Funding cut in half for oilsands environmental group

EDMONTON – In a sudden move, oilsands companies this week chopped in half funding to the region’s major environmental policy group and called for an immediate review of the need for the 12-year old Cumulative Environment Management Association.

The funding cutback – to $2.5 million down from last year’s $5 million – will be a major setback to developing environmental policies for the oilsands, said Glen Semenchuk, executive director of CEMA, a stakeholder committee made up of representatives of oilsands companies, First Nations, environmental groups and government.

Semenchuk also rejected the industry’s suggestion that CEMA, which provides government with scientifically based policy recommendations and technical reports, is near the end of its mandate and is running out of work.

“Our mandate is to advise the federal and provincial governments on development of the oilsands. Tell me how that mandate can be finished,” said Semenchuk. “Nobody on this planet thinks things are copacetic on environmental issues on the oilsands.”

CEMA is currently working with five universities on setting emission standards for nitrogen oxide in the region and also plans to to look at issues of groundwater usage, part of the $8.2 million worth of projects planned for next year.

But the loss of funding, combined with industry’s call for a review of CEMA is “like a having a gun to the head,” Semenchuk said.

CEMA’s work is mostly funded by the oilsands operators. In 2010, the industry provided $6.2 million, then $5 million this year and now $2.5 million for 2013 for six months work, as CEMA’s work is “almost finished,” says a letter from the Oilsands Developers Group, an industry association based in Fort McMurray.

“It’s the belief of the OSDG board of directors that the work of CEMA is almost finished and the actual work in progress should be completed,” says the letter.

Ken Chapman, spokesman for oilsands companies, said the funding cutback has nothing to do with the quality of CEMA’s work, which includes recommendations on cleaning up tailings ponds, reclaiming land, preserving wildlife habitat, and more recently on the contentious issue of end pit lakes – the last pits mined out that are filled with toxic tailings.

The oilsands companies now question the need to continue with CEMA given three new initiatives planned for the northeast – the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, the long-awaited federal-provincial monitoring panel and the energy department’s plan to have one agency to regulate the energy industry by June 1.

“Given all those changes, we’re asking government to revisit CEMA’s mandate with a view to the future and see what work is left to be done,” said Chapman, executive director of the OSDG.

“We’re looking ahead, rather than just keep on working under the old model in a new regulatory environment.”

Chapman dismissed the suggestion the industry cutbacks are a blow to development of environmental policy in the oilsands. “That would be a misinterpretation.”

Semenchuk said none of those new initiatives, – the LARP, the yet-to-be established monitoring panel or the new regulator – do the complex, scientific work of coming up with new policy recommendations.

“Only CEMA does that work and if we go will leave a void and with nobody to fill that gap; it will be left to the lobbyists,” said Semenchuk.

“There’s a lot of onus on government right now.”

CEMA was established in 2001 under the Klein government to address the growing environmental footprint of each new additional oilsands project. Policy recommendations must be developed by consensus of all stakeholders.

Five years ago, environmental and First Nations groups walked away from CEMA because they felt they did not have an effective voice at the table and were constantly outnumbered by industry representatives.

They returned two and a half years ago after CEMA was restructured and a different voting system was adopted. Stakeholders were divided into four groups – First Nations, NGOS, industry and Government of Alberta and each has four votes.

Bill Loutitt of the Métis Nation of Alberta and a CEMA board member, said the industry cutbacks will undermine CEMA’s work. “It’s our only mechanism to ensure there will be land here that people can live on. We aren’t opposed to development, but it has to be sustainable.”

Semenchuk said it’s a major benefit to Albertans that CEMA’s work is all released publicly.

“We’ve worked really hard to get people back to the table and we are producing good documents and we make sure the public is aware of what is going on in the area. There’s going to be a big void if we are not doing the job.”