Alta. delta gets special international designation
by Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service
February 3, 2009
The Peace-Athabasca Delta in northern Alberta was declared one of the Western Hemisphere's most extraordinary and endangered places Tuesday by a leading environmental group that named the delta a "BioGem" it will campaign to save.
"The Peace-Athabasca Delta is one of the world's most important nesting grounds for migratory birds. But these rest areas are threatened by the world's largest industrial project — Alberta's tarsand mines," Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, the director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Canada program said in announcing the designation.
"By designating this area as a BioGem, we can help prevent potential devastation from the oil industry and other development."
The Peace-Athabasca Delta is one of the busiest bird-resting grounds on the globe, serving as a stopover and nesting area for more than a million birds, including tundra swans, snow geese and countless ducks. For many waterfowl, this area is their only nesting ground. The delta and the bird populations are also very important to local aboriginal communities.
Energy extraction from the oilsands just south of the delta is a major concern to environmental groups that say the massive projects could contaminate and reduce water flow into the delta, killing fish and disturbing habitat. The oilsands development is also a major Canadian source of greenhouse gasses linked to global warming.
Conservation groups recently released a report that estimated oilsands projects could see as many as 166 million birds lost in future generations throughout the larger Boreal forest. The report pointed to increasing impacts in the next 30 to 50 years, despite international treaties to protect these birds.
Since 2001, the Natural Resources Defense Council has campaigned to save more than 30 special natural places throughout the Americas that offer sanctuary for endangered wildlife, curb global warming and provide livelihoods for local communities. The delta joins 12 other BioGems, including two other newly designated regions: the Carrizo Plain National Monument in central California and the country of Costa Rica.
Environmentalists also say the new oilsands tailings rules released Tuesday by the Alberta government will not end the practice of allowing millions of litres a day of toxic pollution to leak into the groundwater systems of the Athabasca watershed.
"Local communities and workers will continue to bear the health risks of using tailings ponds as cheap dump sites for tarsands waste," said Matt Price, project manager with Environmental Defence said in a release.
A recent report by Environmental Defence used industry data to estimate that tailings ponds leak four billion litres a year of toxic pollution into groundwater, with projections that this could reach 25 billion litres a year within a decade.
Tailings ponds are also a major source of air pollution, particularly in summer months when the heat causes volatile organic compounds from the ponds to vaporize into the air.
Environment Canada has estimated that emissions of just one volatile organic compound — benzene, a human carcinogen — are now about 100 tonnes a year and could grow to 800 tonnes by 2015.
Environmental protection in the oilsands is a shared responsibility of the federal and Alberta governments, but the environmentalists say the federal government has so far not enforced its pollution laws to crack down on toxic air and water releases from the tailings ponds.
"We are calling on the federal government to step in to do its job," said Price.
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