Canada’s Environment Minister has struck up an independent panel of leading scientists to review environmental monitoring in the oil sands – rejecting an offer from the Alberta government for a joint federal-provincial panel.
The wide-reaching review, which will be done in a swift 60 days at the request of Minister Jim Prentice, will likely focus on the often-criticized, industry-led Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program.
Recommendations of the panel, made up of a chairwoman and five highly respected independent academics, will be released publicly. The announcement came two weeks after Mr. Prentice, an avid fly fisherman, was “disgusted” by images of deformed fish pulled from the Athabasca River, which runs through Alberta’s oil sands.
“I want to get to the bottom of this quickly, and I want five of Canada’s leading scientists to provide me with their advice on whether the monitoring system that we’re using is good enough,” Mr. Prentice said.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-to-scrutinize-environmental-monitoring-of-oil-sands/article1734528/Perhaps now we will see if Prentice has as much integrity as he had at his defeat to Peter and Mulroney.
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