5.4.3: Environmental Policy, Monitoring, and Impact Assessments

Unit 5.4.3 - Environmental Policy, Monitoring, and Impact Assessments

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Learning Objectives

• Explain how environmental policy has changed based on movements and needs in Canada
• Identify how environmental monitoring and research provide opportunities for planning and mitigation
• Describe the Environmental Impact Assessment process in Canada and give examples

Introduction

Environmental policies are typically driven by problems of the day, real and perceived, that require systemic solutions. For example:

• Early conservationists were alarmed at the inefficiencies of resource management by humans and the encroachment of humans on unspoiled lands, leading to conservation legislation.
• During the 20^th century, many groups (scientists, economists, politicians, and ordinary citizens) became alarmed and fearful of the consequences of toxic pollutant loads to the environment that included localized effects on human health and well-being, leading to clean air and water legislation.
• As society proceeds into the 21^st century, an array of complex problems that have the potential to alter substantially the structure and well-being of large segments of humanity, founding calls for renewal and reassessment of our approach to environmental policy.

This has, thus far, proven to be a difficult transition. Many of these complex problems have multiple causes and impacts, affect some groups of people more than others, are economically demanding, and are often not as visibly apparent to casual observers as previous impacts, nor are the benefits perceived to be commensurate with costs. Devising a regulatory strategy for such problems requires an adaptive and flexible approach that current laws do not foster.

Table \(\PageIndex{1}\): Table illustrating historical development of environmental policy.

	1850-1920	1960-1990	1990-Present
Focus	Conservation/sanitation	Media/site/problem specific	Complex regional/ global problems
Outcome	Land preservation/efficiency/control of disease	Manage anthropocentric and ecological risk	Global sustainable development
Principal Activity	Resource management reform/simple contaminant controls	Compliance/remediation/technological emphasis on problem solving	Integration of social, economic, and technological information for holistic problem solving
Economic Focus	Profit maximization/public health	Cost minimization	Strategic investments/long-term societal well-being
Regulatory Activity	Low	Heavy	Adaptive and flexible
Conceptual Model	Expansion vs preservation	Command and control	Systems/life cycle approach
Disciplinary Approach	Disciplinary and insular	Multidisciplinary	Interdisciplinary/integrative

Many activities that could potentially degrade environmental quality are regulated by legislation passed by various levels of government. In addition, Canada has signed a number of international treaties and protocols that deal with important environmental issues.

Canadian Environmental Law

Environmental law in Canada is made extremely complex by jurisdictional overlaps and other factors. One problem is that of harmonization of related pieces of legislation among the provinces/territories and the federal government. In 1998, these governments adopted the Canada-Wide Accord on Environmental Harmonization, which was intended to achieve progress in this direction. However, that action was resisted by certain interest groups, including the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA). CELA views the accord as a mechanism for devolving federal environmental roles and responsibilities to the provinces and territories. Canadian environmental law is changing rapidly as new legislation is passed and older laws are modified or more specifically interpreted by the courts.

Indigenous Connections: Environmental Law

In 1999, the Supreme Court’s Marshall decision involved a case in which an Indigenous person had been convicted of catching fish out of season, without a license, and for commercial sale. This conviction was overturned on the basis of treaty rights, negotiated in 1760-1761, that guaranteed Mi’kmac and Maliseet Indians the right to commercially harvest natural resources at any time of year within an extensive treaty area in the Maritime Provinces. The Supreme Court interpreted the modern resource-harvesting rights of those Indigenous nations as being sufficient for individuals to earn a “moderate living.” The Marshall decision restored to Indigenous peoples a legal right to engage in fish and timber harvests that are not subject to the same seasonal and geographical restrictions as for non-Indigenous people. The Marshall decision resulted in controversy and conflict with government agencies and non-Indigenous fishers.

In 2003, the Supreme Court extended aspects of the Indigenous resource-access rights to Métis in Canada, ruling that those persons could also freely hunt and fish for subsistence purposes. Some key issues were left unresolved, such as the definition of a Métis person as well as restrictions that might be imposed for the purposes of safety and resource conservation. These aspects are being resolved through ongoing negotiations of interest groups with federal, provincial, and territorial governments. The social and economic repercussions of these decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada will take years to work out.

Subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court in 2013 and 2014 have clarified Indigenous rights to land tenure and resource rights in British Columbia. These cases involved proposals to build mines and oil pipelines in areas where First Nations has not signed land-claim agreements with the provincial government and as such had never ceded their rights to property in areas where large industrial developments were being proposed. In essence, the Supreme Court affirmed those Indigenous rights. Although the implications of that decision are not yet fully appreciated (it is likely that additional legal actions will be needed to accomplish this), it appears that substantial negotiations will be needed to gain Indigenous approval for industrial projects being proposed within their domain.

The settlement of comprehensive land claims with Indigenous nations in Canada (in effect, the modern equivalent of “treaties”) includes the formulation of suites of environmental laws. For example, such settlements include provisions that govern many aspects of resource harvesting and management, waste management, and protected areas within the settlement regions.

An important example of the need for effective legislation concerns the protection of species at risk and their habitat. That sort of legislation has existed in the United States since 1973 as the Endangered Species Act (ESA) administered by the Fish and Wildlife Service (2015). As of 2014, 1,330 species of animals and 889 species of plants were listed as endangered or threatened under the ESA (685 of the listed animals occur in the United States and 645 in other countries, while 886 of the plants grow in the United States and three elsewhere). In addition, approved recovery plans were in place for 479 of the listed U.S. animals and 676 of the plants.

In Canada, the conservation status of species is designated by a group of experts from the government, conservation organizations, and academia known as COSEWIC (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada). As of 2014, COSEWIC had assigned at-risk status to 721 indigenous species and other taxa (such as subspecies; only native taxa are designated). Moreover, in 2002, a federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) became law. SARA has toughened the legal provisions in support of the protection of species listed by COSEWIC. Its provisions are particularly strong with respect to at-risk species and their habitat occurring on lands owned by the federal government or otherwise falling within its jurisdiction.

However, the SARA legislation is much weaker with respect to species and critical habitat on lands beyond direct federal jurisdiction, such as areas owned by provincial, territorial, municipal, Indigenous, or private interests. Although there are provisions in SARA for the federal government to intervene in such cases, and to provide compensation to affected landowners, it is not bound to do so. Many such interventions would inevitably be expensive and controversial, and so far this mechanism has not been used much to protect at-risk species in Canada. Most of the provinces and territories have also passed laws related to the protection of species at risk within their own jurisdictions, or they are preparing such legislation.

Of course, it is not sufficient to simply pass good laws that are intended to regulate actions that might degrade the quality of the environment – it is also necessary to enforce them. Between 2011 and 2015, there were 95 successful prosecutions (that is, with a conviction) under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) or the Fisheries Act. There are, however, a much larger number of cases that can be resolved with softer regulatory actions, such as writing a warning letter to a non-compliant party.

Several non-governmental organizations have taken on the mandate of advocating improvements to environmental law and policy in Canada, while ensuring that the existing laws are rigorously applied. The most prominent of these are the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Ecojustice. These organizations lobby politicians and suggest specific changes to existing or proposed legislation. In some cases, they also take government agencies to court in order to force them to enforce the existing laws or to seek interpretation from a higher court such as the Supreme Court of Canada.

Environmental Monitoring and Research

There are widespread and well-founded concerns about severe damage being caused to the quality of the environment. In response, many nations are implementing programs to monitor changes in environmental quality over time. Most of these programs are intended to document changes that are occurring over large regions or entire countries and to help predict future variations. These efforts are much larger in scale and scope than programs that monitor whether a particular industrial facility is complying with regulations and guidelines. Most large-scale monitoring is conducted by governmental agencies, or in some cases, by non-governmental organizations. The resulting data and knowledge are used to guide decision-making in government, enhance the work of NGOs, and provide material for environmental research and education.

In the sense meant here, environmental monitoring involves repeated measurements of factors that are related to either the inorganic environment, the structure and functioning of ecosystems, and any intersections with human welfare. Because not everything can be monitored, successful monitoring programs depend on the careful choice of a limited number of representative indicators and on the collection of reliable data. If a monitoring program detects important changes, the possible causes and consequences of those changes are usually researched.

Video

This 2.5-minute video gives a brief explanation of what environmental indicators are, and their role in allowing us to measure the condition of environmental assets (e.g. soils, vegetation, fauna).
Question after watching: What environmental indicators do you think are used in the ecosystems around you?

Suppose that environmental monitoring has detected that precipitation has become acidified in a large region. The cause(s) of the acidification might be understood by determining the concentrations of chemicals in the precipitation and by investigating local emissions of gases and particulates to the atmosphere. Researchers must also understand the consequences of increased deposition of acidifying substances to freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as the implications for buildings and other urban features. At first, the research would examine the existing knowledge of the causes and ecological effects of acidification in various kinds of habitats. However, that knowledge is always incomplete and, therefore, it must be augmented with new research examining the risks of acidification that are not yet understood. The accumulated information helps society to understand whether the causes of acidification can be controlled and, if so, to assess the potential environmental and economic benefits.

In another example, monitoring might indicate that the ecological character of a region is changing because the natural forest is being extensively converted into plantations through industrial forestry. The ecological consequences would initially be interpreted in the light of existing knowledge of the effects of forestry, supplemented by additional research that investigates poorly understood issues. Specific research questions might address the effects of ecological conversions on biodiversity, forest productivity, watershed hydrology and chemistry, and global environmental change through effects on carbon storage. This information is needed to help decision-makers evaluate whether they should permit further conversions of natural forests into plantations.

Video

Environmental monitoring provides a health assessment of environmental assets such as agricultural soils, rivers, native vegetation, and wildlife, as profiled in this 2.5-minute video.
Question after watching: How do you think the assets are selected?

Environmental Monitoring and Research in Canada

Environmental monitoring and research in Canada are carried out by various agencies. Environment Canada is the most active agency at the federal level. In addition, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans deals with fisheries and oceanic environments, Natural Resources Canada provides data about non-renewable and some renewable resources, the Canadian Forest Service provides information relevant to commercial forests, Parks Canada examines changes in national parks, and Health and Welfare Canada deals with influences of environmental quality on human health. Statistics Canada plays a key role in compiling information and making it available to governments, companies, and the public. All of the provincial and territorial governments of Canada also have comparable agencies that deal with environmental issues within their jurisdiction.

A few non-governmental organizations also undertake a considerable amount of environmental monitoring and research. For instance, the World Wildlife Fund-Canada has programs that fund work on endangered species and ecosystems. The Nature Conservancy of Canada is active in work associated with conservation planning and stewardship. Universities also have considerable technical expertise in environmental issues. University personnel are not necessarily involved in long-term monitoring programs, but many professors and graduate students undertake research into the causes and consequences of environmental changes.

Environmental monitoring programs provide society with crucial information and knowledge. Both are necessary for the implementation of effective programs to prevent further degradation of environmental quality and the health of ecosystems and to repair existing damage. These actions are necessary if society is to conduct its economy in a truly sustainable manner.

Video

This is a 6-minute profile of a day-in-the-life of an environmental technician.
Question after watching: What surprised you about the job and what it entailed? Is this a position you might be interested in pursuing?

Notions of Environmental Quality

Environmental quality, ecosystem health, and ecological integrity are important notions that help us understand the importance of changes in environmental conditions. However, like other notions, these ones cannot be precisely defined, although it is possible to develop a general understanding of what they mean.

Because they integrate changes in many components of ecosystems and environments, these concepts involve complex phenomena. Environmental quality, for example, is related to the concentrations of potentially toxic chemicals and other stressors in the environment, to the frequency and intensity of disturbances, and to the effects of these on humans, other species, ecosystems, and economies. Of particular concern are stressors associated with human activities, because these have become so important in the modern world.

Ecosystem health and ecological integrity are similar to each other and, in many respects, to environmental quality. However, these indicators focus on changes that may be occurring in natural populations and ecosystems, rather than on the effects on people and their economy. All of these notions involve many variables that are related to stressors and socio-economic or ecological responses. As a result, they are sometimes measured using composite indicators, which integrate many possible changes that are thought to be important. Composite indicators are not exact measurements of environmental quality, ecosystem health, or ecological integrity, but they do allow society to determine whether conditions are getting worse or better.

These ideas can be explained by using ecological integrity as an example. Obviously, most stressors associated with human activities will enhance some species, ecosystems, and ecological processes, while at the same time damaging others. However, ecological theory suggests that systems with higher values for any or all of the following characteristics will have a greater degree of ecological integrity:

• The ecosystem is resilient and resistant to changes in the intensity of environmental stressors
• The system is rich in indigenous biodiversity values
• The ecosystem is complex in its structure and function
• Large species are present
• Top predators are present
• The ecosystem has controlled nutrient cycling, meaning it is not “leaking” its nutrient capital
• The ecosystem has a “natural” character and is self-maintaining, as opposed to being strongly affected by human influences and management

These sorts of criteria for ecological integrity are of particular relevance to managing protected areas. If ecological integrity is being maintained or enhanced, then a protected area is doing its job of maintaining biodiversity and ecological functions.

Successes

As we noted earlier, programs of monitoring and research should be capable of detecting changes in environmental quality, while also helping to predict future effects. Well-designed programs should deal with the most important known stressors or potential threats to the environment. They should measure or predict the effects on people and on sensitive ecosystems and species, particularly those that are economically or ecologically important.

These are the simple requirements of a sensible program for monitoring and investigating environmental problems. Unfortunately, these criteria are not well met by many existing programs, and as a result, some important environmental problems are not yet well understood. Consequently, they are not being addressed effectively, and they could become worse in the future. To deal properly with these and many other important issues, we must improve our understanding through better monitoring and research. We can illustrate the achievable benefits by examining a few “success stories” in which monitoring, research, and effective actions helped to resolve important environmental problems.

• Eutrophication of fresh water was identified as an important environmental problem during the 1960s and early 1970s. Research discovered that phosphate was the primary cause and that the damage could largely be avoided by constructing sewage-treatment facilities and by using low-phosphorus laundry detergent.
• Acidification (acid rain) was recognized during the late 1970s and the 1980s as an extensive phenomenon causing many ecological damages. Research showed that the problem was largely due to the atmospheric deposition of sulphur and nitrogen compounds. This convinced decision makers to require reductions of industrial emissions, and that action led to some improvements.
• Contamination with persistent chlorinated hydrocarbons, such as DDT, dieldrin, and PCBs, was found to be widespread in the 1960s and 1970s. Research showed that some species, such as predatory birds, were being seriously harmed and that there were possible effects on humans. The toxicological evidence convinced decision makers to ban these chemicals in most countries, to the great benefit of the environment.

Video

In this 5.5-minute video, discover the groundbreaking environmental work of Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring explores how human actions threaten the balance of nature.
Question after watching: Why were so many people critical of Carson and Silent Spring? How did she challenge the status quo?

Environmental Impact Assessments

One important interpretive decision of the Supreme Court of Canada affecting environmental impact assessments was the Rafferty decision of 1989, which made it clear that an Environmental Impact Assessment was needed for any undertakings involving the federal government. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a planning process that is used to help prevent environmental problems. Environmental impact assessments do this by identifying and evaluating the potential consequences that a proposed development may have for environmental quality. Because it can consider ecological, physical-chemical, and other environmental effects, as well as socio-economic consequences, an EIA is a highly multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary activity.

An EIA may be conducted to examine various kinds of activities, or planned developments, that could affect environmental quality, such as the following:

1. an individual project, such as a proposal to construct an airport, dam, highway, incinerator, mine, or power plant
2. an integrated scheme, such as a proposal to develop an industrial park, a pulp or lumber mill with its attendant wood supply and forest-management plans, or other complex developments that involve numerous projects
3. a governmental policy that carries a risk of substantially affecting the environment

The scale of an environmental assessment can vary greatly, from the examination of a relatively small proposal to construct a building near a wetland, to a megaproject associated with natural-resource development.

Canadian EIAs

In Canada, environmental impact assessments for proposals that involve federal funding or jurisdiction are regulated under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), which was enacted in 1992. The Act is a law that requires federal decision-makers, referred to as “responsible authorities,” to consider the predicted environmental effects of a proposed project before it is allowed to go ahead. If significant adverse effects are predicted, the project is not allowed to proceed until the damages have been addressed by a change in design or through some other mitigation.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Impact assessment process overview. Copyright: Government of Canada.

Initially, the CEAA required that EIA studies be done on a wide range of projects involving the jurisdiction of the federal government. However, in 2012 the Act was greatly weakened by requiring that only big projects are considered. Provinces and territories also have legislated requirements for EIA, as do some local levels of government, such as municipalities and First Nations.

EIA is based on the reasonable premise that all proposed projects, programs, and policies carry risks for human welfare and for other species and ecosystems. For example, a proposed project may emit toxic chemicals into the environment. In such a case, it is necessary to determine if the anticipated emissions might exceed the regulated levels. The most stringent standards and guidelines are related to the maximum exposures that humans can tolerate without suffering risks to their health, while criteria to protect other species and ecosystems are less exacting. For example, the guideline for uranium in drinking water is 0.02 mg/L, but that for the protection of aquatic life is 40 mg/L for short-term exposure (<1-4 days) and 5.5 mg/L for long-term exposure.

In addition, a project might cause disturbances to natural habitats during its construction or operation, which could result in ecological damage. These effects should be identified and quantified, and the potential environmental damages evaluated before permission is granted to start the project.

The process of environmental impact assessment is intended to predict these potential damages and to suggest ways of avoiding or mitigating them as much as possible. However, this does not necessarily mean that no damage will be caused by a proposed development. In almost all cases, some damage is inevitable.

Video

Impact assessments help society understand the possible impacts of projects before they start, as detailed in this 2-minute video.
Question after watching: In what ways can individuals or groups give feedback on an EIA in Canada?

Because most developments potentially affect a great variety of species and ecosystems, EIAs are limited to predicting the effects on only a selection of so-called valued ecosystem components (VECs). These components are valued because society perceives them to be important for one or more of the following reasons:

1. They are an economically important resource, such as an agricultural crop, a commercial forest, or a stock of fish, mammals, or birds
2. They are a rare or endangered species or ecological community
3. They are of cultural or aesthetic importance

Cumulative Environmental Effects EIA

The Cumulative Environmental Effects EIA is a planning activity under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that includes the need to evaluate cumulative environmental impacts, or those resulting from the effects of a proposed undertaking within some defined area, in addition to those caused by any past, existing, and imminent developments and activities. The concept of cumulative effects recognizes that the environmental effects of separate anthropogenic influences will combine and interact to cause changes that may be different from those occurring separately. Assessment of cumulative impacts requires knowledge of both the likely effects of a proposed development, as well as those of other anthropogenic activities in a study area, plus additional ones that are likely to occur. 

There are a number of examples of cumulative environmental effects that are primarily ecological and have occurred in Canada:

• aggregate damage caused to populations of migratory salmon in the Fraser River watershed in British Columbia as a result of commercial fishing in the open Pacific or in the river itself, along with sport and subsistence fishing, plus degradation of freshwater habitat through such influences as the dumping of sewage, agricultural erosion and pesticides, warmer temperatures and woody debris in streams caused by forestry operations, risks of sea-louse infection from aquaculture in coastal waters, and warming oceanic waters caused by climate change
• losses of biodiversity throughout Canada, but particularly in southern regions, caused by deforestation to develop land for urbanized and agricultural uses, fragmentation by roads and transmission corridors, disturbances by forestry and mining, and various kinds of pollution
• ecological damage in a region of boreal forest in northern Alberta in which there are diverse anthropogenic stressors associated with timber harvesting, exploration, and mining for oil and gas, oil-sand extraction and processing, and pipelines and roads to service all of those economic activities
• threats to the ecological integrity of national parks that are associated with the internal development of infrastructure to support tourism, such as campgrounds, interpretation centers, roads and trails, golf courses, and skiing facilities, along with economic activities in the surrounding area such as forestry and agriculture, as well as regional influences such as acid rain and climate change. A requirement that environmental impacts be studied in a cumulative manner acknowledges the complexity of ecosystems and the fact that all aspects of their structure and function are affected by a diverse array of influences.

Much more detail on the full Environmental Impact Assessment process can be found here: https://www.canada.ca/en/impact-assessment-agency/services/policy-guidance/impact-assessment-process-overview.html

Planning Options

If, during an EIA, potentially important risks to human welfare or VECs are identified, a number of planning options must be considered. There are three broad choices.

• Prevent or Avoid: One option is to avoid the predicted damage by ensuring that there are no significant exposures of people or VECs to damaging stressors related to the project. This can be done by modifying the characteristics of the project, or in cases of severe conflicts with human welfare or ecological values, by choosing to cancel it entirely. Because prevention and avoidance may involve substantial economic costs, this is sometimes considered to be the least desirable option by proponents of development. Politicians and regulators may also dislike this option since it may involve intense controversy. Nevertheless, there is always public and regulatory pressure to take as many precautions as possible before undertaking a proposed development.
• Mitigation: Another option is the mitigation of any predicted damages, or to repair or offset them as much as possible. Because any direct damage to people is considered unacceptable (and therefore to be rigorously avoided), mitigation is most relevant to damage inflicted on VECs or to indirect, low-level risks to people. For instance, if the habitat of a valued species is threatened, it may be possible to create or enhance habitat at somewhere else so that the damage is offset. For example, a wetland may be unavoidably destroyed by a proposed development, but the damage may be offset through the creation of a comparable wetland elsewhere (note that this does not help most organisms living in the original wetland). Mitigations are a common way of dealing with potential conflicts between project-related stressors and VECs. However, it is important to understand that mitigations are never complete, often do not address the underlying problem, and there is often residual damage.
• Accept the Damages: The third option is for decision-makers to choose to allow a project to cause some or all of the predicted damages to human welfare or VECs. This choice is often considered tolerable by project proponents and by politicians. Their rationale is the perceived socio-economic benefits gained by proceeding with a project are likely to be much greater than the costs of environmental damage. From an environmental perspective, however, this choice might not be viewed as being acceptable, usually because environmental “costs” are grossly undervalued.

Environmental impact assessments generally find that a proposed development carries risks of causing some degree of environmental damage. Usually, the development is allowed to proceed in some form, with the predicted damage being avoided or mitigated to the degree that is considered technologically and economically feasible. As noted previously, however, there are always residual risks that cannot be avoided or mitigated. Any damage that does occur represents some of the environmental costs of development, which are real even if there is financial compensation or other kinds of offsets.

Once a project has begun, compliance monitoring is usually necessary to ensure that regulatory criteria for pollution or health hazards are not being exceeded. It is extremely useful, although not always required, to also monitor the ecological effects of a project. This tests the predictions of the impact assessment and identifies unanticipated effects or “surprises.” Ideally, a monitoring program for ecological effects is begun before a project starts, in order to establish the baseline conditions. The monitoring should then continue for some years after the project is completed until it is determined that important damage is not being caused. If unanticipated damage is shown by the monitoring, it may be prevented, avoided by an adaptive change in the project design, mitigated in some way, or accepted as an ecological “cost” of development.

Examples of Environmental Impact Assessments

EIAs have been conducted in all regions of Canada, examining projects that varied widely in both scale and potential effects. Each of these unique cases is instructive, in the sense of illustrating the environmental implications of development projects and the role played by impact assessment. In the following sections, we briefly examine selected elements of some environmental impact assessments in Canada.

Diamond Mines in the Northwest Territories

This proposal involved the development of mines to extract diamonds from five deposits discovered about 300 km northeast of Yellowknife. A variety of potential environmental damages were identified with this project. First, some of the diamond-bearing rock lies beneath lakes that would have to be drained to develop a mine. These aquatic ecosystems would be destroyed.

In addition, large amounts of gravel are needed to construct roads and other infrastructure. Much of this material would be obtained from long, sinuous geologic features known as eskers, which are left over from glaciers and provide critical denning habitat for grizzly bear, wolf, and other high-profile species.

Further, large numbers of caribou traverse the region during their seasonal migrations. These are potentially affected by the mine and its network of roads. Substantial damage to the caribou would harm the Aboriginal people in the region, who engage in a subsistence hunt for these animals. Those people might also suffer from interference with their commercial harvest of fur-bearing mammals.

Finally, the proposed mines are located in a region that was a huge, roadless wilderness. Conservationists, led by the World Wildlife Fund, objected to the approval of the mine before a system of protected areas was set up in the region for the preservation of natural ecosystems and native species, including large carnivores such as grizzly bear, wolf, and wolverine.

The diamond-mine proposal passed its environmental impact assessment and was allowed to proceed. It was subject to stringent requirements, however, such as the implementation of acceptable methods of disposal of mining and milling wastes and the protection of water bodies and rivers (other than those that must unavoidably be damaged to develop the mines and dispose of tailings). A ban was imposed on local hunting by project personnel. As well, a monitoring program was to be undertaken to ensure that unanticipated damage is not caused to air or water quality or to wildlife. The mine must also meet socio-economic criteria, including several that deal with employment opportunities and other ways of engaging local people (including Aboriginals) in the development. As a measure outside the scope of the formal impact assessment, the government of the Northwest Territories committed to establishing protected areas in the larger region, although this has not yet been followed through in its entirety.

Video

This 4-minute video is an interview with the Superintendant for Sustainable Development, Communities, and External Relations at Diavik Diamond Mines Inc. by Radio Canada International in 2013 on plans for the eventual closing of the mine.
Question after watching: What environmental, social, and economic considerations are being taken into account during this mine closure plan to make it sustainable?

Destruction of Diseased Bison 

Agriculture Canada proposed to slaughter almost all the bison in the southern region of Wood Buffalo National Park and its vicinity. Some of these animals are infected with bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, and there are concerns over the potential spread of these diseases to herds of cattle to the south and west of the area. The bison targeted for slaughter are hybrids between the indigenous wood bison and plains bison that were introduced to the region during the late 1920s. The proposal did not include the elimination of small populations of genetically “pure” wood bison living farther to the north, and in fact, these were predicted to receive a measure of protection from the potentially harmful effects of interbreeding with hybrid animals.

This proposal was made in support of commercially important livestock interests, but it quickly engendered intense controversy. It was opposed by virtually all conservationists and by local Indigenous people. Although this project successfully passed the impact assessment process, it was later suspended by the federal Minister of the Environment, largely in recognition of the intense opposition from conservation and First Nation interests.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Plains bison (Wilson Hui; CC BY 2.0.)

The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project

The Vancouver Fraser Port Authority is proposing a new three-berth marine-container terminal at Roberts Bank in Delta, B.C. The projected cost of the terminal is approximately $3.5B. The Environmental Impact Assessment was conducted by an independent Review Panel. On March 27, 2020, the Review Panel submitted its report containing its conclusions and recommendations.

In August 2020, after considering the Review Panel’s report, the Minister determined that additional information is required from the Port Authority to inform the decision on whether the Project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. This information request pauses the federal timeline for decision-making. Following receipt of this information from the Port Authority, the Government will have approximately three months to make a final decision on the Project. In the interim, IAAC is coordinating post-panel-Report consultations, including coordinating consultations with the Province of B.C. and Indigenous groups. The responses from the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority were subject to an extended public comment period that closed on March 15, 2022. Comments, including those from expert federal departments, were posted publicly and are being reviewed.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Roberts Bank, 2013 (Gord McKenna; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Nova Scotia Peat Mine

Peat mined from bogs is used as a horticultural material, and it can also be burned as a source of energy. This proposal would have developed a mine on a bog in Nova Scotia to provide peat as an industrial fuel (Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\)). The EIA focused on the fact that the bog in question provides habitat for several rare species, including a carnivorous plant called the thread-leaved sundew (Drosera filiformis). This species is endangered in Canada and also in much of the rest of its range in the eastern United States. Because the bog harbors the largest of only four known populations of the sundew in Canada, the provincial Minister of the Environment did not allow a mine to be developed on that site. This was a controversial decision because it canceled a local development initiative in a region in which the economy is chronically depressed.

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): The thread-leaved sundew (Drosera filiformis) and its bog habitat. The largest known population of this carnivorous plant in Canada occurs on a site in southwestern Nova Scotia that was proposed for a peat mine. An environmental impact assessment predicted that the mining would obliterate the most important population of this endangered species, and as a consequence, the Government of Nova Scotia did not allow the mine to proceed. Source: Bill Freedman.