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.

Part one of a series. Provincial lab played key role in denying existence of HSMI in BC.

10 Jan 2018

In 2002, Dr. Ian Keith, a senior DFO veterinarian, began noticing strange heart lesions when he examined Atlantic salmon from B.C.’s growing fish farm industry.

Keith was likely the first to detect signs of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation. The disease, first found three years earlier in Norwegian farmed salmon, went on to plague the industry there, killing up to 20 per cent of salmon in some outbreaks.

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.

A day after it went adrift, a fuel-loaded barge was under a tug's control near Bella Bella on Monday, and a B.C. native leader got an unexpected chance to take concerns over such situations directly to the federal Transport Minister.

Marilyn Slett, chief councillor of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, which raised alarms in October, 2016, when a vessel leaked diesel fuel in waters that are part of their traditional territory, happened to be in Ottawa on Monday for a meeting on reconciliation as the fate of the Zidell Marine 277 played out in the same area.

EDMONTON — The Canadian government says it lacked the scientific evidence to determine if oilsands tailings ponds were leaking into waterways and hurting fish.

But the government says it continues to work on methods to determine if chemicals associated with bitumen in groundwater are natural, or the result of industry.

The government has provided a response to a call from the environmental arm of NAFTA to explain what Canada is doing to stop oilsands tailings ponds from leaking into Alberta waterways.

A similar warning was first issued by scientists in 1992

Nov 13, 2017

More than 15,000 scientists around the world have issued a global warning: there needs to be change in order to save Earth.

It comes 25 years after the first notice in 1992 when a mere 1,500 scientists issued a similar warning. 

This new cautioning — which gained popularity on Twitter with #ScientistsWarningToHumanity — garnered more than 15,000 signatures. 

MARINE HARVEST MOVES TO EVICT FIRST NATIONS

Desperate to resume operations despite warnings from First Nations and Province of BC