How do we Protect the BC Coast? Keep the Moratoria!
This was the message delivered by West Coast Environmental Law staff lawyer Karen Campbell to the Federal Public Panel Reviewing the over 30 years-old offshore moratoria, which recently held hearings in Vancouver, Victoria, and in BC’s coastal communities.
These public hearings were the second phase in the federal government’s three-part review of the moratoria (there are two separate moratoriums – one federal, and one provincial – both will need to be lifted to enable oil and gas development on BC’s Coast).
The first phase of the review was the Report of the Offshore Scientific Review Panel, coordinated through the Royal Society of Canada. This Panel, whose task was to review the available science regarding offshore oil and gas development and to identify any gaps in data, concluded that “Provided an adequate regulatory regime is put in place, there are no science gaps that need to be filled before lifting the moratoria on oil and gas development.”
This conclusion is problematic. In simple terms, the Panel has admitted that there are science gaps, but that it thinks regulation can take care of it. Yet reviewing the regulatory regime for offshore oil and gas development was beyond the scope of the science panel.
There are serious questions about the adequacy of the current regime for terrestrial oil and gas development, and in this climate of deregulation, there are real concerns about the reliability and comprehensiveness of a regulatory regime for offshore development.
Consider: Neither the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, or the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board, which regulate offshore oil and gas activity on the East Coast, are truly independent. Similarly, the independence of BC’s Oil and Gas Commission has been compromised by recent legislative changes.
Results-based codes that are being developed to replace regulations are non-enforceable, and there is little means to guarantee monitoring and oversight, given the scope of government cutbacks.
Inter-agency compliance reviews for terrestrial oil and gas activity in BC between 2001 and 2003 reveal systemic non-compliance, and despite government claims of improved compliance, each review has become progressively less comprehensive, raising real questions about the accuracy of the results. In the same time period, there has been a 25 percent increase in the number of wells drilled.
The Significant Projects Streamlining Act could be used to suspend the operation of any laws that the BC government considers a “constraint” to development, including environmental protection laws.
Provincial environmental assessment laws do not apply to oil and gas activity in BC, and the federal government is being pressured to reduce the environmental assessment requirements for offshore development by industry proponents. Even where environmental assessments are conducted, they almost never result in a project being rejected. More than 99.9 percent of projects reviewed in the first five years of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act were approved.
The Federal Science Panel estimates that there are 1.3 billion barrels of oil, and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas in BC’s offshore. Based on current rates of consumption, this oil would serve Canada’s oil needs for four years, and serve our gas needs for two and a half years. But we also need to keep in mind that ours is an export market – over 60 percent of Canada’s natural gas is exported to the United States. In this context, the oil and gas from BC’s offshore would meet US oil demand for two months, and US gas demand for six months.
Drilling off BC’s coast brings with it long-term risks of harm to the marine environment – through seismic activity, through drilling and production, and through increased tanker traffic, that far outweigh the short-term revenues to government. It also brings risks to our global environment – burning the oil and gas is estimated to contribute over 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, raising questions about how Canada will be able to meaningfully meet our Kyoto Protocol commitments.
For more information on West Coast’s Oil and Gas work, and our 10 Step Plan for responsible development, see
www.wcel.org/wcelpub/2004/14100.pdf
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