SR1 update: Federal review moves to Round 2, provincial hearing delayed, COVID-19 impacts
We’ve been fairly quiet since our last Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir update in January, but plenty has been happening behind the scenes and there’s good news to report!
Federal regulatory review
Finally! The Round 1 responses have been deemed complete and the Round 2 questions have been issued.
AT’s submitted its final Round 1 responses in December 2019 and the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) deemed the responses complete on December 31, 2019.
The Round 2 information requests were received by Alberta Transportation on March 23, 2020 and consist of just five questions: land use, bird protection, dam drainage outflow, methylmercury, and air quality.
The federal regulatory “clock” is paused at 209 days. Once Transportation files its Round 2 responses, the clock will restart.
It is possible that the IAAC could ask a third set of questions but, based on how succinct Round 2 is, we suspect that it is unlikely.
We hope this news signals that the federal regulatory review is nearing the end of its technical review, in which case we could reasonably expect that the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) is reaching the stage where they’ll start to write a decision statement soon.
The Environmental Impact Assessment process for SR1 officially kicked off in June 2016 and we hope now, finally, we can begin to ‘see light at the end of the tunnel’.
Provincial regulatory review
AT is preparing to file its responses to the Round 2 provincial information requests that were posed by the Natural Resources Conservation Board (NRCB) in November 2019.
However, while most of the Round 2 responses will be filed now, a few remaining questions will likely be filed in the fall. The reason being, some questions in the Round 2 requests required additional field study to be done (specifically on SR1’s impact to fish habitat and population) and the work can only be completed in a window over the summer months.
Given the additional fish study, and the possibility of Round 3 information requests, it is very likely that the public hearing will be pushed into spring 2021 rather than late-2020, unfortunately.
How will COVID-19 impact SR1?
We’ve been assured that the province’s SR1 team continues to work diligently on this project despite social distancing limitations and that work will, for the most part, remain on schedule.
There are two areas where the current pandemic measures will have the biggest impact: First Nations consultation and the public hearing.
First Nations consultation
With many communities going into ‘lockdown’, some communities have requested a consultation pause from the Aboriginal Consultation Office (ACO), while other communities are either set up or getting set up to work remotely.
AT has talked to the regulators about this reality and how halting meetings is not a reflection of AT not pursuing consultation, but instead the only reason for a gap in the record is because of the pandemic measures.
NRCB public hearing
If we remain in a state of pandemic restrictions, our situation could call for a different means of holding a hearing.
At the moment there is no clarity as to what this would look like, but AT views this would not be a barrier, as courts have shifted to doing hearings via phone and video already.
Budget
We’ve been assured that, despite current economic challenges, funding for SR1 remains protected.
And in these economic times, with interest rate available to the Province being near 0%, in our view there is absolutely no reason for money to be an excuse for not proceeding after all this time and the millions of dollars spent to date.
SR1 is a critical infrastructure project that will employ many people during its construction phase, designed to avoid billions of dollars in future harms, and to save lives and livelihoods. It’s an investment to avoid huge societal harms in the future that we KNOW with CERTAINTY will occur if not completed. We all know that, sometimes, these are the right decisions, despite the costs.
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Next steps
Once the project is given regulatory approval, the construction timeline will remain the same; two years to partially ready and three years to fully ready. However, there are a number of hurdles to clear before we’ll have shovels in the ground:
- complete remaining rounds of information requests
- NRCB hearings (originally scheduled for June 2019, now likely to take place in spring 2021)
- land acquisitions and/or expropriations
- provincial cabinet approval of project
While there are still a few years and significant work ahead of us, the kickoff of the federal Round 2 is long-awaited news… and a much-needed jolt of positivity during this bizarre and uncertain time.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, please reach out at info@crcactiongroup.com.
Regards,
Your CRCAG Board