Evidence of meeting #21 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cema.
Advisor, Canadian Boreal Initiative
I think there are other experts here who would be better at answering that question.
Liberal
Director, Oil Sands Program, Pembina Institute
Yes, you're going to see permanent loss of peatland and the transformation of the landscape. Even if we are successful with reclamation, and I think industry's track record on reclamation thus far is very poor, we're going to see a very different landscape to what exists there currently.
Alberta still doesn't have a wetlands policy, so those wetlands are being lost uncompensated for. I think the hydrological impacts of that are likely to be significant, but they are outside my area of expertise.
Liberal
Liberal
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I have a couple of quick comments. My concern, after visiting the Fort Chipewyan first nations group and visiting Lake Athabasca, deals with the lowering of the lake level.
Mr. Maas, you talked quite a bit in your presentation about, obviously, the UNESCO heritage site, Wood Buffalo National Park. You talked about flow disruptions. You were very critical of flow disruptions caused by drawings on the Athabasca River for oil sands operations, particularly during low flows and peak flows.
When I flew over the oil sands, I saw several ponds that had the nice green that almost looks like a mountain lake. So I'm assuming that those ponds were water that was drawn from the river and kept in storage—pre-processing, quite distinctively different from the tailings ponds, which is unmistakable.
My question is going to focus on the other aspect. What I heard from the testimony and the questions I've asked is that the major cause of loss of water is due to the flow disruption of the Peace River, which is substantially larger than the Athabasca River. Can you provide our committee any historical information as to what those flow rates are? How big is the Athabasca relative to the Peace?
Senior Policy Advisor, Fresh Water, World Wildlife Fund Canada
I can provide that after the fact, if that benefits the committee, and I would be happy to do so.
You raise a very important point, and that does point to cumulative impacts of various developments on a watershed basis. You're very correct if what you're saying is that impacts upstream on the Peace River also have an impact on the Peace-Athabasca Delta. So it's not as simple, and the entire situation does not lie with oil sands operators, but as we add on the cumulative effects of these things, particularly around the high flows--
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I would actually submit to you that the dam has probably actually caused more disruption, because the Peace River is a substantially larger river than the Athabasca River, in the order of several magnitudes.
Senior Policy Advisor, Fresh Water, World Wildlife Fund Canada
It is substantially larger.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
When the flow of that river is disrupted, I would suggest to you that the downstream effects from that particular disruption are every bit as significant as the oil sands, if not more than the oil sands. That's just my personal perspective.
Liberal
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Your recommendations call for basically a moratorium on any further development, any further expansion, given the current technology and the current applications that are before the government. The question I have is why is your recommendation not a little less harsh in terms of just basically raising the bar when it comes to time periods when water can be drawn from the Athabasca River? Maybe you should ask the oil companies to bring forward a recommendation where the extraction companies would have to have off-site storage of water that could be taken out during a peak flow. Why have you gone to basically an all-or-nothing type of recommendation? Why haven't you found some modicum in between?
Senior Policy Advisor, Fresh Water, World Wildlife Fund Canada
To be clear on the recommendation, what we're saying is no additional projects that require water withdrawals from the Athabasca River, so that sets aside in situ. I'm not an expert on in situ development, and that's why it wasn't covered in the brief.
In terms of what opportunities may be available to deal with the issue that we've put forward in terms of protecting instream flows, that's why we made a strategic and measured decision to engage in the phase two management framework committee. So we're at the table along with industry and government, hoping to develop a plan that is powerful. Before that plan is put forward, we see it as a wise move to not move forward with any additional water withdrawals or projects that require water withdrawals. That's December 2009. We're talking six months, seven months, eight months from the timeframe that this recommendation will be put forward. It is anticipated to be implemented by 2011.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
You also wanted to comment on the issue of the dam. I saw that you wanted to respond to Mr. Calkins about the Peace River and the dam.
Senior Policy Advisor, Fresh Water, World Wildlife Fund Canada
Yes, I need to catch up on the numbers, but as I understand it there are two critical drivers, and the dam is one of them. There's also the impact of climate change on that river as well, in fact, on the Peace-Athabasca Delta itself. It is a net loss of water from the Peace-Athabasca Delta, so it loses more water than it gets because of evaporation, actually. There are a whole range of complex factors, human-induced as well as natural, at play in that area.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much.
I thought you deferred, Mr. Braid, but go ahead if you can make it brief.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Mr. Maas has come all this way and we live ten minutes from each other in Kitchener-Waterloo. He came all the way to Calgary to see me, so I wanted to show some respect and ask Mr. Maas a question.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I'm glad we could facilitate this rendez-vous. Please proceed.
Conservative
Peter Braid Conservative Kitchener—Waterloo, ON
Mr. Maas, this is a bit of a follow-on from Mr. Calkins. I just wonder, with respect to the issue of the concerns over the flows of the Athabasca River and the current oil sands projects, do you have any recommendations that we might consider with respect to either the percentage of withdrawal from the river and a cap on that, or a range in terms of cubic metres per second that's different from current guidelines and ranges?
Senior Policy Advisor, Fresh Water, World Wildlife Fund Canada
I guess my advice would be to look back to the DFO biologists and see what they proposed. In fact, what they proposed was a cap. I don't have those numbers at my disposal. If I can access them through my staff, I certainly will pass them on to you, but that would be my advice. They are government biologists; I'm not a biologist. I haven't been engaged in this study. Clearly, there was a recommendation there, and something happened to it along the way, because it didn't end up in the existing framework.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I was hoping the witnesses could provide a written answer to my question with respect to topography and its effects on drainage.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Could the witnesses do that, through the clerk, of course? Okay, thank you.
Thank you again to our witnesses for travelling out here and for your insights.
We'll start the next phase at 1:30 with CEMA. We were scheduled to go from 1:30 to 2 o'clock, but we could go for an extra 30 minutes with CEMA if you like. Is that the wish of the committee?