The hearing into EnCana’s plan to drill 1,275 shallow gas wells in a protected wildlife area on the Suffield military base kicked off October 6 with the company assuring the government review panel that the plan is “not likely to cause any significant adverse environmental effects.”

The base’s National Wildlife Area, near Medicine Hat, is a 458-square-kilometre piece of ecologically sensitive prairie grassland that’s home to a high density of endangered species like the Ord’s kangaroo rat and burrowing owl. Gerry Protti, EnCana’s executive vice-president of corporate relations, made the case for the project at the hearing, pitching it as a low-impact operation. “We would not propose this project if we did not believe it could be carried out in a sustainable way,” said Protti.

During cross examination by an environmental coalition opposing the project, however, the company acknowledged it didn’t survey burrowing owl nest sites in its environmental assessment, nor did the company survey kangaroo rats or sharp-tailed grouse in the area. The coalition — which includes the Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) and Federation of Alberta Naturalists — says EnCana’s poor environmental record at the Suffield base “does not bode well” for the area’s sensitive ecosystem, and is calling on the federal-provincial joint review panel to reject EnCana’s application. (EnCana already has more than 1,000 wells in the protected area.) “This area is internationally significant,” says the AWA’s Cliff Wallis. Industrial activity and conservation at the site, Wallis says, are “two worlds in collision.”

The hearing is open to the public. Dates and times are posted at www.suffieldreview.ca.