Pembina reacts to federal approval of Shell Jackpine mine expansion

CALGARY — Jennifer Grant, director of the Pembina Institute’s oilsands program, made the following comments in response to the release of the federal government’sdecision statement for the Shell Jackpine oilsands mine expansion project:

“For the first time, the federal government has acknowledged that an oilsands project would have significant and unmitigated environmental impacts. Yet the government has decided those effects are justified, and has approved the project to proceed.

“Despite global concern about the climate impacts of oilsands development, the decision statement makes no mention of — and provides no conditions to require — mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project.

“The federal government’s decision also ignores many of the 88 recommendations made to governments by its own Joint Review Panel to address the significant environmental impacts of planned oilsands development in the region.

“As long as governments continue to approve oilsands projects while delaying or avoiding development of key regulations — to manage biodiversity, water flows, and tailings, and to reduce greenhouse gases — their message that oilsands expansion is being done responsibly has little grounding in science.”

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Background

  • Pembina Institute backgrounder on the Shell Jackpine Mine Expansion Project
  • Federal Government Decision Statement on the Jackpine Mine Expansion Project
  • Decision of the Joint Review Panel