Documents obtained by DeSmog Canada reveal that Canada’s Ministry of Environment vetoed an interview request on toxins in fur-bearing animals in the oilsands, even though the federal scientist was “media trained and interested in doing the interview.”

The Environment Canada scientist in question, Philippe Thomas, had asked members of the Alberta Trappers Association to send him samples of fur-bearing animals caught across Alberta in 2012. Thomas needed a broad range of samples to gain deeper insight into the contaminant load in animals living near the oilsands.

In late 2012, DeSmog Canada submitted a request to interview Thomas, and provided several written questions to Environment Canada to review.

Documents obtained via Access to Information legislation show that pre-scripted responses were prepared for Thomas should the interview be approved at the upper levels. The request was approved at the deputy general level, but denied in the office of former Environment Minister Peter Kent.

The request was also sent to the Privy Council Office for review, but was denied by the minister before requiring a decision by the prime minister’s top-level advisors.

Media requests involving controversial subjects such as the Alberta oilsands, climate change or species at risk are often subject to upper level political review and are routinely approved or denied at the ministerial level or in the Privy Council Office.

Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is currently investigating the 'muzzling of scientists' after a formal request was made by the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria and citizen advocacy group Democracy Watch. The groups asked the commissioner to investigate “the systematic efforts by the Government of Canada to obstruct the right of the media — and through them, the Canadian public — to timely access to government scientists.” That investigation is ongoing. 

Sean Holman, founder of Public Eye and professor of journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said denied requests of this kind remind Canadians just how frustrated and undemocratic our access to information process really is.

“We have a Father Knows Best approach to government in Canada,” Holman told DeSmog Canada.

“Our elected and unelected officials have vast powers to withhold information from the citizenry — whether it’s because they feel that’s in the public interest or their partisan interest.”

“That’s undemocratic,” he said, adding, “but that’s why they feel they have the right to violate our right to know – frustrating access to information we have paid for.”

The internal documents from Environment Canada also show personnel were asked to keep DeSmog Canada’s previous reporting on oilsands’ science “in mind when preparing” responses to questions.

According to Holman, “it’s understandable communications staff would want to know who is asking for information from the government…from a public relations standpoint.”

“But,” he added, “from a democratic standpoint, do we want communications staff to be providing different or better access to that information depending on the requester?”

In doing so, what Environment Canada staff appear to be saying, Holman said, “is that not everyone has the same right to hold government to account since knowledge is a necessary precursor to that process.”

The research, carried out as part of the Joint Canada-Alberta Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring, is the first of its kind, and brings to light the lack of data to date regarding contaminants in fur-bearing animals — some of which are a source of food for communities and First Nations — in the oilsands area.

Environment Canada told DeSmog Canada the request to speak with Thomas “could not be accommodated.”

When pressed for a reason why, Environment Canada staff responded, “due to the nature of your request, a written response was more appropriate.”

The written responses provided to DeSmog Canada were not attributed to Thomas, however. In response to questions regarding the authorship of the answers, Environment Canada said “a number of Environment Canada staff contributed.”

Environment Canada confirmed beavers, fishers, martens, lynx and river otters have been tested for naphthenic acid, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and a suite of approximately 28 metals and inorganic compounds, pollutants that “have been identified as contaminants produced as a result of industrial activity in the Oil Sands region.”

Data collected in the samples will be “compared to existing guidelines for human consumption.”

DeSmog Canada is partnering with the Politics of Evidence Working Group to promote Write2Know Week from March 23-27. If you would like to write a letter to Environment Canada regarding the monitoring of contaminants in the oilsands area, and to let scientists know you value their work, visit Write2Know for an easy guide. 

Image Credit: Brandon T. Brown Nature Photography

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A health study released today by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Manitoba, is the first of its kind to draw associations between environmental contaminants produced in the oilsands and declines in health in Fort Chipewyan, a native community about 300 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The report, Environmental and Human Health Implications of Athabasca Oil Sands, finds health impacts for communities downstream of the Alberta oilsands are “positively associated” with industrial development and the consumption of traditional foods, including locally caught fish.

Dr. Stéphane McLachlan, lead environmental health researcher for the report, said the study’s results “as they relate to human health, are alarming and should function as a wakeup call to industry, government and communities alike.”

Findings include generally high concentrations of carcinogenic PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and heavy metals arsenic, mercury, cadmium and selenium in kidney and liver samples from moose, ducks, muskrats and beavers harvested by community members. A press release for the study says bitumen extraction and upgrading is a major emitter of all of these contaminants.

The Joint Oil Sands Monitoring Program has released data about the increases in these contaminants, but fails to address and monitor impacts to First Nations traditional foods,” said Mikisew Cree Chief Steve Courtoreille. “We are greatly alarmed and demand further research and studies are done to expand on the findings of this report.”

The First Nations worked in concert with University of Manitoba scientists, blending “western science and traditional ecological knowledge” to evaluate contaminant levels and potential community exposure, according to the press release.

“This is the first health study that has been conducted in close collaboration with community members of Fort Chipewyan,” McLachlan said in a recent interview.

“The results are grounded in the environment and health sciences, but also in the local traditional knowledge shared by community members. Unlike any of the other studies it has been actively shaped and controlled by both the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree First Nation from the outset.”

The report comes on the heels of the fifth annual ‘healing walk’ in the oilsands region, during which Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said the report would “blow the socks off industry and government.”

Concerns over high rates of rare forms of bile duct, cervical and lung cancers have worried residents of Fort Chipewyan, a small community 300 kilometres downstream of the oilsands, for years.

A government report in March 2014 found elevated rates of the three forms of cancer in Fort Chip, but suggested overall cancer rates fall on par with cancer rates elsewhere in the province. The report’s author, Dr. James Tablot, chief medical officer for Alberta health, said there was little evidence environmental factors played a role in the elevated cancer rates.

The report was treated as largely inconclusive and confirmed the need for further, independent study.

An editorial in the Calgary Herald argued the report confirmed the need to “settle the matter once and for all” and called for an independent study.

“Only then will the nagging fear — whether founded or unfounded — that the Alberta government is too closely linked with the oilsands to provide objective data and conclusions, be put to rest.”

The community of Fort Chip has struggled for years to have a comprehensive, baseline health study conducted.

In March, Chief Adam suggested it was “time for a real study, that is peer reviewed and done in partnership with our communities.” He suggested the government report was conducted to “ease the public response to this and garner more support for approvals of more projects in the region.”

Today researchers and community leaders called for further investigation of contaminant concentrations, as well as community-based monitoring and improved risk communications from government and industry.

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This is a guest post by Mike De Souza. It originally appeared on mikedesouza.com and is republished here with permission. 

Ten days ago, I asked Environment Canada whether any of its scientists would be available for interviews about their research.

The department hasn’t yet answered this question along with others.

The questions arose following the publication of a new study concluding that deposits of toxic mercury were forming a bull’s eye around oilsands operations in Alberta.

The scientists who did the research from Environment Canada were previously discouraged from talking about their work at a science conference in 2011, according to documents released through access to information legislation.

Those documents included a script that suggested they downplay human health impacts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a toxin that can originate from smokestacks in oilsands facilities or other industrial development, by comparing it to food fit for consumption.

“If pressed on human health (say that) these (oilsands) substances are also found in BBQ’ed steak,” said the script, which was shared with the offices of former natural resources minister Joe Oliver – now the finance minister – and former environment minister Peter Kent, who is still sitting as a Conservative MP.

While the department appears to be struggling to answer basic questions about this script and other science-related questions, its minister, Leona Aglukkaq, has declined to answer some questions about her own opinions and approach.

As part of this recently published story in InsideClimate News about Quebec and California’s innovative cap and trade system to tackle industrial greenhouse gases and fight climate change, we asked the minister’s office if it could share her opinion about these cross-border efforts to make polluters pay. But her spokeswoman declined to comment and forwarded questions (about the minister’s opinions) to non-partisan public servants at Environment Canada.

The federal department has recently released a new “science guide” with five key principles designed to help it fulfill its mandate: Relevance, transparency, responsiveness, excellence and collaboration.

But it’s not clear what the department means by “transparency” or “responsiveness” along with the other guiding principles.

Aglukkaq was recently pressed in the House of Commons by NDP MPs François Choquette and Kennedy Stewart to address allegations that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is censoring information about scientific research.

Stewart alleged that Aglukkaq was “forcing staff her staff to parrot” the grilled steak comparison.

“But the question still remains,” Stewart said on June 5 in the Commons. “A government study confirms raised mercury levels surrounding the oil sands. It actually calls it a bull’s eye around the oil sands. The scientist who wrote the report is mysteriously unavailable for comment. Will the minister spare us the rhetoric and instead unmuzzle our scientists so Canadians can hear the truth?”

Aglukkaq responded by suggesting that the Harper government was showing transparency by allowing the scientific research to be published.

“We worked with the province of Alberta to launch a world-class scientific monitoring system of the oil sands,” Aglukkaq told the Commons in response to Stewart. “It is a transparent and public process. Some of Canada’s top scientists are involved. The report shows our plan is working. We will continue to be transparent and promote independent scientific assessment and evaluation…”

But the minister, her department and the government have still not answered more than a dozen questions. Here is a partial list of what was asked and the “response” from the government:

1) Will any of the scientists from Environment Canada be available for interviews about their research in the future? No response.

2) When will these scientists be allowed to give interviews? No response.

3) If none of these scientists will be allowed to speak publicly about their research, would you be able to provide an explanation? No response.

4) What efforts has Environment Canada taken to measure levels of mercury, VOCs, PAHs or other pollutants coming from oilsands facilities at their source? No response.

5) How does Environment Canada know that pollution levels reported by oilsands companies in their inventory reports are accurate? No response.

6) Does Environment Canada believe the concentrations of PAHs in barbecued steaks are comparable to the concentrations of PAHs produced as a result of industrial development in the oilsands? No response.

7) Can you provide some background scientific details about how a comparison with barbecued steak realistically represents the nature of harmful substances found in waters or ecosystems near oilsands production? No response.

Questions to Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq:

1) How many times has the minister met in boardrooms of oil and gas companies or with CAPP since she was named minister?

2) How does she approach these meetings and how does she prepare for them?

3) Has she ever personally felt intimidated by having to deal directly with executives from the oil and gas industry?

4) Does she approach the meetings in the same way she approaches meetings with other stakeholders?

5) What differences has she observed in the approach of oil and gas industry stakeholders versus the approach of other stakeholders?

Response from minister’s spokeswoman Amanda Gordon to all five questions:

Minister Aglukkaq meets with a range of stakeholders relevant to her portfolios to hear their views and perspectives. The interests of Canadians are Minister Aglukkaq’s top priority in all of her meetings.

Follow up questions:

1) What does making the interests of Canadians a top priority mean to the minister?

2) How does she do this or what evidence or examples can she give to demonstrate how she has done this?

Response prepared by non-partisan public servants at Environment Canada:

The department will be responding to you on this issue.

The Government of Canada is committed to protecting the environment while keeping the Canadian economy strong.

The Government has created three national wildlife areas, three marine protected areas, two national parks, two national marine conservation areas, and one national historic site since 2006 – for a total an area nearly twice the size of Vancouver Island. More than 90 000 hectares of wildlife habitat have also been protected and, thanks to federal investments, the Nature Conservancy of Canada has secured an additional 369 000 hectares. Moving forward, and as announced in the 2013 Speech from the Throne, the Canadian Government will unveil a new National Conservation Plan to further increase protected areas, focusing on stronger marine and coastal conservation. The Plan, which will be announced in 2014, will build upon conservation-related measures in Budget 2014, including encouraging donations under the Ecological Gifts Program, investing in national parks, conserving recreational fisheries, and supporting family-oriented conservation activities.

Considerable efforts are also dedicated to the conservation and protection of species at risk. An important milestone was the December 2013 publication of an Emergency Protection Order for the Greater Sage-Grouse under the Species at Risk Act, which came into force on February 18, 2014. This marked the first time that the federal government has issued such an order to protect a species facing imminent threats to its survival.

The Government of Canada believes that economic prosperity and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive goals. Through its Responsible Resource Development approach, Canada achieves the right balance to unleash the potential of its resource sectors to create high-value jobs while strengthening safety and environmental protection. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 (CEAA 2012) is an important part of this approach. CEAA 2012 established legal timelines for environmental assessments and reduced duplication with provincial reviews. However, faster reviews do not mean substandard reviews. The government continues to have a rigorous environmental review process.

Environment Canada provides Canadians with high quality weather services and is currently working to strengthen its activities. This includes new investments in federal infrastructure such as radars, and surface weather and climate monitoring stations. Canadians will benefit from more timely, accurate weather warnings and forecasts in all parts of the country as a result of these important investments.

The Government has a strong, comprehensive approach to safeguard this country’s water resources. Canada’s collaboration with the United States led to an enhanced and renewed Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The Government is investing in the Great Lakes Nutrient Initiative to address the re-emergence of algae caused by excessive phosphorous discharges, in the clean-up of Hamilton Harbour, and in the restoration of the ecological health of the Lake Simcoe area. The second phase of the Lake Winnipeg Basin Initiative has commenced and the St. Lawrence Action Plan has been renewed.

Environment Canada’s enforcement initiatives continue to help provide Canadians with a clean, safe and sustainable environment. In 2013 our enforcement team worked on a number of major prosecutions, including a $500,000 fine for the illegal use of pesticide in the waters of southwestern New Brunswick. This was one of the largest fines ever administered under the Fisheries Act.

With respect to greenhouse gases, the Government of Canada has taken action on two of the largest sources of emissions in this country-the transportation and electricity sectors. Canada was the first country to phase out traditional coal-fired electricity generation units. Thanks to our actions, this country’s 2020 greenhouse gas emissions are projected to be 128 megatonnes lower relative to where emissions had originally been projected to be in 2020 without action.

Internationally, Canada is actively participating in negotiations towards a single, new international climate change agreement that includes meaningful commitments by all major emitters. Canada has fully delivered on its fast-start financing commitment by providing $1.2 billion over 2010-2013, our largest ever contribution to international climate change finance. This funding is now supporting a range of climate change projects in over 60 developing countries. In addition, Canada is proud to be a lead partner in the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) to reduce short-lived climate pollutants, which are potent global warmers and dangerous air pollutants.

Email response from Environment Canada to request for interview with scientists who published research on mercury pollution in oilsands region:

While we are unable to arrange for an interview, I can provide you with a response on this issue.

To date, the results of environmental monitoring in the oil sands region show that low levels of oil sands development-related substances are present in both air and water.

Mercury levels found in the oil sands region snowpack near the development are above the background levels but below guidelines. Levels decrease with increasing distance from oil sands development.

Mercury levels are low compared with many industrial developments, and are only slightly higher than those found in relatively undeveloped areas such as northwestern Ontario.

Considering methylmercury is a neurotoxin that bioaccumulates in the food web, it is important to continue tracking mercury levels in the oil sands development area to ensure they remain below acceptable levels.

Summary of Major Findings:

Atmospheric deposition of mercury and methylmercury is elevated near major oil sands developments (i.e. loads reach over 1,000 and 19 ng/m2 for total mercury and methylmercury, respectively, at several sites in the vicinity of the oil sands development).

Maximum mercury loads in the oil sands region are low compared to those observed in contaminated region of the Northern hemisphere that are directly influenced by anthropogenic sources.

What is somewhat unique about our findings is that although mercury deposition is often elevated in industrial areas, methylmercury (the toxic form that bioaccumulates through food webs) is not often measured and is generally not thought to be deposited in atmospheric deposition in large quantities.

The raw data that went into generating the deposition maps will be made available on the Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Monitoring Information Portal in the coming months.

Concentrations of mercury in melted snow are under water quality guidelines for the Protection of Aquatic Life established by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME).

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Dr. David Schindler, the scientist who sounded the alarm on tar sands contamination back in 2010, has suddenly found his research backed by an Environment Canada study recently published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The federal study, which confirmed Schindler’s hotly-contested research, has reignited concerns over the pace and scale of development in the Athabasca region, an area now beset with a host of ecological and human health concerns. 

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If you ask an Environment Canada media spokesperson about contamination resulting from tar sands operations, they will not tell you the federal government has failed to adequately monitor the mega-project's effects on water.

They most certainly will not say outright that the federal government has failed to monitor the long term or cumulative environmental effects of the world's largest industrial project. They won't say it, but not because it isn't the case. 

The tar sands are contaminating hundreds of kilometres of land in northern Alberta with cancer-causing contaminants and neurotoxins.

And although federal scientists have confirmed this, they are prevented from sharing information about their research with the media. 

The result is an overly-monitored process that causes burdensome delays in media-scientist interactions. The overwhelming consequence is that the media has stopped talking to the country's national scientists.

No federal studies have researched contamination in furbearing mammals living near the tar sands, although species decline – as is evident in the disappearance of caribou – is becoming an increasing problem.

The Alberta Cancer Board confirmed in 2008 that higher than normal rates of rare cancer were present in the small community. The government refused to remove the charge of alarmism from O'Connor's file until late 2009, despite express wishes from the residents of Fort Chipewyan to have the accusation dropped.

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Today federal scientists from Environment Canada presented research at an international toxicology conference in the U.S. that indicates contaminants from the Alberta tar sands are polluting the landscape on a scale much larger than previously thought.

A team lead by federal scientist Jane Kirk discovered contaminants in lakes as far as 100 kilometers away from tar sands operations. The federal research confirms and expands upon the hotly contested findings of aquatic scientist David Schindler who, in 2010, found pollution from the tar sands accumulating on the landscape up to 50 kilometers away.

"That means the footprint is four times bigger than we found," Schindler told Postmedia News.

Senior scientist Derek Muir, who presented some of the findings at Wednesday's conference, said the contaminated region is "potentially larger than we might have anticipated." The 'legacy' of chemicals in lake sediment gives evidence that tar sands pollution has been traveling long distances for decades. Samples show the build up of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, known to cause cancer in humans and to be toxic to aquatic animals, in 6 remote and undisturbed lakes up to 100 kilometers away from tar sands operations.

The pollutants are "petrogenic" in nature, meaning they are petroleum derived, and have steadily and dramatically increased since the 1970s, showing the contaminant levels "seem to parallel the development of the oilsands industry," Muir said.

After the release of Schindler's groundbreaking research on tar sands pollution in 2010 the Alberta government claimed the contaminants were naturally occurring and posed no risk to aquatic life.

However at today's conference, the annual meeting of the North American Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Kirk discussed the long list of 'priority pollutants' that accumulate in the region's snow. Within 50 kilometers of the tar sands, snowpack contains numerous contaminants including dangerous neurotoxins, such as methyl mercury, that bioaccumulate in food webs. Kirk found priority pollutants in the air were 1.5 to 13 times higher at test sites within 50 kilometers of tar sands refineries, and highest within 10 kilometers.

Abstracts for Kirk, Parrott and Muir's presentations can be found on pages 103 and 104 of the conference programme (pdf).

"We don't really know the fate of the various metals including mercury as they go from snow, to melt water to run-off and then into the aquatic environment," Muir told Postmedia.

The toxicity of melt water from snow falling in the tar sands region was researched by federal scientist Joanne Parrott, who also presented at the conference. Studying snow samples taken in 2011 and 2012 along the Athabasca River, Parrott found that the melt water was toxic to minnow larvae, even when diluted down to 25 percent. "The larval fish don't do very well in that snow at all," she said.

Parrott suggests melt water, once mixed with water from the Athabasca River, will no longer be toxic to minnows.

Snow melt, however, provides a significant amount of water to tributaries where fish hatch in the spring, says Schindler. "My big concern is that slowly because of mortalities at spring melt, that this will erode the fishery, killing off the embryos," he told Postmedia, pointing to the abnormally low numbers of fish in the Muskeg River as a possible occurrence.

Parrott plans to expand her research to consider whether young fish in tributaries that feed the Athabasca River are affected by the pollution.

Schindler's research has already highlighted the increasing incidence of fish deformity in areas downstream of tar sands operations, like Lake Athabasca. "I think what could happen is that the few embryos that manage to survive, deformed as they are, struggle down to Lake Athabasca," he said, adding the fish look "so horrible" the First Nations who depend on them for survival will not eat them, even if they don't have confirmed high levels of contaminants.

"I think that's fair enough, they wouldn't sell in Safeway," Schindler commented.

The scientists' presence at the conference is significant given the Harper government's strict control of scientific communications surrounding the tar sands. Federal scientists were prevented from speaking with the media at the same conference in Boston last year.

An internal document uncovered by Postmedia instructed federal scientists to avoid answering media questions, saying "if scientists are approached for interviews at the conference, the EC communications policy will be followed by referring the journalist to the media relations…phone number. An appropriate spokesperson will then be identified depending on journalist questions."

After Postmedia's Mike De Souza released the internal document last week, Environment Canada made arrangements for the news agency to speak with both Muir and Parrott.

Postmedia's Margaret Munro explains: "Environment Canada earlier this month said scientists were not available to comment on their findings of contamination around the oilsands. The department’s media office arranged this week’s interviews with Muir and Parrott after Postmedia News obtained details of the reports the scientists will present at the U.S. conference on Wednesday."

As DeSmog covered in an earlier post, the Harper government's heavy-handed treatment of federal scientists led to a mass demonstration this summer, where scientists and academics mourned the "Death of Evidence," claiming "Stephen Harper Hates Science." 

The government's strict communications policy is seen by some as an attempt to silence critics voicing science-based opposition to development of the tar sands.

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