Ecology/Environment

Regulator’s management of fracking dams, release of timely information among concerns - Jan. 23, 2018

Investment in northeastern B.C.’s gas fields has soared in the last several years, thanks to the abundance of gas and liquids in the Montney formation and the promise of a new liquefied natural gas industry developing.

Jeakins said the commission’s annual budget of $50 million and staff of 250 have kept pace with the industry’s growth.

It's an oil spill the size of Paris. But only now is the world's attention catching up with the vast scale of the disaster in the East China Sea — the largest tanker spill in decades.

The crash itself happened weeks ago when an Iranian tanker called the Sanchi collided with a Chinese freighter on January 6 and burst into flames, later sinking. Thirty-two crew members are presumed dead.

January 18, 2018

Shortly before 4 p.m. on November 26, 2017, a U.S. barge carrying 3.5 million litres of diesel to Alaska broke free from its tugboat, the Jake Shearer, off the rocky shore of British Columbia’s Goose Island. Westerly winds were blowing at 45 knots while rain all but sandblasted the side of the barge, now anchored precariously in rough waters. The Canadian Coast Guard vessel deployed from Prince Rupert, approximately 300 kilometres away, wasn’t expected to reach the stranded barge until 7:30 p.m. at the earliest.

(Fort St. John, B.C., Treaty 8 Territory, Jan 16, 2018) – The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations have filed notices of civil action alleging that the Site C hydroelectric project, together with the two previous dams on the Peace River, unjustifiably infringes their constitutional rights under Treaty 8, stating:  

Jan. 10/18

It has been a month now since the BC government announced that Site C would continue. The accounting rationale used by Premier Horgan makes absolutely no sense in light of the findings from the recent BCUC review, and the much greater financial woes of continuing the project.

Premier Horgan announced in December that his government would proceed with the Site C dam, increasing its budget by more than 2 billion dollars despite having opposed it before.

The Assembly of First Nations has teamed up with Indigenous groups from Ecuador on the Canadian battleground for one of the largest environmental claims in history.

A discharge of 16,500 gallons of "hazardous wastewater" from pipeline testing in Agawam has prompted intervention by the two U.S. senators that represent Massachusetts.

In a letters to federal regulators, U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren said Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co.'s release of pressure testing wastewater Nov. 20 poses a threat to public health and the environment in surrounding communities.

Molina Dawson and Karissa Glendale are vowing to continue their fight against the fish farm industry despite a British Columbia Supreme Court ruling that granted injunctions to two companies against them.

The province’s highest court has granted Marine Harvest Canada and Cermaq Canada injunctions at four different salmon farms north of Vancouver Island.

This means Dawson, Glendale and a number of other First Nation protestors must stay away or face being arrested.

But they say the injunctions won’t stop them.