• Canada
  • USA
  • Fossil Fuels
  • About
  • Contact
  • Eco-Anxiety
  • Climate Glossary
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
Subscribe
The Energy Mix
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
Subscribe
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result

Botched Investigation Calls Canada’s Environmental Regs Into Question

May 4, 2015
Reading time: 1 minute

Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Alberta’s failure to investigate bird deaths on tar sands/oil sands tailings ponds “casts continued doubt on the Canadian government’s constant assurances to the U.S. government that it has a ‘world class’ environmental regulatory system,” writes Jennifer Skene in a post on NRDC Switchboard.

The story begins with documents from Alberta’s energy regulator, obtained by Greenpeace Canada through a freedom of information request, that show an inadequate provincial response after several hundred migratory birds mistook a series of tailings ponds operated by Canadian Natural Resources (CNRL) for freshwater lakes. “Bird deaths in tar sands waste ponds have been a longstanding problem, and tar sands operators are required to have deterrence systems that meet the Environment Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) requirement of ‘due diligence,’” Skene explains.

“Unfortunately, there are no binding standards for what constitutes due diligence in the context of deterrence systems. This means that, while there are common industry practices, there are no clear and fixed grounds for violations.”

The documents released by Greenpeace “develop a picture of the Alberta Energy Regulator’s insufficient response” to the CNRL incident, Skene writes. “It had removed key deterrent equipment, such as loud cannons and bioacoustics machines, and had a malfunctioning radar device for detecting birds. CNRL also failed to mitigate the effects of a new facility’s lights, which attract birds.” Yet the Alberta regulator “decided that an investigation was unnecessary because it found that CNRL’s ‘waterfowl deterrent systems were fully operational.’”



in Canada, Fossil Fuels, Oil Sands, Regions

Trending Stories

ILRI/flickr
Health & Safety

What Climate Change Means for Bird Flu—And the Soaring Price of Eggs

March 10, 2025
358
Antalexion/wikimedia commons
Solar

‘Farming Sunshine’ Brings Food, Power Producers Together for Local Baaa-nefit

March 10, 2025
323
Ian Muttoo/flickr
United States

Ontario Slaps 25% Surcharge on Power Exports as U.S. Commerce Secretary Vows More Tariffs

March 11, 2025
300

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Get the climate news you need, delivered direct to your inbox. Sign up for our free e-digest.

Subscribe Today

View our latest digests

No primary category set.

Quicker, Smaller, Better: A Fork in the Road That Delivers a Clean Energy Future

by Mitchell Beer
March 9, 2025

…

Follow Us

Copyright 2025 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_logo
Climate-and-Capital

No Result
View All Result
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2025 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
No Result
View All Result
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2025 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.