The Alberta Pipeline Environmental Steering Committee: A Model for Cooperative Resolution of Issues

Ian F. H. Scott

With over 244,000 km of pipelines in Alberta, Canada, industry and government traditionally gathered information and conducted research independently to address pipeline environmental issues. The results were often disputed which often led to confrontation between industry and the regulators. In the mid 1980s a series of pipeline environmental issues emerged such as topsoil conservation, three-phase stripping, and reclamation criteria which demanded mutual resolution. Consequently, the Alberta Pipeline Environmental Steering Committee (APESC) was established in 1988. Initially, APESC membership was comprised of industry and provincial government representatives only but has since expanded to include landowner, local government, federal government and pipeline contractor representatives. The paper will discuss the overall mandate of APESC, its objectives, how it operates, examples of current issues being addressed, and how they are managed and prioritized. The paper will demonstrate how the APESC approach has benefited industry, regulators and the public through agreement on issues’ identification and mutual resolution.

Keywords: Industry, government, public, conflict resolution environmental, pipeline, issue identification and prioritization