Offshore petroleum board not fit for environmental regulation, scientist says

Lobbying from the provincial government and the oil industry to put the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) back in charge of environmental assessments has drawn the ire of a local scientist.

Bill Montevecchi says the C-NLOPB's track record on environmental stewardship demands an independent regulator.

"The situation is self reporting by oil companies that the C-NLOPB essentially just rubber stamps," he said. "It's our ocean, it's our province, it's our country and it's not being protected properly."

It's our ocean,it's our province, it's our country and it's not being protected properly.- Bill Montevecchi, seabird researcher

Until a few years ago, theC-NLOPBwas responsible for all of the environmental assessments in the offshore.

Recently, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has been taking on that work.

A report last April from a panel assembled by the federal Liberal government recommended the creation of a federal impacts assessment commission to review major projects such asoil and gas developments.

• Proposal to retool environmental assessments rattling nerves in Newfoundland's offshore

The panel also recommended a much wider scope for these assessments they want reports to consider a project's social, cultural, health and economic impacts as well as its environmental impacts.

Lobby to reduce red tape

Industry groups like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil & Gas Industries Association (NOIA), as well as the provincial government, warn that an added level of regulation could lead to delays. They want the environmental assessment process back on the C-NLOPB's To-Do List.

"They have 30 years' experience in our offshore," Natural Resources Minister Siobhan Coady told CBC News in an interview this June. "They know the environmental requirements. They know what needs to be done."

'It's unethical'

But Montevecchidisagrees.

"That would be a reasonable argument if we had adequate regulation," he said."But we don't. And because we don't, I think, my perspective, we absolutely have to have federal regulation."

He says the C-NLOPB has a history of inaction when it comes to the environment.

Baccalieu Island is home to the world's largest colony of Leach's storm petrel, a small seabird. The birds are attracted to light and are often drawn to the Hibernia oil platform nearby.

Montevecchi saidhe and a team of researchers have laid out clear protocols for monitoring these birds on the platform, but the C-NLOPB has largely ignored them.

"In the 20 years since Hibernia has been out there and the other platforms, that population has plummeted," he said.

"What's the information from that protocol that we gave them in 1999?" he asked. "There's no scientifically justifiable information. It's unethical. Most importantly it's unnecessary. And with the C-NLOPB, it's legitimate.

"When the regulator is conflicted for development and environment and safety, the push is going to go with development."