Four prairie environmental groups are in Federal Court in Edmonton to challenge plans for the latest oilsands project being developed in Alberta's north.

The Pembina Institute, Sierra Club of Canada, the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta and the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition went to court Tuesday morning to argue Imperial Oil's Kearl project, to be built north of Fort McMurray, should never have been approved by the federal-provincial panel that reviewed the project more than two years ago.

'I don't think there's enough time being spent by federal regulators or Alberta regulators in actually making sure they know how to manage the landscape at the end of the day.'— Sean Nixon, environmental lawyer

The groups argue the mine will strip 200 square kilometres of boreal forest to reach the oil-rich sands underneath, destroying the landscape and damaging wildlife habitat. They also question whether Imperial Oil's promise to reclaim the land goes far enough.

"I don't think there's enough time being spent by federal regulators or Alberta regulators in actually making sure they know how to manage the landscape at the end of the day, being sure they know how to reclaim these mine pits at the end of development," Sean Nixon, the lawyer representing the environment groups, said Monday.

Nixon spent Tuesday morning showing the court slides depicting the process of turning the oil-laden earth and clay into synthetic crude, including pictures of tailings ponds filled with materials left over from the extraction process. The hearing is expected to last until Thursday.

Imperial Oil says the issues surrounding the project were all addressed by the regulators before approval was granted.

"We feel that the joint panel, which held 16 days of public hearings and considered a mound of evidence, provided a well-reasoned, well-considered report," said Imperial Oil spokesman Gordon Wong.

Imperial hopes to have the project running by 2010, with production pegged at 300,000 barrels of bitumen a day.