FORT MCMURRAY — A public hearing into a proposed oilsands mine in northern Alberta opened Tuesday with environmental groups filing a motion to have it adjourned.
The groups say the environmental assessment for Total Canada’s Joslyn North project near Fort McMurray doesn’t address the cumulative impact of all development in the oilsands region, as the law requires.
They say the joint federal-provincial hearings should be stopped until Total rewrites its assessment to include the potential impact of the Joslyn mine to include that context.
“The terms of reference for the joint panel require it to include ... reasonably likely future projects in its cumulative effects assessment,” says the motion.
It points out that at least two oilsands developments have been announced for the area near the Joslyn site and come under the definition of “reasonably likely.” Total owns a significant stake in the Equinox and Frontier projects through its purchase last July of UTS Energy.
The groups say Total’s assessment doesn’t consider the effects of forestry or forest fires in combination with its project either.
Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute — one of the groups backing the motion — said in an affidavit that Total has ignored plans for ecosystem management. He said those plans were developed by industry, environmentalists and government at the province’s request and have been substantially agreed to, although are not yet official government policy.
Lawyers for the environmental groups and the company were debating the motion Tuesday afternoon.
The capital cost of the Joslyn mine, which soared after it was first announced in 2005, was last estimated at $9 billion. The mine would provide about 1,300 jobs.
Local aboriginal groups oppose the project. They say it will violate their treaty rights to use their traditional lands for subsistence and break constitutional guarantees of consultation.
The Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes the city of Fort McMurray, has expressed concern about strains on community infrastructure.
Total officials say the project will have one of the lowest rates of greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil in the industry. Environmentalists say the mine will still emit 1.5 million tonnes of such gases a year — the equivalent of a quarter of a million cars.