Canal, the Athabasca Tar Sands.
The deal says no fieldwork is to be done on the main branch of the Athabasca River. That means the program won’t fund monitoring downstream of the oil sands even as the province considers proposals to allow the water from oil sands tailings ponds to be released into the river.
The deal also says there’ll be no field studies on wetlands, fish or insects.
A pilot project gauging the risks posed by tailings ponds has been dropped. Water quality assessment in Wood Buffalo National Park – part of a response to international concerns about environmental degradation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site – is gone.I know. Let's blame it on Covid-19!
Jim Herbers of the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute says his funding was cut to $1.4-million from the usual $4-million to $5-million.
“Field monitoring is the biggest component of what we’re not going to be doing this year,” he said.
“The work around monitoring for amphibians, birds and mammals, that work won’t be undertaken. Nor will work on tracking indicators related to plants or changes in habitat.”
Herbers said he was told the cuts were made to protect workers from COVID-19.
Bill Donahue, a former senior civil servant with Alberta’s science and monitoring programs, said leaving the Athabasca River unmonitored is “crazy.”
“We’ve got one of the biggest industrial developments – the primary problems of which are contamination of the environment and consumption of water – and there’s no downstream monitoring.”Don't worry, be happy! It's not like you live there, do ya?
7 comments:
There must be an element of we already know what's going down the sewer so we don't need to keep testing. However, if we don't test on a regular basis someone (inevitably) will dump something that does not belong in the waste.
How can an Environment Minister, of any government accept the Athabasca mess? How can they live with themselves? I suppose that when people downstream start dying or their kids are born with terrible cancers that the Environment Ministers will say that they didn't know or that it was their predecessor who should be blamed.
Albertans should be ashamed.
Toby, we've come to expect this sort of thing from Alberta governments, Conservative and NDP. I would expect it of any Conservative federal government. What I find more difficult to accept is the Trudeau government's complicity in this.
How long have we known of the Fort Chip "cancer village" issue caused by this contamination?
https://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2007/07/are-feds-trying-to-cover-up-oil-patch.html
https://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2007/11/turning-mighty-athabasca-toxic.html
https://the-mound-of-sound.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-fish-for-chipewayn-yippee.html
The waters of Athabasca head north, into the McKenzie River watershed, the world's 3rd largest freshwater basin, before emptying finally into the Arctic Ocean. When those tailing ponds fail, or as Alberta and the feds agree they can be drained into the river, that's where that toxic sludge will travel.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/athabasca-river
.. 0ver my dead body bub.. 'bub' = Trudeau et al Inc
'We' (we = Canadians) knew Trudeau & Kenney were 'negotiating' (whatever that means) re 'venting' tailings ponds.. and mailing it to the arctic.. If this is about to become 'Legislation' then Canadians need formal notice.. or it goes sky high, Supreme Court ($$$) as travesty to match Stephen Harper (take your pick of his environmental travesties) A bad hill to die on Justin.. but what the hey eh ? Sunny Daze.. eat yer corn flakes.. yer gonna need them.. load some carbos, pre hydrate too.. toxify the arctic ? And hey !! Kenny et al Inc just dusted all protective legislation re the eastern slopes of the Rockies re strip mining coal for export.. I wonder what port that would be from..??
Well of course it's to protect workers from Covid-19! Just think of all those water-sampling workers jammed cheek by jowl at the river's edge otherwise! Not like there's miles and miles of river or anything. And everyone knows it's so much more dangerous outdoors . . . um.
Maybe they've decided we're so inured to their endless horseshit that they can feed us anything, PLG.
Many ill deeds will be executed under the cloak of Covid19.
Serious as Covid is distraction will possibly kill and injure more .
TB
Some climate types are echoing your viewpoint, TB. Covid is eclipsing all else, including the truly existential threats. It has taken the world to a level of alarm that seems to saturate our awareness.
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