LNG - Fracking

Well, fellow friends of freedom of the press, what now?

The Squamish First Nation has given the green light to the $1.7 billion Woodfibre LNG project in the form of a Squamish environmental certificate.

Squamish council has issued an environmental certificate to Woodfibre LNG, but has yet to give one to FortisBC, which would build the pipeline infrastructure needed to supply the plant with gas.  

However, both FortisBC and Woodfibre have agreed to all 25 conditions that the Squamish have set out for approving the project.

The province faces a new First Nations legal challenge to an element of the Pacific Northwest Liquefied Natural Gas project just as it prepares to open its major annual conference aimed at promoting the prospects of its still nascent industry.

[Website editor's note: Two articles, published Sept 30 and Oct 1, 2015,  on the proposed Energy East tar sands pipeline and the proposed gas pipeline and LNG plant in BC] 

[Webpage editor's note: This article is part of a series on water supply and use in British Columbia published in the Vancouver Sun daily. This article addresses the water use and abuse by the natural gas fracking industry in the northeast of the province, incluidng the huge expansion of water abuse if plans by the industry to create liquefied natural gas production (LNG) on coastal BC are successful.]

The Lax Kw’alaams First Nation is seeking aboriginal title to Lelu Island and Flora Bank, creating a legal obstacle for a Malaysian-led consortium that wants to build an $11.4-billion terminal to export liquefied natural gas from British Columbia.

The aboriginal group will file a notice of civil claim to launch the legal action next week in the B.C. Supreme Court, Lax Kw’alaams Mayor Garry Reece said in an interview on Friday.

About 50 members of the Tsartlip First Nation joined in the protest as representatives of Steelhead LNG arrived at the band office Friday for the meeting.

The Tsartlip do not currently support the project, saying they were not consulted before the deal was announced last month.

Chief Don Tom says when industry approaches communities that live in poverty it makes those communities vulnerable.

Fracking is a critical component of the B.C. Liberal government’s aspiration to develop a liquefied natural gas industry, and the public has been assured the practice is safe and well regulated.

A recent B.C. Environmental Appeal Board judgment, however, chronicles a provincial decision-making process around a fracking operation that was informed by untried, slapdash science.

It is not the picture painted by Premier Christy Clark and her government. “We have the best record of fracking in the world,” she told The Globe and Mail in October, 2013. “We’re good at it.”

Northern B.C. First Nation members say they stopped Malaysian state-controlled Petronas, the company behind an $11.4-billion liquefied natural gas terminal, from starting test ocean drilling in northwest B.C. this weekend.

The 33-metre Quin Delta drill ship, owned by Gregg Marine in California, and a barge were moved into the waters off Lelu Island near Prince Rupert by Pacific NorthWest LNG early Saturday morning.

Some equipment was set up before First Nations went out to the ship and asked the workers to stop, said Joey Wesley, a Lax Kw’alaams First Nation member.