A dam failure in British Columbia may make it more difficult for new mining projects to be approved. Last week, an accident at Imperial Metals Corps’s Mount Polley copper and gold mine sent billions of gallons of waste from a tailings pond flowing into nearby creeks, rivers, and lakes, causing the local district authority to declare a state of emergency amid concerns about drinking water. The breach will likely be problematic for the mining industry, which makes up about one-fifth of Canada’s exports.

More than 50 European and U.S. scientists have written to the president of the European Commission to urge him to go forward with a law that would label tar sands oil as 25 percent more polluting than other forms of oil. The law, which has been in limbo since it was approved by EU member states in 2009, has faced significant criticism from oil companies such as Total and BP. Canada—the world’s biggest producer of oil from tar sands—has headed the opposition to the law.

The oil sands industry has found a new place to store the water produced through the process used to turn bitumen into diesel fuel: a man-made lake. Companies such as Syncrude Canada Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and Imperial Oil Ltd. currently produce so much of this water that, by 2022, one month’s output could fill an 11-foot-deep reservoir the size of New York’s Central Park. To combat the problem, they are making plans to create the largest man-made lake district on earth in northern Alberta.

Last Thursday, a federal review panel said that a revised mine plan for Taseko Mines’ New Prosperity copper-gold project in British Columbia still poses a threat to the environment. According to the panel, the project could harm land and resources used by certain aboriginal groups, in addition to the water quality and fish in Fish Lake. In 2010, Ottawa blocked the development of the Taseko project based on worries about damage to the environment, but Taseko claims that the new plan addresses those concerns.

Last Thursday, the Canadian Ministry of the Environment admitted in a report that Canada is likely to fall short of its target for greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, Canada signed the Copenhagen Accord and committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. A year ago, the government forecasted emissions of greenhouse gases to be at 720 megatons by 2020; now, however, Canada estimates that that number will be 734 megatons, a reduction of only 0.4 percent.

Environment Canada's top official told the main Canadian oil and gas lobby group that the government needed more information about unidentified fluids involved in the hydraulic fracturing process. Paul Boothe, the former deputy minister, wrote that a voluntary industry disclosure program was a positive step toward improving environmental performance, but he also suggested that it was not enough to satisfy the environment department.

Alberta's oil sands development has produced carcinogens in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, according to a study released last week, and the contamination may cover a much larger area than initially believed. The study analyzed sediment dating back 50 years from six small lakes in the center of the oil sands industry, finding that levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons had risen steadily since the beginning of large-scale oil production in 1978.

India and Canada finalized the terms of their nuclear deal, allowing Canadian firms to sell uranium to India. A 1976 ban on the trade of nuclear materials with India, enacted after the nation used Canadian nuclear technology to build its first atomic bomb in 1974, previously halted the trade of Canada's large uranium resources, but India won an exemption in 2008 from the Nuclear Suppliers Group to trade nuclear supplies and technology despite not signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Canada's much-anticipated plan for phasing out old coal-fired power plants was announced on Wednesday, but the government was criticized by environmental groups for releasing regulations that would be much less effective than earlier proposals. Under the new rules, units commissioned before 1975 will cease operations after 50 years or by the end of 2019, whichever is earlier. Units commissioned before 1986 will cease after 50 years or 2029, whichever is earlier. Both are softer requirements than the original 45 year limits given under draft rules released last year.

Environment Minister Peter Kent plans to crack down on the 150 billion liters of raw sewage pumped into Canada's waterways every year, a spokesman announced last week. The government has repeatedly pushed back on planned regulations to improve municipalities' treatment systems, which have been drafted since 2010. However, Kent stressed the importance of creating new standards that will allow Canada's water quality levels to be on par with those of the European Union and the United States, which has required secondary wastewater treatment since the 1970s.