The Draft South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (Draft SSRP) is a work in progress that must do more if it is to advance the Alberta Land Use Framework (LUF). This is the acid test. The South Saskatchewan is the most economically, socially and environmentally diverse region in...
“There’s no God-given right to mud-boggers” (Minister of Justice and Solicitor General, Nanton News, May 13, 2013) May long weekend is here: begin the bush parties, litter, trucks in the river. . . I wish I could find last year’s Sustainable Resource Development blog post about the...
Tens of thousands of oil and gas wells sit unproductively on the landscape, either suspended or abandoned. These sites reflect an ongoing liability and have continuing impacts on the environment. Few regulatory tools exist to prescribe timely abandonment and reclamation and this leads to continued...
Federal omnibus budget bills passed in 2012 brought dramatic changes to environmental regulation, particularly in the area of environmental assessments. Many of us are wondering what this means for environmental protection in Canada. This remains to be seen, and leaves us with another question: What...
[caption id="attachment_1710" align="alignright" width="300"] Image courtesy of Rosemary Ratcliff / http://www.freedigitalphotos.net[/caption] Alberta Energy is now half-way through its consultation workshops on regulations under the Responsible Energy Development Act, which will set out process and rules for the new Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). The workshops will be...
[caption id="attachment_1712" align="alignright" width="216"] Image courtesy of Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net[/caption] Many of you may have missed the most recent news about Alberta’s single energy regulator, just before the Family Day long weekend. The Alberta government issued a press release on Valentine’s Day, announcing 18 public...
A recent story of a road being built in the Little Smokey Caribou range reflects the provincial government’s narrative of the demise of a species. It reflects a disconnect between policy and action, both federally and provincially, and indicates an inability on the part of...
Last year we had "Twas an Alberta night before Christmas" - this year is a much shorter environmental round up - sung to "Let it Snow" Oh the omni-bus bills were frightful But the PR is so delightful And since the fish have no place to go We’ve been...
The Environmental Law Centre promotes the polluter pays principle as central to effective environmental law. Inherent in the polluter pays principle is the assumption that, if you can’t afford to clean up a mess, you shouldn’t be in business to begin with. Of course nothing...
Last week, the Alberta government introduced Bill 2, the Responsible Energy Development Act,which is intended to create aone window regulator that will “improve the energy regulation system for landowners, industry and the environment.” While this new regulator would address energy development from initial applications to...
The federal Recovery Strategy for the Woodland Caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou), Boreal population, in Canada was posted recently and the outlook remains bleak for Alberta’s caribou herds. The focus of much of much of the Recovery Strategy is rightly on critical habitat and reducing habitat...
The Government of Alberta (GOA) has started down the road of managing cumulative effects. It won’t be easy, but the government is armed with regulatory tools. Specifically, the GOA has put in place “environmental management frameworks” (EMF) through its regional planning process, which allow it...
