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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/526329
july 2015 BCBusiness 61 bcbusiness.ca new laws. "With all [the legislation] changing at the same time, it has been a difficult few years," says Justyna Laurie-Lean, VP environment and health at the Mining Association of Canada in Ottawa. "The transition has been painful." In researching this piece, BC- Business spoke with many environ- mental consultants—most on condition of anonymity—who painted a worrisome picture of what can take place behind the scenes of environmental assessment work. Braden Robinson* is a professional biolo- gist and environmental consultant who, until recently, worked at a mid-sized environmental consulting firm in Metro Vancouver that con- sults for energy and gas project proponents. Project proponents, who often lack in-house scientific expertise themselves, will hire such firms to conduct environmental assessments, which they will submit to the government regulatory agencies as part of their application for project approval. The way he tells it, these are dark days for his work: "I've had my profes- sional opinion heavily, heavily pressured. I've had my wording changed, my results changed. A lot of my interpretations have been changed." Another environmental consultant, Jake Trimble*—who has worked extensively in B.C. and internationally for over two decades as a consulting biologist and specializes in environ- mental impact assessments of development projects in aquatic environments—points to many key problems stemming from the new Fisheries Act: "The onus is on the proponent to say whether their project is going to have an impact or not. How many of them will say, 'My project will have an impact'? Those [consult- ing] companies tend not to get a lot of repeat busi- ness because nobody wants to hear bad news." Indeed, Robinson recently did work on a proposed multibillion-dollar energy project in northern B.C. where the supervising reg- istered professional biologist—on staff at the environmental consulting firm hired by the project proponent—made the call to do a self- assessment for a phase of the client's project. In Robinson's opinion, that phase should have been reviewed by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, given its high potential to cause serious harm to fish—biologists who carry the professional designation Registered Professional Biologist ( RPBio) can now vouch that a project won't harm fish or fish habitat and bypass government review. The end result, says Robinson, was that the riskiest part of the project went ahead without government oversight at a cost "to the goals of environmental stewardship and public inter- est." As for who benefits from the RPBio's deci- sion to do a self-assessment, "the gain would go to the proponent because they were spared offsetting [habitat compensation]—and the biologist who made the decision, because they still get paid and they build a stronger relation- ship with the client." E nvironmental assessment (EA) got its start in the 1970s after the U.S. enacted the National Environmental Policy Act. The idea was to link the environment with development by informing decision makers of the environmental consequences of proposed actions. Given its rapid adoption worldwide, it's viewed as one of the major policy innova- tions of the 20th century. Canada was one of the first countries to follow America's suit, but the idea didn't become law until 1995 with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. That same year, B.C.'s environmental assess- ment law came into force. Today, national and provincial environ- mental assessment laws apply to everything from mines and tourist resorts to urban infra- structure. When you boil it all down, environ- mental assessment is the process by which the damage caused by a proposal can be avoided altogether or failing that, tallied and mitigated. The cost of proceeding without such a process can be catastrophic. The U.S.'s decision to exempt BP's Deepwater Horizon offshore drill- ing rig from an environmental assessment has * NOT THE SUBJECT'S REAL NAME