New report outlines key steps to restore credibility to environmental management
After eight years of effort, the Pembina Institute has formally withdrawn from the Cumulative Environmental Management Association (CEMA). Because of its consistent failure to recommend systems to protect the environment, CEMA has lost all legitimacy as an organization and a process for environmental management in the Athabasca oil sands region.
As a founding member of CEMA, the Pembina Institute worked hard to advance environmental management. Those efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. The Government of Alberta’s ongoing approval of oil sands projects in the absence of sufficient environmental management — and its lack of senior leadership — fundamentally undermined CEMA’s mandate.
Recognizing the urgent need for environmental management and the benefits of engaging stakeholders, the Pembina Institute has put forward recommendations for a new approach to environmental management in the Athabasca oil sands. The new report, Taking the Wheel: Correcting the Course of Cumulative Environmental Management in the Athabasca Oil Sands, lays out a path for developing environmental management systems through a new, reconstituted multi-stakeholder process.
» Download the report
» Read the media release
Upgrader Alley: Oil Sands Fever Strikes Edmonton
Ten-fold Growth in Bitumen Upgrading Will Affect Air, Land and Water
Oil sands production in northern Alberta could triple by 2020, to four million barrels a day. As a result of this increasing oil sands production, a major industrial expansion of bitumen upgraders is underway northeast of Edmonton. This so called “Upgrader Alley” is expected to handle nearly half the oil sands production right on Edmonton’s doorstep.
A new Pembina Institute report is the first to provide an in-depth look at the environmental impacts of upgrading oil sands bitumen in the Edmonton region. Upgrader Alley: Oil Sands Fever Strikes Edmonton provides an assessment of the cumulative environmental impacts of a 10-fold expansion of upgrading capacity proposed for Edmonton’s doorstep. The report recommends that the Government of Alberta only approve new projects once environmental and infrastructure plans are completed and implemented.
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» Read the media release
» Read the fact sheet
Oil Sands Certified Reclamation at 0.2%, Toxic Tailings Production of 1.8 Billion Litres a Day
A comprehensive new report by the Pembina Institute has found that after 41 years of oil sands mining operations in northern Alberta only 0.2% (about one square kilometer) of disturbed land is certified as reclaimed. Fact or Fiction: Oil Sands Reclamation is a critical review of current policies and practices governing oil sands reclamation. The researchers found woefully inadequate reclamation progress, astonishing rates of toxic tailings creation and no proven way to clean them up.
» Download the report
» Read the media release
» Read the fact sheet
