When it came to environmentally controversial projects in the past I’ve been pretty lenient. Notably when I’ve addressed the Enbridge Northern Gateway proposal.
In the past I’ve suggested that we should trust the environmental review process to provide a guidance to how things like that project should go.
I’ve since come to feel that maybe I’ve been a little naive. (I’m betting there’s more than just a few eye rolls out there after reading that.)
What has brought me to this point is the report from Smithers-based Northwest Institute which found certain things lagging in the provincial environmental review.
They had several concerns, including the provincial process not considering to the full extent things that the federal process considers.
The report would be enough to raise an eyebrow, and it did, but what really makes the whole thing more interesting is that it follows a report from the Auditor General.
In that report it was basically said that the Environmental Assessment Office isn’t fulfilling its obligations to follow-through and see that projects are living up to the conditions of their certificates.
It’s as interesting as it is scary that there appears to be little formal oversight of major projects.
Together, these reports raise questions. Why doesn’t the EAO follow through, and in the case of the reviews themselves, is the process actually falling short, and how badly?
Since I mentioned Enbridge, I should point out that they’re going through the harmonized Joint Review Panel process. How that changes how the review is conducted, I don’t know enough to say. The report from NWI focused on the Prosperity mine project near Williams Lake because the province and the federal government had separate processes in that instance.
All I know is that we as citizens of B.C. need certainty in the environmental process to feel good that our interests are being protected.
And maybe even more importantly, a system needs to be in place to ensure that projects are following the guidelines they are certified to follow.
If a disaster were to happen with any project, mining or pipelines or whatever, it’d be better if it were at least an experience to learn something from, other than “they weren’t supposed to be doing that anyway.”
Cameron Orr is editor of The Interior News.