OTTAWA — After some unflattering international exposure for Alberta's oilsands sector prompted by recent reports of mutant fish and a high-profile Hollywood visit, Canada's Environment Minister Jim Prentice responded Thursday by launching an investigation that will examine an industry-led water-monitoring program.

Prentice appointed a panel of scientists to examine the evidence and report back to him within 60 days whether it's time for a new regime to crack down on industrial pollution that could be harmful to the environment and human health.

"I want them to review the existing monitoring regime and frankly tell me whether it is, in their opinion, adequate or not and if not, why not," said Prentice at a news conference that comes in the same week as a trip to the oilsands region by Hollywood director James Cameron.

The government also indicated that the panel's report would be made public after Prentice has received and reviewed the document.

"I would hasten to add that they will not be resolving in 60 days, all of the data disputes and the controversy that relates to existing data," Prentice said. "That's not the purpose of the inquiry. The purpose of their inquiry is to make recommendations on what a state of the art water monitoring regime should look like and then we will move to ensure that that is in place."

Prentice has previously described reports which suggest industry is dumping toxins into the water as allegations, but explained that he had been watching developments and new research which emerged in recent months.

Recent media reports have also focused on the discoveries of mutant fish found in the Athabasca River near oilsands mining operations, as well as questions raised in the recent visits to Canada by Cameron and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"I have had my own concerns about the nature of the testing that's being done and have proceeded on this basis to get immediate response from some of Canada's best scientists," Prentice said.

The panel will be chaired by Elizabeth Dowdeswell, who also is president of the Council of Canadian Academies, which advises the government on science issues. Dowdeswell also became the first woman to be executive director of the United Nations Environment Program in 1992, following a posting as assistant deputy minister at Environment Canada from 1989 to 1992.

The other members of Prentice's new scientific panel of experts are Peter J. Dillon, Subhasis Ghoshal, Andrew D. Miall, Joseph Rasmussen and John P. Smol.

David Schindler, a University of Alberta biologist who has produced peer-reviewed research that raised alarm bells about industrial pollution from the oilsands, praised members of the panel, but lamented that Prentice's announcement was long overdue.

"It's too bad people of this calibre were not asked to help design the monitoring program in the first place, we would have a couple of decades of good data now," said Schindler in an email to Postmedia News.

Fred Kuzmic, a spokesman for the industry-funded Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program, said the member companies welcomed the new federal investigation, but also noted that there were other monitoring efforts from the federal and provincial governments that are part of the equation.