Researchers find shortcomings in environmental impact assessments of Canadian mining projects
A new report from Dalhousie University shows flaws in the environmental review process for mining operations in Canada, with researchers finding that data on 20 percent of the projects they reviewed had incomplete data or were missing from public records altogether.
The report collected all available environmental impact assessments on mining projects dating back to 1974 – that is, 266 assessments on 227 projects over 50 years. However, researchers encountered problems. Some provinces, such as British Columbia, had fully digitized and accessible systems; Records from other jurisdictions were difficult to access or were simply not available.
Without complete environmental assessment data, researchers are not able to properly assess how a mine is affecting the surrounding community. And regulators cannot establish a baseline to measure environmental damage.
“When we’re talking about starting new projects, there’s what’s called a ‘cumulative effect,'” Alana Westwood, lead author of the report, said in a recent interview. “Pollution or contamination from a mine can increase over time and reach dangerous limits.”
Crossing the limit could eliminate a species, or seriously pollute groundwater, leaving communities without clean water, he said.
“If we don’t have baseline data, we don’t know where we started and we can’t predict or understand the potential impacts.”
NS estimates $6,000 fee to provide access
In one example, researchers filed an access request with Nova Scotia for environmental assessments conducted before the year 2000. Nova Scotia began requiring environmental assessments in 1989, but before 2000 they were done manually.
“We filed ours (a freedom of information request), and they told us it would cost $6,000,” says Ben Collison, a PhD student at Dalhousie and co-author of the report. “Our lab doesn’t have $6,000 in funding and would have to wait years for that to happen.”
Westwood and Collison also found that provincial and federal environmental assessments on the same project did not match in two-thirds of the cases they studied. The assessments looked at different parts of the project or used different wording, making it difficult for researchers to get a complete picture of the mine’s environmental risks.
Canadian mining is a large industry, accounting for approximately six percent of the country’s economy. But mining also leaves a big impact. The report reveals that there may be as many as 10,000 abandoned mines across the country that are polluting the environment without any monitoring.
Many operating mines run on a large scale. For example, the Star-Orion Diamond Project in Saskatchewan is 850 times the size of the Rogers Center in Toronto. The entire mine is approximately the size of the city of Camrose, Alta.
The researchers’ report is publicly available
Westwood says environmental assessments are invaluable tools for mining projects, but the current system is not being used effectively. In the meantime, Collison says the provinces and the federal government need to better coordinate what elements of a project should be studied and what work should be done.
However, Collison says governments should make sure they aren’t weakening rules when they fast-track or streamline provincial and federal analyses.
“If that’s the case, I think we’re running the risk of making decisions that are not well-informed by evidence.”
Westwood and Collison have made its report publicly available And searchable. He says he hopes that by doing so they can encourage provinces to work together to improve environmental assessments.
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