The move is an extension of the overhaul of federal environmental regulation for resource projects that began with last year’s budget bill. The public had until last Monday to consult the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) on its decision to drop in situ projects from its Regulations Designating Physical Projects list, which spells out all projects under its jurisdiction.
The change essentially keeps Ottawa out of most future oilsands development, since the bulk of remaining resources are too deep to be extracted by strip mining. Around 80 per cent of all oilsands will be mined in situ, say industry sources; that requires drilling into the earth, heating the oilsands and then pumping bitumen to the surface.
Over the past decade, much of the easy-to-reach bitumen has been exploited and the technology to perform in situ has improved, allowing the method to slowly become more commonplace. Today the split between conventional mining and in situ is around 50-50, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
While in situ operations have a much smaller environmental footprint than mining, some of the operations under CEAA’s old rules — before last year’s budget — were covered by the federal body. When the Conservatives introduced new rules that shrunk CEAA’s scope in last year’s omnibus bill, the legislation’s language left open the possibility that in situ might still be covered by the agency.
The reforms now being considered explicitly remove in situ from ever falling under Ottawa’s purview.
“The draft regulations proposed for comments in Canada Gazette, Part 1, do not have entried for project types considered to have low or medium potential for signifigant adverse environmental effects in areas for federal jurisdiction, including in situ oil sands projets,” wrote Isabelle Perrault, a spokeswoman for CEAA, in an email Friday.
The removal is meant to keep CEAA focused on projects that have a strong potential to hurt the environment, and it’s included among changes for other industries, like pulp and paper and metal smelting. While no one disputes the environmental edge in situ has over mining, some smell a gift to industry that doesn’t account for in situ’s real ecological risks.
“Heavy oil processing and metal smelters all have a potential impact,” said Stephen Hazell, an environmental lawyer who was instrumental in drawing up the old CEAA rules in the early 1990s. “How can you possibly take that off the list? There’s no reason why.”
Oilsands companies sometimes run massive in situ projects with dozens of wells alongside each other, while smaller firms have more scattered operations. Hazell said the federal government should be keeping an eye on in situ water usage, habitat destruction and the use of chemicals to extract bitumen.
The Conservatives have radically transformed the way the federal government oversees the regulation of extractive projects, a campaign they’ve named Responsible Resource Development, arguing that too much work is duplicated by the provinces and that the old system was inefficient.
The Alberta government will continue to perform its own environmental oversight of in situ oilsands projects. It’s not clear how the federal and provincial assessments differ in quality and scope.
Before last year’s budget changes, in situ projects were forced to get a permit from the federal government if they had impacts on fish habitat through the heavy use of water or the construction of bridges. Alongside that rule, CEAA’s regulation stated that any time a federal body had to provide a permit or a licence for a project, or the federal government was involved in the project’s construction, an environmental assessment had to be done.
Last year’s omnibus bill both eliminated Ottawa’s duty to protect fish habitat and drastically altered CEAA’s trigger system. Under the new rules, CEAA’s responsibility to assess the environmental footprint of a project only comes into play if the project is on the Regulations Designation Physical Activities list, a move that reduced the number of projects covered by CEAA from the thousands to the hundreds. The federal environment minister can, however, decide to cover a project outside the list.
The government announced the newest alterations to the list last month in the Canada Gazette, the weekly publication of new and proposed federal regulations. CEAA has not yet responded to a request to share the responses it received during its 30-year public consultation period.
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