Environmental Impact Assessment 

"Environmental impact assessment" is a nerdy term for a really important subject.  Basically, we need to know how human activities and development impact the environment - along with impacts on economies, and human society, health, and culture - and how to reduce the negative impacts. Impact assessment can be thought of as "looking before we leap". 

​I care a lot about this. It matters that we "get EA right".  I've been working on aspects of the science in impact assessment for over ten years. 

2019 Early Career Conservationist Award from the Society for Conservation Biology

I feel humbled to receive the 2019 Early Career Conservationist Award from the Society for Conservation Biology. It was awarded at ICCB 2019 in Malaysia (I couldn't be there so we recorded a video acceptance speech).

It was awarded "for her extraordinary leadership, vision, and achievements to strengthen science in environmental impact assessment". Our work was a huge team effort and involved scientists, lawyers, and other people who worked so hard to make positive change.

Read about other amazing recipients of SCB's 2019 global awards here. And please nominate terrific people that you know for awards of all kinds (big list about 3/4 down this page).

Appeared at the Senate Standing Committee about why stronger science is needed in impact assessment

9 April 2019: I was a witness at the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources (ENEV) discussion about Bill C-69 and the proposed Impact Assessment Act.

I spoke about the weight of evidence showing that the science used impact assessment in Canada is too weak, lacks rigour and transparency. I also spoke about the suggestions that Canadian scientists have made -- repeatedly -- to strengthen this process. It was... an interesting experience.

Paper published: "The role of science in contemporary Canadian environmental decision-making: The example of environmental assessment" (Westwood et al. 2019 UBC Law Review)

20 Jan 2019: Our paper reviewing how science has -- or hasn't -- factored into impact assessment regimes in Canada was published in the UBC Law Review.  You can download it from SSRN or Research Gate or email me for a copy.

Abstract: In this article, we examine the role of science in Canada’s federal environmental assessment (EA) regime to illustrate opportunities for improvement. We do not address the application of science in EA practices (i.e., how to do good science within EA processes), which has been thoroughly reviewed by others. Instead, we examine the context for science in EA law: we examine the components of a regulatory regime, enshrined by law, that would allow for scientifically defensible assessments and evidence-based decision making. We have four objectives: (1) to provide a recent history of the role(s) of science in Canada’s legislated EA regimes, including public support for science in EA law; (2) to propose five components necessary in an EA regime to ensure strong inclusion of science; (3) to evaluate if new proposed legislation meets scientific standards for modern EA, particularly cumulative effects and climate change; and (4) to encourage collaboration between scholars and practitioners in law and the natural and social sciences to work towards stronger scientific foundations in Canada’s EA regimes at all levels.

Citation: Westwood, AR, MZP Olszynski, C Fox, AT Ford, AL Jacob, JW Moore, and W Palen, (2019) The Role of Science in Contemporary Canadian Environmental Decision Making: The Example of Environmental Assessment. University of British Columbia Law Review. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3309943

Feature in the "Stepping Up" series byThe Globe & Mail

9 December 2018: The Globe & Mail newspaper ran the Stepping Up series "introducing Canadians to their country’s new sources of inspiration and leadership".

Ivan Semeniuk wrote about my work to strengthen science in federal impact assessment (photo by Alex Ramadan), and how my family and scientific and communication training have influenced my conservation research and advocacy.

Read about the other people profiled in this series, including students, artists, business executives, and teachers. 

Public talk: "Science, Decision Making, & the Law: The Impact Assessment Cat in the Science Hat"

31 Oct 2018: Blog post about Prof. Martin Olszynski and I giving a "Green Regs & Ham" talk at the Environmental Law Centre, held in Calgary.

25 Oct 2018: Sound government decisions regarding major infrastructure projects – including pipelines, dams, and oilsands mines – rest on strong science. Prof. Martin Olszynski and I are giving a talk in Calgary, Alberta, at the Environmental Law Centre's "Green Regs & Ham" series.
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Different groups of scientists have raised concern about the role of science in impact assessment. (Photo by Jenn Pierce)
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Jason Unger, Environmental Law Centre; me; Martin Olszynski, University of Calgary. (Photo by Jenn Pierce)

Op-ed about misinformation and Bill C-69

11 Oct 2018: "How post-truth politics is sinking debate on environmental assessment reform" by Canadian law professors Mark Winfield, Deborah Curran, and Martin Olszynski.  Clears up some of the rampant misinformation about Bill C-69.

Paper published: ​Cross-sectoral input for the potential role of science in Canada’s environmental assessment (Jacob et al. 2018 FACETS)

7 May 2018:  My co-authors and I published a research paper in the journal FACETS (open access) that evaluated whether or not different sectors of society supported stronger science in federal impact assessment. 
  • What data did we use? We used publicly available written submissions sent to the Expert Panel on Environmental Assessment Processes. 
  • ​What did we find?  There's a lot of support from across sectors for many aspects of stronger science in impact assessment! Except when it comes to industry and scientific rigour or independence... See figures below and tables in the paper.
  • What does this mean? The degree to which the Government of Canada strengthens the scientific rigour and independence of EA will indicate whether environmental decision-making in Canada is aligned with preferences from industry or the rest of Canada.
  • Media coverage in The Globe & Mail, The Narwhal, and National Observer. 
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Figure 1. Number of unique written submissions to the 2016 Expert Panel Review of Environmental Assessment Processes (n = 421), categorized by sector. NGO = non-governmental organization.
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Figure 2. Proportion of written submissions from each sector that were interpreted to affirm support for five key scientific components of federal environmental assessment. (Lighter shades = more written submissions were explicitly in favour of that component; darker shades = more submissions from that sector explicitly did not agree with that component.)

Better rules need better science: Submission to House of Commons Standing Committee regarding science in impact assessment

6 April 2018 - After several years of consultations regarding environmental assessment in Canada, the federal government has begun the process to enact new legislation. Bill C-69 ("An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts") will soon be undergoing second reading by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.  Parties were invited to submit comments for the committee recommending amendments to the Bill.

​Dr. Alana Westwood and I submitted a brief with suggested amendments to the proposed Impact Assessment Act. I offered to appear as in-person witness in Ottawa at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, but was denied. 

​Experts grade science in proposed Impact Assessment Act, give it "D”

9 Feb 2018 - Leading scientific and legal experts graded the federal government’s proposed impact assessment legislation (Bill C-69), and found a lot to be desired. We found that the legislation ran counter to repeated claims by the government to make decisions based on facts, evidence, and in the public interest. Read more here.

​I spoke to media oulets about the proposed legislation, including the journal Science, numerous  CBC Radio shows, and The Narwhal. Read other criticisms about the proposed impact legislation act, including: 

Op-ed: Environmental assessment policy must be based on science

2 Feb 2018 - I co-authored another op-ed in IRPP Policy Options about why stronger science matters in federal impact assessment. 

Strong Foundations report: Scientists and policy experts respond to 2017 federal Discussion Paper

Sept 2017 - Dr. Alana Westwood and I brought together a cross-sector collaboration of 25 scholars and practitioners of environmental science, law, and policy from Canadian academic, government, non-profit, and private sectors to provide input on the federal government's 2017 Environmental and Regulatory Reviews Discussion Paper. ​Our report, Strong Foundations: Recap and Recommendations from Scientists Regarding the Federal Environmental and Regulatory Reviews identifies 8 priorities and 7 gaps that must be addressed to ensure that environmental assessment has a solid foundation of science. We also offer a companion paper specific to the Fisheries Act.  

Opinion pieces by our authors:
​By strengthening the evidence collected in environmental assessment, how it is used and shared, and how decisions are made, the federal government can begin to regain public trust and support a process that protects our communities, health, and environment.

Op-ed: "A plan that promotes environmental sustainability"

​30 May 2017 - Co-authored op-ed in IRPP Policy Options about the report from the Expert Panel on Environmental & Regulatory Processes.

Nearly 2000 young researchers in Canada sign open letter about science in environmental decisions

15 Nov 2016 - In June 2016, the Canadian government announced comprehensive reviews of a number of environment-related proecsses, including the National Energy Board, Fisheries Act, and Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, with public consultation across the country. 

​In November 2016, I led the development and release of an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and six Cabinet Ministers recommending five actions to improve the use of science, evidence, and transparency in these processes:
  1. Seek and act on the best available evidence.
  2. Make all* information from environmental assessments permanently and publicly available. (*some exceptions, e.g., locations of speices at risk, sensitive community or Indigenous-held knowledge)
  3. Assess cumulative environmental effects from past, present, and future projects and activities across multiple scales.
  4. Work to prevent and eliminate real, apparent, or potential conflicts of interest by requiring public disclosure.
  5. Develop explicit decision-making criteria and provide full, transparent rationale of factors considered.
This letter has been signed by nearly 2000 early-career researchers in Canada and Canadians abroad. Media coverage included the Globe & Mail, CBC Radio, Radio Canada, Science, Nature, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, Vice, National Observer, The Narwhal, and more. ​
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My presentation to the Expert Panel Review

Liber Ero Fellows' letter on environmental assessment in Canada

27 October 2016 - The Liber Ero Fellows wrote a letter to the Honourable Catherine McKenna  (Minister of Environment and Climate Change), the Honourable Dr. Kirsty Duncan (Minister of Science), the Expert Panel on Review of Environmental Assessment Processes, and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development about the need to strengthen science in environmental decision-making. In December 2016, I made an in-person presentation about the letter to the Expert Panel in Nanaimo, BC. 

Going back in time... 

People have raised concerns about the lack of scientific rigour in impact assessment for a long time. Here are just a few papers on this topic. Email me if you don't have access.
Schindler (1976) The Impact Statement Boondoggle. Science. 192 (4239): 509. 
"If we are to protect both our resources and scientific integrity, environmental scientists must seek to put their studies on a scientifically credible basis – to see that problems, terms of reference, funding, time constraints, reports, and conclusions are all within a bona fide scientific framework.”
​Hilborn & Walters (1981) Pitfalls of environmental baseline and process studies. Environmental Impact Assessment Review. 2 (3): 265-278. 
“There is an alarming tendency to assume that each new proposal is unique and that experience elsewhere is not applicable. We believe that there is generally an enormous amount of relevant experience, but it is not utilized because it is not documented or sought out... We believe the environmental assessment business would be far more advanced today if the money spent on predevelopment studies in the 1970s had been spent on postdevelopment retrospective studies & follow-ups. We learn by experience, but we fail to document the most useful of all experience, our failures.” 
Nikiforuk (1997) The Nasty Game: The Failure of Environmental Assessment in Canada. 
"This independent public report was commissioned by the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation in Toronto in September 1996. It looks at the troubled history and repeated failings of federal environmental
assessment in Canada. Over a three-month period, the author reviewed most of the significant literature on the topic and
interviewed more than 50 scientists, lawyers, bureaucrats, business people, environmentalists and consultants."
Moore et al. (2015) Selling First Nations down the river. Science. 349: 596-596.
"Identifying the proper spatial scale for environmental decision-making is a fundamental challenge for environmental policy and ethics. Whether it is migratory animals like salmon that transmit impacts, hydroelectric dams that deprive downstream farming communities of water, or carbon emissions from industrialized countries that raise ocean levels and threaten low-lying islands, decisions can impact distant ecosystems and people. Science can and should inform the scale at which environmental decision-makers weigh risks to the environment and human rights against potential economic benefits."
Green et al. (2016). Oil sands and the marine environment: current knowledge and future challenges. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 15(2), 74–83.
"In the case of North American oil sands development, our review indicates that basic information is lacking or unavailable for several key sources of stress and disturbance, making it impossible to carry out a complete risk assessment… In particular, publicly available information on the behavior, fate, and toxicity of bitumen products to marine biota is almost entirely absent.”  
Li et al. (2017) Differences between measured and reported volatile organic compound emissions from oil sands facilities in Alberta, Canada. PNAS.
"Comparison with [volatile organic compound] species emission reports using currently accepted estimation methods indicates that emissions were underestimated in the reports for most species. This exercise shows that improvements in the accuracy & completeness of emissions estimates from complex facilities would enhance their application to assessing the impacts of such emissions."
MacKinnon et al. (2018) The Application of Science in Environmental Impact Assessment. Routledge. 150 p. 
​From Amazon: "This book charts the history of the application of science in environmental impact assessment (EIA) and provides a conceptual and technical overview of scientific developments associated with EIA since its inception in the early 1970s."
Ma (2018) Scholar and Practitioner Views on Science in Environmental Assessment. Master's thesis. Dalhousie University.
"I investigated the views of environmental assessment (EA) scholars and practitioners about science in EA... The study confirms a gap between science inside EA and science outside EA. These disagreements imply insufficient and/or ineffective communications among EA stakeholders, which should be addressed if a more collaborative arrangement is to be developed for improvements in the quality of science in EA."
A non-exhaustive list of scientists' open-letters to Canadian government about impact assessment
A non-exhaustive list of criticisms re: the scientific basis of CEAA 2012: 
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