The Mackenzie is one
of the last remaining great river basins that has been largely untouched and
could be planned out from top to bottom ahead of actual serious development.
The oilsands are the threat in place and a serious one but not for reasons properly
understood. They have produced vast reservoirs
of mineralized water that we are quite loath to flush down the river itself. That may still occur, but remediation is the
more likely outcome there.
It was one of four
great drainages of the North American Ice age and this produced deep sediments I
am sure. Banks
Island in particular is just that and the Beaufort is a shallow
mud flat down below the tide and local currents.
If the oil industry continues
to be sustained, and I am not optimistic in this regard, then the opening of
the basin will plausibly produce a mega field or two. For that reason alone it is timely to put a
plan in place. Beyond such exigencies,
just completing real road access and establishing mining support bases for both
the western mountains and the eastern shield country is fully supportable.
Major world
interests at stake in Canada's vast Mackenzie River Basin
by Staff Writers
The governance of Canada 's
massive Mackenzie River Basin holds enormous national but also global
importance due to the watershed's impact on the Arctic
Ocean , international migratory birds and climate stability, say
experts convening a special forum on the topic. "Relevant parties in
western Canada have
recognized the need for a multi-party transboundary agreement that will govern
land and water management in the Mackenzie River
watershed.
"Successful collaboration will effectively determine the
management regime for a watershed covering 1.8 million square kilometers or
about 20 percent of Canada - an area roughly three times the size of France - and
include the country's vast oil sands," says University of California Prof.
Henry Vaux, Chair of the Rosenberg Forum, which meets Sept. 5-7 at Vancouver's
Simon Fraser University with the support of the Walter and Duncan Gordon
Foundation.
The Forum's goals include identifying legal and scientific
principles relevant to the processes leading ultimately to a coordinated
basin-wide approach to management, as well as prioritizing knowledge gaps.
The Mackenzie is Canada 's
longest river - about 1,800 km - and pours a staggering 10.3 million liters
(enough to fill four Olympic swimming pools) into the Arctic
Ocean every second, along with 100 million tons of sediment per
year. That's slightly more water than the St. Lawrence River discharges into
the Atlantic , according to estimates.
The Mackenzie Basin includes three major lakes (Great Slave, Great
Bear and Athabasca, which together contain almost 4,000 cubic km of water) and
many major rivers, including the Peace, Athabasca, Liard, Hay, Peel, South Nahanni and Slave.
Complex challenges confront this immense territory rich in natural
assets, which include intact forests, vital habitat for wildlife and for birds
that migrate as far as South America, deep stores of trapped carbon, and
vast deposits of oil, oil sands, natural gas and minerals.
A 2011 report published by the Gordon Foundation urges the federal
government to work with jurisdictions in the basin to implement a world-class
water monitoring program and support credible, independent water research.
Says Thomas S. Axworthy, President and CEO of the Toronto-based
Gordon Foundation, "The starting point of good water policy is knowledge
and the starting point of knowledge is to monitor on a regular basis the
quality of water in the Mackenzie Basin - for the health of the North, Canada
Through bi-lateral and multi-lateral discussions, Canada 's three westernmost provinces - British Columbia , Alberta
and Saskatchewan - its Yukon
and Northwest Territories
"Anything less than a basin-wide program with strict water
quality and quantity standards, backed by binding requirements for prior
notification and consultation and dispute resolution, will squander an
opportunity to finally give the Mackenzie Basin a governance regime that will
protect it for future generations," adds J. Owen Saunders, adjunct law
professor at the University of Calgary and former Executive Director of the
Canadian Institute of Resources Law.
Says renowned
Canadian water scientist James Bruce: "Development activity in British Columbia and Alberta
The refrigerator-like cooling effect of ice and annual snow cover
in the northern Mackenzie basin plays a vital role in weather and climate
patterns in Canada and throughout the northern hemisphere.
Rosenberg Forum panelist Prof. John Pomeroy of the University of
Saskatchewan expects climate change to impact northern basin hydrology
significantly by causing more precipitation in the form of rain and a shorter
snow-cover period, reducing snow's beneficial insulating effect on permafrost.
Those new conditions will also increase the prevalence of ice
layers, which can increase spring runoff and streamflow but restrict grazing by
caribou and muskox.
Expanding shrub cover in formerly open tundra is resulting in
warmer air, soils and greater streamflow generation, he notes. The loss of
spring snow cover and expansion of shrubs warm the northern air and cause
changes in weather patterns and climate throughout the world.
Dr. Pomeroy notes that permafrost thaw in the southern Northwest Territories Mackenzie River Basin
Trapped within the permafrost, meanwhile, are ancient stores of
greenhouse gases, the release of which could transform the region from sink to
a source of greenhouse gases.
When ice layers thaw, slumping of the land results in the
discharge of sediments to rivers and allows perched ponds and lakes to drain.
Tributary river courses and groundwater flows can alter, leaving spawning areas
disrupted. Melting permafrost can also severely damage drainage facilities,
roads, buildings, and pipelines.
The Mackenzie Delta - where the river meets the Arctic Ocean - is
increasingly subject to storm surges from the Beaufort Sea
and salt water intrusion due to three factors: reduced nearshore ice, sea
levels rising at accelerated rates, and more frequent severe winter storms.
Ecosystems in this productive area will increasingly be affected, and buildings
and infrastructure in low-lying areas will be flooded more frequently.
The Rosenberg
At the time, the growing industrial footprint in the region
covered about 25.6 million hectares, twice the combined area of Canada 's maritime provinces
New Brunswick , Nova Scotia
and Prince Edward Island
The researchers
quoted a non-market value of the watershed (ecosystem goods and services
provided by nature such as carbon storage, water filtration, water supply and 14 others) of almost
$571 billion per year (2005), some 59% of which - $339 billion - was attributed
to the storage and annual absorption of carbon by the basin's forests,
peatlands, wetlands and tundra.
"If the environmental services of the basin were compromised,
the loss would be very large," says Alberta-based water policy analyst Bob
Sandford, who notes that climate change is occurring in the north at a rate
three times that of the rest of Canada
He and many scientific colleagues are expressing concern about
persistent toxic compounds appearing in aquatic ecosystems of the Mackenzie River Basin Alberta 's David Schindler and
colleagues have shown that atmospheric emissions from oil sands developments
are significant contributors to contamination of waters in the Mackenzie River Basin
These contaminants are transported by wind and deposited on snow,
land and tree needles, eventually washing into rivers and lakes.
The Forum will consider recently announced Canadian government
measures to monitor and mitigate oil sands-related pollution.Objectives for the
Rosenberg
To identify and summarize pertinent scientific principles and
findings that should be acknowledged in processes leading to a Mackenzie River
management agreement, as well as pertinent legal principles that may apply, and
to address the following questions:
1. What is the state of scientific knowledge of the Mackenzie River Basin
2. To what extent does indigenous knowledge supplement or
reinforce typical western science or social science? To what extent does
indigenous knowledge need to be acknowledged or incorporated in any agreement?
Are there examples of transboundary agreements that rely upon indigenous
knowledge?
3. Given prevailing levels of uncertainty, what should be the role
of adaptive management in scoping and implementing any transboundary agreement?
What are the positive and negative lessons learned from experience with
adaptive management? Are there examples of transboundary agreements that rely
on adaptive management?
4. Is it possible to revamp existing cooperative governance
structures for the Mackenzie Basin so as to build upon rather than infringing
upon the jurisdictions of the federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous
governments? Are there examples where this has been successfully accomplished
in a federal system? Are there examples of where it has been attempted but
failed to work effectively?
5. Could an existing layer of government or a regional
governmental entity be given regulatory authority related to the purely
basin-level aspects of such overarching issues as climate change, cumulative
environmental impacts, as well as transboundary indigenous treaties and
governance agreements?
Wednesday, September 5th will be devoted to "fact
finding." On that day, senior provincial and territorial officials as well
as researchers working in the Mackenzie
Basin
Thursday, September 6th and Friday, September 7th will be devoted
to deliberations of the panel and the development of conclusions and
recommendations.
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