Shore Gold Inc.

Submitted on September 6, 2012 - 7:17am

By Andrew de Souza

paNOW Staff

Even though the federal government has dropped the requirement for federal environment assessments for more than 700 projects in Saskatchewan, environmental scrutiny will continue.

The federal government recently announced it would cancel about 3,000 environmental assessments for projects across the country when it updated the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Maxine Leger-Haskell with the Canada Environment Assessment Agency said the spirit of the law was to focus on more important projects.

“The vast majority of screening-type environmental assessments were for projects smaller in scale and complexity,” she wrote in an email.

“These screening-type environmental assessments ceased when CEAA 2012 came into force to ensure federal government resources are allocated to the review of major projects that have greater potential for significant environmental impact.”

Despite the changes, environmental scrutiny will still continue on several levels.

One project that is large enough to retain the requirement for assessment is the Star-Orion

“All comprehensive studies begun under the former Act continue to be conducted under the comprehensive study process outlined in the former Act. All assessments by review panels review are also continued under [the new act],” she said.

“The comprehensive study-type environmental assessment for the proposed Star-Orion South Diamond Mine Project that commenced under the former Act is still required and is continuing."

“The Agency is now reviewing the Revised Environmental Impact Statement submitted by the proponent in August, 2012, to ensure it contains all information required for the environmental assessment process. The Agency will announce a public comment period related to the Environmental Impact Statement in the near future.”

Other smaller projects will continue with some level of scrutiny. For instance, the province has said it will not change its own environmental standards and require its own assessments for many projects.
Others projects, such as those in the Prince Albert National Park will continue with their own internal assessments, which would have occurred even under the old act.

Allen Fehr is the superintendent for the park. He said in the past a federal assessment was required for projects such as controlled burns. Now they’ll do assessments just use their own channels to get it out to the public.

“What would happen now is when we are proposing a project when we think there is going to be potential significant harm to natural or cultural resources then we have to implement an environmental assessment process of our own, which we have always done on our own anyway,” he said.

“What we’ll be doing now is posting it maybe on our own website and informing people in some other way.”

A complete list of the projects the federal government will no longer require assessments for is available by following this link.

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