[All] Federal Review of Tar Sands: The report

[Louisette Lanteigne]

I totally agree with you Randy. 

The last thing we want to see from this report is a "study it to death" sort of approach. There is no doubt that good data could be used to foster better risk management,  marketable 
innovations, better policy compliance and renewed investor faith but as long as we're working with a user pays approach we're screwed because technically and legally, industry owns that data. 

Industry does not want "proof" to be known. They will do everything they can to retain this info because the baseline data could be used to incriminate them. Knowledge is power and they won't give up this data willingly. The economic value of this data is huge in terms of potential profit margins. For example, if they know that the associated air pollution will result in increased health care costs for heart and stroke, they'll throw their money towards big pharma solutions that they can capitalize on. If they know their project will ruin community X's water supply, they'll be involved with the firms handling remediation or pipeline solutions etc. The reality is, there is money in destruction and if you craft both the problem and solution you can't lose.  Why do you think that firms like Stantec grew so damn fast? 

It's the same as the West Side Lands. The municipality, the GRCA and public were told that this project would result in increased infiltration of water but we asked to see the baseline infiltration rates, Stantec couldn't/wouldn't provide it. My experts suspect it may be do to the fact the data didn't actually EXIST. 

Unless we create strong legislation to mandate the full disclosure of all water data including field notes, methods and measurements, reports like this won't work. It's a good first step, but now we need to add some teeth to make sure we can get the preliminary data by law.

The City of Waterloo never had the full scope of hydrology reports for the Ira Needles mall in hand at the time of approval. That's how sad the current system is. Meanwhile the hydrologists at the Region had no authority to even get involved with that approval process. Rules state that development services must request their participation, which they didn't. The city of Waterloo's planning dept. only ask them to get involved with sub-watershed studies, not individual proposals. The official plan amendment 74 and zone change for DS-09-34 took place on June 22, 2009 in Waterloo City Council. That is when City Council also agreed to remove the Ira Needles mall area from the Laurel Creek Watershed Policy to be relocated into the Henry Sturm Subwatershed area. This move was done because Joe Grubb sent a single informal letter to city council stating that's how the water drains. No supporting data was provided. 

In the eyes of the city and region if your an engineer, all they need is your opinion on paper and that justifies approval.  Meanwhile any member of the public with half a brain who tries to call them on their own data is worth crap in the eyes of the city and the eyes of the law because we're not bloody experts now are we? If we want our side to even be heard, we have to pay experts out of pocket at the OMB to get our voices heard. I had to pay $27,000 to prove that water flows down hill. I was able to prove that and by golly we secured the tests because of it.

I pray to God that whatever happens at the Tar Sands will help to advance federal policies in our area too because we REALLY need to make sure that there is more substance to the data they are using for approval purposes. 

Lulu :0)




--- On Wed, 12/22/10, randybmclean at rogers.com <randybmclean at rogers.com> wrote:

From: randybmclean at rogers.com <randybmclean at rogers.com>
Subject: RE: [All] Federal Review of Tar Sands: The report
To: "'Louisette Lanteigne'" <butterflybluelu at rogers.com>, all at gren.ca
Date: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 6:25 AM

Lu et al:  Read it and was not surprised it was designed by the industry (government) with the condition of not harming the economy.  This is not monitoring for the sake of protection it is monitoring for the sake of public relations.  All information, which we decide to give, will be available through the FOIA.  Business as usual.  Randy  Ps Your disclosure of 70 nations with tar sands and all wanting to develop for the sake of economic short term gain and environmental long term damage turns this entire process into a reckless race to the $$.  From: all-bounces at gren.ca [mailto:all-bounces at gren.ca] On Behalf Of Louisette Lanteigne
Sent: December-22-10 12:15 AM
To: all at gren.ca
Subject: [All] Federal Review of Tar Sands: The report  Hi folks  The Federal Panel review, "A Foundation for the Future: Building an Environmental Monitoring System for the Oil Sands," is now online on Environment Canada's website. You can download the PDF copy and view the data here:  http://www.ec.gc.ca/pollution/default.asp?lang=En&n=E9ABC93B-1#s4c    Lulu :0)  
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