Signed July 7 by top bureaucrats in Ottawa and Edmonton, it cuts funding by at least 25 per cent. The budget has been cut to no more than $44 million this year. It was $58 million last year and $60 million in 2018.
The deal says no fieldwork is to be done on the main branch of the Athabasca River. That means the program won’t fund monitoring downstream of the oilsands even as the province considers proposals to allow the water from oilsands tailings ponds to be released into the river.
The deal also says there’ll be no field studies on wetlands, fish or insects.
A pilot project gauging the risks posed by tailings ponds has been dropped. Water quality assessment in Wood Buffalo National Park — part of a response to international concerns about environmental degradation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site — is gone.
Source: Alberta, Ottawa sign deal that reduces oilsands environmental monitoring | CBC News
