Chris Powter, Owner, Enviro Q&A Services
Chris has a B.Sc. in Ecology and an M.Sc. in Plant Ecology from the University of Guelph. He is the owner of Enviro Q&A Services, a consulting firm providing environmental advice and guidance to the resource industry and government regulators since 2015.
Chris worked for Alberta Environment for 29 years, including duties in land reclamation from 1981 to 2002, then in policy and legislation development from 2002 to 2007 and finally as the head of the provincial environmental assessment program from 2007 to 2010.
From April 2010 to December 2014 Chris was the Executive Director of the Oil Sands Research and Information Network (OSRIN) in the School of Energy and the Environment at the University of Alberta. His work involved identifying research and information gaps related to environmental impacts of oil sands mining, filling those gaps through research, and disseminating information to regulators, industry, and the public.
Chris is a member of the Environmental Appeals Board and the Public Lands Appeal Board.
Chris was the recipient of the Canadian Land Reclamation Association’s Edward M. Watkin Award in 1988, the Noranda Land Reclamation Award in 2001 and the Alberta Chamber of Resources 2004 Reclamation Citation for lifetime achievement. He was also a longtime editor of the CLRA’s Reclamation Newsletter and the IALR Newsletter, and author of Curmudgeon’s Corner in the Canadian Reclamation magazine for 10 years.
Chris Powter
Phone: 780-893-3808
e-mail: enviroqas@shaw.ca
Dean MacKenzie, Vice President, Environment (Growth and Innovation), Vertex Resource Group Ltd.
Dean is Vice President – Growth and Innovation at Vertex Resource Group Ltd. He has 22 years of land reclamation experience in consulting and research and development, working in Oil and Gas, Oil Sands Mining, in situ Oil Sands, Coal Mines, Peat Harvesting, Pipelines, Spills, and Aggregate operations. Dean has a strong interest in R&D to improve land reclamation policy and practices.