To celebrate Clean Air Day, June 8, the B.C. Government issued a press release celebrating the province’s air quality in the Peace region, home to extensive natural gas operations and Site C dam construction.

The press release, which praises the “successful partnership to ensure continued clean air in the Peace region,” came on the heels of a federal warning issued to BC Hydro for failing to turn on air quality monitors near Site C dam construction.

Federal investigators with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) discovered monitors near Site C operations, which measure total suspended particulates, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide were not collecting any data.

CEAA compliance and enforcement chief Michel Vitou issued a warning letter to BC Hydro on May 26, saying the crown corporation “has been unable to monitor air quality effects in order to inform the appropriate authorities of exceedance of federal and provincial air quality standards.”

Vitou said he inspected the location of Site C construction from April 26-29 and discovered “none of the air quality monitors [were] currently collecting data.”

Failing to monitor for potentially hazardous violates BC Hydro’s agreement to follow the project’s Air Quality Management Plan.

The non-compliance violation, if not corrected, could cost the company $400,000, Vitou warned.

Federal Investigation Finds #SiteC Air Quality Monitors Turned Off https://t.co/3Xe2cvktPk #bcpoli #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/8azyKjFjSO

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 9, 2016

“I am bringing this alleged contravention to your attention in order for you to take corrective action,” he wrote.

According to a report prepared for BC Hydro, impacts to local air quality are expected to be much higher during the construction phase of the project.

The report, prepared by RWDI Air Inc., lists these potential sources of emissions:

“clearing activities; prescribed burning and incineration of clearing debris; extraction, processing, movement and placement of construction and waste materials; drilling; explosives detonation and blasting; material handling and transfers; concrete batch plant operations; material processing; stockpile wind erosion; grading and scraping; fugitive emissions of road dust on paved and unpavedroads; mobile vehicle exhaust; diesel-fuelled equipment and generators; boats; aircraft and asphalt production.”

Construction of the dam is expected to last eight years. The highest levels of carbon monoxide emissions are anticipated to occur during year one of construction, the report notes.

During the most emissions intensive portions of construction, the overall emissions from expected contaminants — carbon monoxide, suspended particulates, nitrogen oxide, and sulphur dioxide —are expected to increase by 5 to 83 per cent in the study region.

B.C. launched its Northeast Air Quality Monitoring Project in 2012 to address growing public concern over air quality issues in relation to oil and gas.

Increasing industrialization in the province’s northeast coupled with longer wildfire seasons (and preventative prescribed burning in the mix) present a severe threat to the region’s air quality. The construction of the Site C dam, which is proceeding at breakneck speed, compounds those concerns.

Yesterday’s press release celebrates the relocation of three oil and gas air quality monitoring stations in the Peace region.

Let’s just hope the province ensures they’re turned one. 

Image: Site C logging. Photo: Garth Lenz

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The results of a new national air quality survey released Wednesday shows levels of fine particulate pollution and ozone exposure in Red Deer, Alta., exceed safe standards. And four of the province's six air zones, including the Upper and Lower Athabasca and North and South Saskatchewan, all home to major oil and gas projects, are fast approaching those limits, according to the province.

Shannon Phillips, Alberta Minister of Environment and Parks, said the results of the air quality assessment are “concerning.”

“We can’t keep going down the same path and expecting a different result. Our government has a responsibility to protect the health of Albertans by ensuring air pollution from all sources is addressed. Without action, Alberta is on track to have the worst air quality in Canada in the coming years.”

The province announced it will immediately work to implement plans developed under the Canadian Air Zone Management Framework and is considering tougher regulations for the oil and gas industry as well as for vehicles. Increased air monitoring initiatives are also being considered.

In 2012, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment developed new Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate and ozone. Under these new standards, the Red Deer air zone “requires a mandatory response action plan,” the province stated in a press release.

Air zones in Alberta. Image: Alberta Environment

According to Chris Severson-Baker, Alberta regional director at the Pembina Institute, the air quality report “adds to the mounting evidence that Alberta needs to reduce air pollution across the province.”

“Alberta has been too slow to take action on existing pollution sources, and new ones have been added without regard for the cumulative impacts,” he said.

Contaminated Air a Threat to Human Health

Severson-Baker added high levels of pollution in Alberta “places an unacceptable burden on people’s health and on the environment.”

“The harmful pollutants that form fine particles — nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide — are released by burning fossil fuels. The biggest contributing sources in Alberta, by far, are oil-and-gas operations, coal plant smokestacks and vehicle tailpipes.”

Poor air quality near Peace River made national headlines last year after the Alberta Energy Regulator launched a public inquiry into residents’ complaints of nausea, headaches, insomnia and blackouts. Residents had expressed concern since 2009 that nearby oilsands operations were filling the air with toxic contaminants.

In April 2014, the Alberta Energy Regulator agreed emissions rules needed to be strengthened to protect human health.

Alberta’s Coal Consumption Highest in Canada

Alberta's new NDP government has indicated it is considering stricter emissions rules for the oil and gas industry and is currently seeking input from the public for a climate change action plan.

Sevenson-Baker said working to curtail emissions to prevent climate change will also help to clean up Alberta’s air.

“Fortunately, the best options for addressing carbon emissions will also significantly lower air pollution,” he said. Alberta, in addition to being a major producer of oil and gas, is also one of the largest consumers of coal in Canada.

Coal power plants in Alberta. Image: Alberta Wilderness Association

Alberta currently consumes more coal for electrical power than all other Canadian provinces combined.

“In the short term, an accelerated transition away from coal power would considerably reduce air pollution in many of the key hot spots,” Sevenson-Baker said.

“The best thing the Alberta government could do to improve air quality is to take meaningful action on climate change. Measures that tackle carbon pollution would also contribute to cleaner air, so long as they address the biggest contributors to deteriorating air quality in Alberta.”

In March Premier Rachel Notley said, “it’s time to make a tangible commitment to phasing out coal, ensuring a brighter, more sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.”

Image: Kris Krug

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Smokey haze, intense heat, encampments of evacuated residents next to the highway: these were the conditions that greeted Renee Lertzman when she recently drove through Oregon. It’s no wonder why the environmental psychology researcher and professor resorts to the term “apocalyptic” to describe the scene.

“It was a surreal experience,” says Lertzman, who teaches at Victoria’s Royal Roads University. “We’re all driving along and it’s so smoky and it’s terrifying. Yet we’re all doing our summer vacation thing. I couldn’t help but wonder: what is going on, how are people feeling and talking about this?”

It’s really the question of the hour. Catastrophic wildfires and droughts have engulfed much of the continent, with thousands displaced from their homes; air quality alerts confine many of the lucky remainder behind locked doors (with exercise minimized and fresh-air intakes closed).

Firefighters have been summoned from around the world to battle the unprecedented fires, which are undoubtedly exacerbated by climate change. Yet the seemingly reasonable assumption that witnessing such horrific natural disasters may increase support for action on climate change is vastly overestimated, Lertzman tells DeSmog Canada.

“I think it’s a fantasy that the worse things get and the more intense the effects are … that will magically translate into a public and political recognition and engagement and getting on board,” she says. “There’s an abundance of evidence that’s not the case and that humans have enormous capacity to avoid and deny reality and what’s staring us right in the face.”

34 ‘Dragons of Inaction’ Impede Climate Action

Humans’ tendency toward denial and avoidance is incredibly complex and entrenched.

Robert Gifford, professor of psychology and environmental studies at University of Victoria, has charted 34 (previously 29) ‘dragons of inaction,’ which prevent people from responding to evidence of climate change, ranging from a naive belief in “technosalvation,” to lack of attachment to geographic place, to straight-up denial.

While often tangled and deeply rooted, Gifford optimistically concluded a 2011 paper for American Psychologist with the statement: “The dragons of inaction can be beaten back, if not slain.”

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, Gifford says he experienced an epiphanic moment about climate change while gazing out at Victoria’s inner harbour and noticing a brown pelican, a bird uncommon in the region. Recent events, such as limbs dropping from Garry oak trees due to drought conditions, may serve as “the brown pelican moment for a lot of people in Victoria,” he says.

But it’s a very delicate situation. If large environmental organizations resort to overkill in responding to such conditions (as they have in the past, Gifford says), such efforts may alienate supporters instead of confronting the aforementioned dragons.

“Going back to the old anti-smoking literature, fear messages can go too far,” he says. “Not that they’re always wrong but if you show pictures of people who are on their death bed, people just block it out. You have to get people concerned, but can’t go too far. And you especially can’t give wrong information: not only does it not work, but it gives fodder to the bad guys.”

Moving Beyond Paralysis

It’s an issue many environmental psychologists are concerned about. Lertzman contends that plenty of people care deeply about climate change but are often paralyzed by the sheer enormity of the issue.

Visual representations of Alberta’s oilsands are frequently juxtaposed with images of devastating fires and floods, a combination that fails to acknowledge the “lived experienced or texture in our lives related to carbon and fossil fuels and coal” and creates a “huge vacuum where people can get mired and really stuck.”

Much of the issue returns to perceptions about the potential for individual and communal impact to help adapt and mitigate climate change (a concept broadly known as the ‘internal locus of control’).

Gifford stresses that empowerment messages are far more successful than calls for sacrifice. Lertzman echoes that sentiment, pointing to three ‘As’ that anchor responses to situations like the summer of 2015 — anxiety, ambivalence and aspiration — and that many environmental efforts can miss the mark if they fail to recognize the emotional significance of each.

She suggests it’s very important “to lead with that really human response: I’m really scared or I’m feeling really sad or confused or overwhelmed. The more we name and acknowledge that, the more it really does help us leverage the burning platform — an awful phrase given the situation — to leverage the crises that are merging and are only going to continue.”

It’ll also take a lot of compassion, she says, beginning with compassion for ourselves: most North Americans live very carbon-intensive lives. This fact is further convoluted by the “dragons” — Gifford points to two in particular as plaguing energy-producing provinces like Alberta: sunk costs (if you work or hold investments in the oilsands, you’re more likely to rationalize it) and system justification (if things are working, don’t rock the boat). Yet both are optimistic that encounters with wildfires and droughts — whether in person or via the media — can help move the needle on climate change action, if communicated correctly.

“There’s real opportunity there because it can force us to really think creatively and critically about how we live and how we want to live and what kind of future we want to have,” Lertzman concludes.

Photo: Lizard Lake wildfire by B.C. Wildfire Service.

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"Transparent,” “credible, “world-class” — those are just a few of the words that have been deployed to detail the aspirations of the one-year-old organization tasked with monitoring the air, water, land and wildlife in Alberta.

But there are a lot of questions about whether the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA), funded primarily by industry, has lived up to its goal to track the condition of the province’s environment.*

Unlike the Alberta Energy Regulator, which the new NDP government is considering splitting into two agencies to separate its conflicting responsibilities to both promote and policy energy development, AEMERA hasn’t spent much time in the public spotlight — yet.

Last October, Alberta’s auditor general slammed the agency for releasing its 2012-2013 annual report in June 2014, well after when it should have been released. The auditor general also said the report “lacked clarity and key information and contained inaccuracies.”

Many of the agency’s projects were missing several details and the auditor general cautioned such omissions “may jeopardize AEMERA’s ability to monitor the cumulative effects of oil sands development.”

And that’s a pretty big problem. Because if Canada is to feasibly establish a strong environmental record, it’s going to need stringent monitoring in Alberta, especially in the Lower Athabasca region where the bulk of the province’s energy industry operates.

The Birth of A Really Long Acronym: AEMERA

AEMERA was dreamt up in 2011 as a means to coalesce the dozens of monitoring organizations working in the province under one banner, firewalling the result from government and industry to avoid conflicts of interest.

Martin Olszynski, an assistant professor in law at University of Calgary who specializes in environmental law, notes that at the time of the agency’s inception, international pressure was limiting market access for oil.

“When someone went to check on the monitoring system, it turned out it was a mess,” Olsznynski says. “We weren’t getting the data that we needed.”

AEMERA — with the Joint Canada-Alberta Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring serving as the transition agency for the three years prior to its official birth — was crafted to solve that problem.

Yet Bill 31, the piece of legislation that conjured up the arms-length agency in late 2013, faced considerable criticism from the get-go. Opposition parties pleaded for more than a dozen amendments.

Many of the proposed tweaks would have addressed the tight relationship between government and the monitoring agency. Amongst other things, the legislation suggested the environment minister would appoint the board and choose when data was released to the public.

Shaun Fluker, an associate professor of law at the University of Calgary, wrote in a 2014 post that the latter provision “arguably undermines the whole structure and suggests that politics can and will override science and transparency on environmental monitoring and reporting.”

All the proposed amendments were shot down. Lorne Taylor, former environment minister under Ralph Klein and renowned anti-Kyoto Accord activist, was appointed as chair of the board. Little has changed since.

Unlike other agencies, AEMERA doesn’t mandate quotas for groups or interests on the board. As a result, Bigstone Cree elder Mike Beaver is the sole indigenous representative on the agency’s seven-member board.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge, a method of integrating indigenous worldviews into policymaking, was listed as a priority in AEMERA’s founding document — yet the auditor generals’ report noted that just three of 38 of AEMERA’s projects surveyed involved Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

Val Mellesmoen, spokesperson for AEMERA, says the organization is working hard to foster strong relationships with indigenous people. In mid-June, the organization appointed a Traditional Ecological Knowledge panel to focus on such issues.

Insufficient Funding for Mobile Air Monitoring Van

Then there’s the overarching issue of funding. Exactly $50 million was decided upon as the max that industry would contribute per year, a number that features a “conspicuously round nature,” Olszynski says.

In late March, news broke that the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association — historically the recipient of the largest amount of money for monitoring — couldn’t afford the $500,000 price tag for a new mobile air monitoring testing van on account of a lack of funding.

Andrew Read, policy analyst at the Pembina Institute, says there’s no public information available as to why $50 million was chosen as the funding cap; he has submitted multiple requests to the federal government (which coordinated the interim monitoring framework prior to AEMERA’s takeover), but hasn’t received any clarification.

Mellesmoen, the agency’s spokesperson, says it was a “gentlemen’s agreement” with the number determined by “an initial estimate that was based on industry providing an overview of what they felt they were currently spending as individual companies.”

Mellesmoen — who previously served as Taylor’s spokesperson when he was an MLA and minister — says there are questions within the agency about the reasoning for the cap.

“Even that funding model needs to be maybe looked at in the long run,” she says.

New NDP Government Could Amend Bill 31

Olszynski says the newly elected NDP could amend Bill 31 to deal with such issues. Prior to being elected as premier, Rachel Notley was an outspoken critic of the monitoring agency, at one point asserting the organization was “nowhere near ready to assume responsibility for the [Lower Athabasca] region.”

The NDP’s platform also pledged to “strengthen environmental standards, inspection, monitoring and enforcement to protect Alberta’s water, land and air.”

This week’s decision to revisit the Alberta Energy Regulator’s mandate represents that focus. The press secretary for Minister of Environment Shannon Phillips didn’t respond to multiple requests for an interview on the subject.

International Experts to Evaluate Oilsands Monitoring

An international panel composed of six scientists will evaluate the performance of the new monitoring system. It plans to “evaluate the extent to which the implementation of the Joint Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM) has improved the scientific integrity of environmental monitoring in the oil sands.”

The panel will deliver its report this fall, which will “help determine the next steps on the oilsands monitoring design and implementation.”

Olszynski emphasizes the uniqueness of AEMERA

“It’s an experiment, an innovative one, an important one,” he says.

Yet there’s much more to be done: stable funding must be solidified, the line between cabinet and organization must be clarified and the data must be analyzed and reported on in a way that regular Albertans can understand. AEMERA also has to expand its monitoring province-wide to fulfill its mandate.

“AEMERA needs to step out and demonstrate that they’re acting in the public interest,” Read says. “We want to see a demonstration of AEMERA actively taking and delivering that unbiased information to the government and providing a perspective on the current state of the environment.”

* Clarification Notice: This article originally stated that AEMERA is funded 100 per cent by industry. While AEMERA gets the bulk of its funding from industry, the agency also receives government funding for general operations and monitoring, evaluation and reporting activities in other areas of the province

Image: Kris Krug via Flickr

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