Oilsands monitoring group votes not to disband despite funding crunch

CALGARY — An oilsands environmental monitoring group has voted not to disband despite having no secure source of revenue next year.

The Fort McMurray, Alta.,-based Cumulative Environmental Management Association learned this past summer that the province would make industry funding of the group optional next year.

The organization relies on industry funding for almost all of its $5-million budget.

CEMA spokeswoman Carol Christian confirmed the vote to dissolve was defeated, but she declined to release the voting results citing confidentiality rules.

Terry Abel, the oilsands director at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said CEMA had fulfilled its mandate and there are now organizations that could accomplish the same tasks more efficiently and effectively.

He pointed to the Alberta Environmental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Agency, to which industry contributes $50 million a year, as a key component of independent monitoring. The agency runs the Joint Oil Sands Monitoring program as part of a broad mandate.

He said CEMA had done some great things over the years, but that the regulatory environment has changed considerably in the fifteen years since the organization was created.

"The world has changed, and there's a number of new pieces in place that make more sense with the way the government is managing cumulative effects in the region," said Abel.

Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said in a brief interview that the government had asked CEMA not to disband and she continues to have open dialogue with the group on its future.

CEMA president Dan Stuckless could not be reached for comment, but in the past the organization has argued it is the only independent monitoring group and better represents aboriginal stakeholders.