{"id":130416,"date":"2017-11-11T22:34:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T03:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=130416"},"modified":"2017-11-11T22:34:34","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T03:34:34","slug":"ottawa-responds-to-nafta-challenge-that-its-not-tough-on-tailings-pond-leaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/11\/11\/ottawa-responds-to-nafta-challenge-that-its-not-tough-on-tailings-pond-leaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa responds to NAFTA challenge that it’s not tough on tailings pond leaks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The Canadian government says it lacked the scientific evidence to determine if oilsands tailings ponds were leaking into waterways and hurting fish. (Photo<\/a> by Gavin St. Ours\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EDMONTON \u2014 The Canadian government says it lacked the scientific evidence to determine if oilsands tailings ponds were leaking into waterways and hurting fish.<\/p>\n

But the government says it continues to work on methods to determine if chemicals associated with bitumen in groundwater are natural, or the result of industry.<\/p>\n

The government has provided a response to a call from the environmental arm of NAFTA to explain what\u00a0Canada\u00a0is doing to stop oilsands tailings ponds from leaking into Alberta waterways.<\/p>\n

The document was submitted to the Commission for Environmental Co-operation on Friday night.<\/p>\n

It says the federal government conducted \u201cproactive enforcement activities\u201d at various tailings ponds between 2009 and 2014.<\/p>\n

But it states it’s difficult to know the difference between naturally caused and human-caused sources of bitumen and investigators lacked reasonable grounds to think there were violations.<\/p>\n

The federal government says as a result, it redirected resources away from the inspections and focused on enforcement in other areas.<\/p>\n

The government says it’s still working to develop scientific tools for future investigations and that significant advancements have been made since 2014.<\/p>\n

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said in a release that her department is working with all of the concerned parties to ensure \u201cwe use the best available science and technology in environmental monitoring of oil sands development.\u201d<\/p>\n

The commission requested the response in August following allegations by\u00a0Canada’s Environmental Defence group and the Natural Resources Defense Council based in the United States.<\/p>\n

The groups argued\u00a0Canada\u00a0was failing to enforce the Fisheries Act by allowing contaminants from the ponds to leak into water without forcing the companies involved to fix the problem.<\/p>\n

NAFTA’s environment annex allows non-governmental organizations and citizens of the three countries to submit complaints if they feel that environmental laws and regulations are not being enforced.<\/p>\n

The commission will determine whether to produce a public factual record of the matter. That record does not include recommendations or conclusions.<\/p>\n

The tailings ponds contain toxic materials including bitumen, naphthenic acids, cyanide, and heavy metals. Research suggests they are leaching into groundwater.<\/p>\n

Dale Marshall of Environmental Defence called the federal response \u201cweak and disappointing,\u201d noting that a peer reviewed study published in 2014 by government scientists showed elevated concentrations of chemicals in the Athabasca River that matched the chemical fingerprint of tailings ponds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me there’s a pretty strong case that those toxic chemicals from tailings ponds are ending up in fish-bearing waters and therefore it is a violation of the Fisheries Act,\u201d Marshall said in an interview from Ottawa on Saturday.<\/p>\n

A previous submission the groups made to the commission was rejected due to a court challenge underway in\u00a0Canada\u00a0about the same thing, which disqualifies a complaint under the environment agreement.<\/p>\n

That court challenge was ultimately thrown out by an Alberta judge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014 The Canadian government says it lacked the scientific evidence to determine if oilsands tailings ponds were leaking into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":111668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[32499,240,32500],"class_list":["post-130416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-nafta-challenge","tag-ottawa","tag-tailings-pond-leaks","mauthors-rob-drinkwater","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}