Linking the rebirth of the planned coal dig on Canada's northernmost landmasses with recent federal cuts to Arctic environmental monitoring, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said: "Is it a coincidence that one of the most polluting resource-extraction industries is now ready to exploit the area?"
The Arctic-coal controversy has re-emerged at a time when scientists across Canada are sounding alarms about the potential impact of budget cuts to Canadian environmental research and ecosystem monitoring capacity. On Tuesday, hundreds of scientists attending a conference in Ottawa, along with allied environmental advocates, are scheduled to take part in a mock funeral march to Parliament Hill — a so-called "Death of Evidence" protest.
May, in a statement issued last week about Vancouver-based Canada Coal Inc.'s planned test-drilling in the High Arctic next summer, criticized recent federal budget cuts to science funding bodies that had been supporting PEARL, the Ellesmere Island-based Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory.
"When most countries are turning their backs on dirty coal, Canada is allowing its extraction in one of the most ecologically fragile and archeologically significant places in the world," May said. "It is doing this after dismantling the well-placed PEARL monitoring capacities that would have given us some appreciation of the damage being done. This is not good news. It's time to bring back the scientists."
John Streicker, the Green Party's national president and chief spokesman on Arctic issues, told Postmedia News on Monday that the party does not issue "knee-jerk" rejections of all mining projects. But the Yukon resident said the Arctic's unique environment requires the government to be "even more careful" in assessing potential resource projects in the region — particularly when coal's considerable carbon footprint has contributed to the emissions widely seen to be driving the Arctic sea-ice meltdown in the first place.
"Coal itself is part of what's causing this massive change," he said.
It's been known since the travels of 19th century Arctic explorers that Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands have substantial coal deposits. But it wasn't deemed to be feasibly extractable until melting sea ice in the past decade improved the prospect of reliably shipping excavated coal out of Canada's Far North.
A proposal from B.C.-based Weststar Resources Corp. to mine coal from the islands — potentially one of the world's most northerly industrial operations — was derailed in February 2010 when the Nunavut Impact Review Board ruled that "the high likelihood of immitigable impacts" to wildlife and globally-significant fossil beds in the region demanded that the project be "modified or abandoned" by its B.C.-based developer.
The territorial review board's decision was hailed at the time as a victory of fossil science over fossil fuel by the international Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, which had described the proposed project as a threat to "some of the most significant sites in the world" for fossil researchers.
In recent years, several major fossil discoveries on Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands have shed light on the lush, swampy environment that prevailed in Canada's High Arctic in the distant past.
The region is considered one of the planet's most important windows into the Eocene era of about 45 million years ago, and other sites on the islands preserve important fossil forests and petrified plant and animal remains from about four million years ago.
In its 2010 report, the review board also cited "unacceptable potential adverse impacts" — including the possible disruption of Inuit hunting activities in a region inhabited by Peary caribou — in rejecting the proposed mine.
Environment Canada experts, however, had backed Weststar's plan, saying that "the potential adverse effects are highly predictable and can be mitigated with known technology."
Since reviving the Arctic mining proposal last year, Canada Coal Inc. has offered repeated assurances to Inuit hunting groups, Nunavut regulators and others that the operation would pose no harm to wildlife or important paleontological sites.
Last month, the B.C. company announced it had secured all necessary regulatory approvals to begin its 2012 mapping and sampling program to assess the richness of the Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg deposits. Canada Coal's claim area covers nearly 10,000 square kilometres.
"We are very pleased with the co-operation and support that we have received to date from both the regulatory authorities and the community," Canada Coal president Braam Jonker said in a June 14 statement. "We believe that the company has the potential to add meaningful economic value to the Territory of Nunavut and the community at large, whilst also creating significant shareholder value."
The Green Party, however, said the Arctic coal play "raises concerns about wildlife habitat and ancient fossil site protection" and "also raises questions about the future of the High Arctic as seen by the Harper Conservatives."
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Randy Boswell
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