An agency set up in the 1990s to figure out how many projects could be developed in the Alberta oilsands before causing permanent environmental damage still has no answers, even though new projects continue to be approved, groups say. 

The provincial and federal governments created the Cumulative Environmental Management Association to watch all the megaprojects in the oilsands and to find out exactly how many mines and upgrading plants can be allowed before the environment is permanently affected.

The plan was for CEMA to answer these questions in five years. But after seven years of studies and meetings, it still has not finished its work, the CBC's Erik Denison reports.

According to briefing documents written in 2002 and obtained by the CBC, the federal government realized CEMA wouldn't be able to finish its work as projects continued to be developed.

"CEMA is unable to provide products in time for the reviews of upcoming projects," the briefing document says.

The agency is hampered by a requirement that all new proposed environmental regulations, or conclusions on the state of the environment, must be made by a consensus of 47 groups including oil companies, environmentalists and native peoples.

The Energy and Utilities Board, a CEMA member, approves new oilsands projects, and has never turned one down.

Agency has missed numerous deadlines

But the board also admitted there are problems and that CEMA has missed numerous deadlines.

For example, CEMA was supposed to figure out how much water can be taken out of the Athabasca River before it is unable to support life. It missed that deadline a few years ago and still hasn't finished the work.

"It's very, very important that CEMA, as it's set up, make progress," said Darrin Barter, a spokesman for EUB said. "Our role to protect the public interest includes environmental protection and stewardship and addressing all the technical and regulatory matters."

Barter said CEMA has not come up with any guidelines that would stop or even slow down expansion.

"And part of what CEMA is doing is upholding a part of the what the board's mandate is, so they need to move forward and meet deadlines."

Myles Kitagawa, a CEMA member from the environmental group Toxics Watch, wants to put a freeze on new oilsands projects until the environmental questions are answered.

"Canadians expect the environment to be protected. What this shows is the federal government and provincial regulators aren't in the position to deliver on that expectation," Kitagawa said.

CEMA president Sue Lowell told CBC News that she recognizes there are big problems, but she still thinks consensus is the best way to make these decisions.