A panel of scientists has levelled another blow to the credibility of the province’s monitoring of oilsands’ effects on water quality in the region.
According to the panel’s peer-reviewed report, the Regional Aquatic Monitoring Program has met only one of nine objectives in detecting changes to water quality.
RAMP, says the report, fails to detect and assess cumulative effects of oilsands’ development, collect baseline data, identify “potential sources… if changes are detected,” or even ask “the appropriate questions.”
The province and the oilsands industry have long relied on RAMP’s monitoring to bolster their argument that development has no effect on the Athabasca River.
In 2004, a federal report stated RAMP has “a serious problem related to scientific leadership,” for having “no overall regional plan” and that “clear questions were not been (sic) addressed in the monitoring.”
University of Alberta water biologist David Schindler says the latest report is further proof that the province and industry can’t be trusted to do the job.
“If you count our two papers, this is the ninth time they’ve been told the same thing,” he says. “I’m beginning to think more and more that incompetent monitoring is deliberate up there.”
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