Mandate
The committee will support industry’s desire for shared research to develop credible and relevant information to address knowledge gaps in the understanding and management of high priority environmental and social matters related to resource access issues such as caribou, habitat relationship for listed species, wetlands, reclamation, and mitigations.
This collaborative approach will engage subject matter experts, from industry, government, and academia, to identify, prioritize, and manage knowledge gaps resulting in research projects. These research projects will help in development of SMART regulations, best practices, and identification of potential technologies to find cost effective approaches in managing and mitigating environmental footprint of wells, facilities and linear features.
Focus
This committee works on high priority environmental and social matters related to resource access including: cross-cutting monitoring technologies; minimizing footprint; reclamation; wetlands; and habitat relationships for listed species, such as caribou.
2020 Ecological Public Policy Issues and Knowledge Gaps with Associated Projects
| ERPC 2020 Public Policy Issue | Issue Description(s) | Associated Knowledge Gap(s) |
| Species Recovery: Boreal and Mountain Caribou | Boreal and mountain caribou are federally listed as a Threatened species under the Species at Risk Act and face declining populations and local extirpation of herds across Alberta. Impacts from anthropogenic features are cited as a leading cause of the decline, with a large focus on oil and gas-related linear disturbances. The relationships between oil and gas footprint (untreated, treated, reclaimed or restored), and caribou, their predators, and alternate prey species require further evidence to support protective or restorative measures taken by industry. |
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Migratory Bird Protection: Pileated Woodpecker |
In summer of 2019, the federal government proposed amendments to the Migratory Bird Regulations that would require 36 months of monitoring to declare a pileated woodpecker cavity is not being used by itself or another animal before the tree which the cavity is found in can be removed for development. The supporting science for this proposal was not provided and remains inconclusive. If implemented as proposed, this amendment could impose significant delays and costs to operators in the scale of years and millions of dollars. Research could illuminate the relationships between pileated woodpecker cavities and secondary cavity nesters to inform more appropriate monitoring measures. |
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| Species Recovery: Greater Sage Grouse | The Greater Sage Grouse is federally listed as Endangered under the Species at Risk Act. Sage grouse habitat overlaps with conventional oil and gas plays in southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, some of which were restricted from development by an emergency protection order in 2013 for the species. An understanding of greater sage grouse population dynamics and how individuals of this species use disturbed and reclaimed land compared to undisturbed habitats can influence industry’s role in species recovery by informing management for and mitigation of impacts to sage grouse habitat. |
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| Species Recovery: Grizzly Bear | Grizzly bears are an iconic species in Canada with ecological and cultural value, which was listed as Special Concern under the Species at Risk Act in 2012 and Threatened in 2010 under Alberta’s Wildlife Act. Bears generally experience higher rates of mortality near anthropogenic features and human activity is believed to lead to fragmentation and isolation of demographic units, potentially resulting in population decline. Real or perceived threats to grizzly bears from the upstream industry are not well understood and require further data to assess appropriate mitigations, if needed. |
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| Habitat Restoration and Reclamation | Restoration and reclamation of legacy and current oil and gas footprint is an integral component to the recovery of habitat and the species that inhabit them. Restoration in caribou range habitat is of particular importance to achieve the objectives set forth in the Federal Recovery Strategy for Boreal Caribou. With vast amount of footprint on the landscape and limited funding available, restoration activities need to be both efficient and effective in order to achieve the greatest return of ecological productivity on investment. |
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| Noxious and Prohibited Weeds | In Alberta, there are 75 regulated weed species (46 prohibited noxious and 29 noxious) listed in the Weed Control Regulation (Government of Alberta, 2010a) under the Weed Control Act (Government of Alberta, 2008) that need to be destroyed or controlled, respectively, as undesirable species. The issues with continuing to manage regulated weeds while aiming to achieve reclamation closure include the following: increased time and resources spent on weed management; increased herbicide application into the environment; unintentional mortality of desirable native species from accidental herbicide overspray; and, a delay in reclamation certification application by at least one growing season. |
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| Cross-cutting Technologies for Environmental Sampling and Monitoring | Recent advancements in technology hold potential to improve the efficiency, cost, and safety of the often invasive and laborious tasks of collecting samples and monitoring environmental components. A host of methods developed in the past decade hold promise but need further assessment to be deemed suitable for use. Remote technology, metadata, and advanced computing could provide considerable savings and more reliable data to operators’ monitoring programs. |
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| Environmental Data Management, Access, and Integration | Collecting and analyzing ecological data is realized through various methods and often results in large and complex datasets. To assess and utilize this data to inform policy decisions and plan development, it must be accessible and presented in a format that can be translated among different groups. With the diverse topics covered under ecology (vegetation, wildlife, soil, land footprint, etc.), information can be lost or misinterpreted if not managed accordingly. Industry, government, and the regulator could benefit from a shared and transparent model of ecological data, used as a single source of truth, to inform decision making. |
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| Federally Listed Species: Olive-sided Fly Catcher (threatened) McCowen’s Longspur (threatened) Chestnut Collared Longspur (threatened) Common Nighthawk (special concern) Canada Warbler (threatened) Rusty Blackbird (threatened) Westslope Cutthroat Trout (threatened) |
Oil and gas operations and legacy footprint often overlap with habitat associated with SARA listed wildlife. Federal recovery strategies and management plans set the strategic direction to arrest or reverse the decline of the species, including the identification of critical habitat to the extent possible and the knowledge gaps to recovery. Threats to many of these species include land conversion of breeding and nonbreeding habitat, forest harvesting, energy and mining exploration and extraction. The significance of each threat varies across the various species geographical range.
An understanding of population dynamics and of how species use disturbed, reclaimed and undisturbed habitats can influence industry’s role in species recovery by informing management for and mitigation of impacts to habitat. |
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