World-renowned ocean pollution scientist Dr. Peter Ross will continue his work through the Vancouver Aquarium, after the federal program he oversaw was shut down by the Harper Government.
“It is with deep regret that I relay news of my termination of employment at Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the loss of my dream job,” Ross wrote.
[quote]It is with even greater sadness that I learn of the demise of DFO’s entire contaminants research program – regionally and nationally. It is with apprehension that I ponder a Canada without any research or monitoring capacity for pollution in our three oceans, or any ability to manage its impacts on commercial fish stocks, traditional foods for over 300,000 aboriginal people and marine wildlife.[/quote]
A year and a half later, the Vancouver Aquarium is offering a new lease on life to Dr. Ross’ work on BC’s coast, with the announcement yesterday of its new Ocean Pollution Science Program.
Ross wastes no time – new study raises alarm on microplastics
Microplastics are contaminating our oceans (Oberbeckmann/University of Hull)
Accompanying the announcement was the release of a new paper by co-authored by Ross which offers a telling reminder of the need for his research. Published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, the study raises the issue of tiny plastic particles permeating the water column on BC’s coast.
Ross and lead author Jean-Pierre Desforges of the University of Victoria took 34 water samples, which revealed high concentrations of “microplastics” in different pockets along the coast.
“There is extensive contamination of sea water by microplastics,” said Ross Tuesday.
[quote]It raises the questions: where are they coming from and do they pose a threat to the food web? This will remain a priority for the aquarium.[/quote]
The greatest contamination levels were found in Queen Charlotte Sound, off the north end of Vancouver Island, with a mean of 7,630 particles per cubic metre
Due to geography and currents, Queen Charlotte Sound off northeastern Vancouver Island recorded the highest levels of microplastics at a mean 7,630 particles per cubic metre — with an overall study high of 9,180 particles. Other readings included:
3,210 particles per cubic metre in the Strait of Georgia
1,710 on the west coast of Vancouver Island
279 in offshore waters of the open Northeast Pacific
Aquarium “stepping up to the plate”
Ross’ work through the Aquarium’s new research program will continue to focus on marine plastics, along with a range of other issues, including marine mammal health, hydrocarbons contamination, seafood health, and other emerging pollution concerns.
“The Ocean Pollution Science Program is part of Vancouver Aquarium’s commitment to understanding and managing our coastal environments, and adds depth to the Aquarium’s current slate of research programs,” says Dr. John Nightingale, Vancouver Aquarium president and CEO.
The program will bring to bear state-of-the-art pollution monitoring equipment that will enable research both on the water and in the lab.
“By launching this program, we’re meeting immediate scientific, conservation and education needs,” says Ross, winner of the Aquarium’s prestigious Murray A. Newman Award for Significant Achievement in Aquatic Research in 2012.
“The Aquarium is stepping up to the plate on an issue that is often vexing and complex but also worthy of dedicated research.”
CAMPBELL RIVER, Canada – The federal government is giving $21,000 to British Columbia salmon farmers to research best practices around the world, more than a year after a $26-million public inquiry made a litany of recommendations.
Conservative MP John Duncan says the funds will allow the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association to review international standards and practices in fish farming in order to identify potential improvements in the province.
The association will then develop a plan for the B.C.’s farmed salmon industry to maintain world-leading standards.
But critics says the federal government has done little to implement the measures already identified by the federal public inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye run in 2009.
The Cohen commission made 75 recommendations in its October 2012 report, which raised questions about the effects on wild salmon from salmon farming in nets in the open ocean.
Duncan says the funds will help the B.C. fish farming industry improve confidence in its products, attract investment and increase exports.
I now have reliable figures on slaughtered fish payments of your taxpayer dollars to billion dollar Norwegian derivative fish farms in BC, and others across Canada. Cermaq Mainstream, Marine Harvest and Grieg Seafood may be happy to hear I will eat some crow, as the BC figures are much lower than my earlier estimate.
The reason for having to make estimates is that fish farms typically do their best to prevent the public knowing how much taxpayer money they receive from us for diseased fish that foul our pristine oceans. Behind the scenes, they often have lawyers trying to keep such numbers, and in the BC case, the disease records for testing of their farms, from the public, as happened during the Cohen Commission. He didn’t buy it.
Industry injunction kept taxpayer subsidies from public
In this case, a fish farm legal injunction made my request wait 10 months before our taxpayer dollars were put in a table and sent to me. My estimate of $35 million in BC is incorrect. The payments to Cermaq Mainstream’s IHN diseased Clayoquot Sound farmed salmon are: $2.64 Million for 959,498 diseased salmon (report date: Nov 2012); and, $201,000 for infected equipment and supplies (report date: Jan 2013). The total is $2.8 Million, or $3 per fish, not $30 per fish.
What has not made much news is that the Grieg Seafood open net operation in Sechelt also received payment for slaughtered IHN diseased fish: $1.61 Million for 312,032 diseased salmon (report date: Nov 2012); and, $152,000 for infected equipment and supplies (2013), or $5.60 per diseased salmon.
Aquaculture industry in Canada nets $50 million public dollars
Here’s the bottom line: in little more than a year, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency paid fish farms almost $50 Million taxpayer dollars for diseased slaughtered fish across Canada.
You see, in addition to the figures I received, I noticed the St. John’s Telegram newspaper reported $33 Million of taxpayer money given to fish farms in Atlantic Canada for slaughtered diseased fish. Their table shows a bunch of handouts pretty close to the often-quoted CFIA $30 per fish.
Some East Coast farms get over $20 per dead fish
A Cooke Aquaculture farm in Belleoram, NL
In July 2013, Manuel’s Arm, a Kelly Cove Salmon farm, was paid $23.96 per fish for 100,000 diseased fish, and its Pot Harbour/Hermitage Bay site was paid $8,232,000, or $23.52 per fish for 350,000 diseased fish in December 2012. In fact, the big story from the east is that at the same time fish are dying of ISA and other diseases and we’re paying for it, DFO is giving NL almost $400 million more taxpayer money to put in more open-net fish farms! What a waste. And one of the firms we gave money to, Gray Aqua, has been sliding in and out of bankruptcy proceedings since last summer.
The reasonable British Columbian has to ask: where is the money for BC’s wild salmon? We want $400 Million for habitat restoration. What is DFO actually spending here? DFO’s community habitat program for Vancouver Island is so small it is almost non-existent: $200,000. For all of BC it is $.9 M this year or .45% of the NL money. DFO: we want $400 Million for wild salmon here. Not simply the $1.8 M salmon licence money given to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, where the $400 M should go so BC once again takes control of its own fish with a made-in-BC program.
Solution lies in closed-containment
The real solution to fish farms is to get the old-tech dinosaurs out of the water, which the BC government can do in 60 days by cancelling leases. Even though fish farms say it can’t be done, I have a list of 65 different closed systems comprising more than 8,000 actual on-land farms around the world.
The most recent symposium on closed containment was in Virginia this past September. Tides Canada maintains a link to the plus fifty presentations. They are even doing closed containment science in Norway, for Pete’s sake.
You may wonder why DFO backs in-ocean fish farms in BC at all. I sure do. And we all remember the Cohen Report recommended DFO be stripped of this conflict of interest and deal solely with wild salmon – the 2005 Wild Salmon Policy and 1986 Habitat Policy, with a new west coast director general for bringing back Fraser sockeye. None of these have happened since Report date of October 31, 2012.
Jobs, public revenue from salmon farms overstated
It’s hard to fathom DFO’s interest in fish farms. Perhaps they believe what they and fish farms like to say: fish farms create employment and revenue. Well, I waited five years for the best source of info to update their numbers, and they show decisively that fish farms don’t contribute much of either.
The best stats, from BC Stats – that DFO paid for and put its name on, but acts as though they don’t exist – show this is not true.
In BC all aquaculture comprises a measly $61.9 Million of Gross Provincial Product, meaning only 9% of the fishing sector’s total of $667.4 M BC GPP contribution. Sport fishing is miles above at $325.7 M or 48.4%. And the employment that they talk of is similarly small at 1,700 or 12.2% in multiplier terms that include spin off jobs. The entire fish sector is 13,900 jobs, with sport fishing 60.4% at 8,400 jobs. The $400 Million for wild salmon restoration would do wonders for processing, commercial and sport fishing employment, not to mention the entire wild BC province.
Sharp wild salmon decline coincides with arrival of farms
And there’s more. I spotted a science paper that confirms what most supporters of wild salmon have always suspected: wild salmon stocks in BC have declined 50% since fish farms set up shop. The paper shows the same in Ireland, Scotland and Atlantic Canada. Note that Commercial sector employment has been cut 50%, 1,400 jobs, in the same time period.
So, I did some sleuthing and found that the actualnumber of real fish farm jobs in BC is a very small 795. Commercial job losses in the same period are 1,400 jobs due to the loss of wild salmon. So fish farm jobs likely eliminate jobs in other sectors, resulting in a net employment loss. The same can be said for revenue.
This does not add in losses in processing, and the sport sector from DFO allowing wild salmon to decline 50%. Little wonder the Cohen Commission said DFO is in a conflict of interest. His recommendation was that fish farm support needs to be eliminated and DFO should concentrate solely on the Wild Salmon Policy and its Habitat Policy.
In a blog posting today, independent salmon biologist Alexandra Morton calls attention to the recent listing of Norway-based Marine Harvest – the world’s largest salmon farming company – on the New York Stock Exchange. The move comes on the heels of the revelation that the Harper Government is planning a major expansion of open net-pen salmon farms on BC’s coast, made public by First Nations Chief Bob Chamberlin.
As Chamberlin noted, the plan utterly disregards the conclusions of the $26 million Cohen Inquiry into collapsing Fraser River sockeye stocks, which recommended a partial moratorium on new farms and urged more scientific study into disease transfer from fish farms to wild salmon, calling for the Precautionary Principle to be implemented:
[quote]It’s time for us to hold this government to account. This is an urgent message to all the people who rely upon wild salmon in BC…I urge all of you to take a stand, to start writing letters to the editors, for First Nations people to start demanding that your chief and council stand up and do what’s right for wild salmon. We cannot sit back idly and hope something gets done. It’s up to you, it’s up to me. I want to lock arms with all of you and do what’s necessary to save wild salmon.[/quote]
For her part, Morton, connects the dots between the federal policy change and Marine Harvest’s move to recruit North American investment on the NYSE:
In early January, we learned the Harper government quietly invited the Norwegian salmon farming industry to expand in BC. He did this despite specific warnings to the opposite by his own federal Commission. He did this ignoring his constitutional responsibility to consult with First Nations. See press release by Living Oceans.
A few days later on January 28, 2014, Marine Harvest (the biggest of the three Norwegian operators using BC to grow “their” fish) was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They rang the Opening Bell. Their press release states they plan to lead the blue revolution similar to 5000 years ago when we went from hunting to farming.They fail to mention salmon farming requires aggressive wild fisheries. Truth is a scarce commodity in this deal.
Shea: Thank you for your correspondence of October 30, 2013, regarding the Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, which was headed by Justice Cohen.
Reid: As of January 19, 2014, DFO still has not responded to the Cohen Report, tabled Oct 31, 2012. This is why I and others started Environmental Petitions with the federal AG – to force DFO to respond concretely. That process requires a mandatory response in 120 days. No response yet.
Shea: The Cohen Commission provided Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) with valuable information that informs our day to day work of protecting Pacific salmon. DFO is responding to Commissioner Cohen’s recommendations by taking concrete actions that make a real difference.
Minister Gail Shea gives salmon farms a “thumbs up”
Reid: One of Cohen’s important recommendations was for DFO to relinquish its conflicting role of supporting fish farms and put its full effort into implementing the 2005 Wild Salmon Policy, and the 1986 Habitat Policy. The report says there should be a new western director general charged with bringing back Fraser sockeye. DFO has not responded to these recommendations.
Shea: The Government of Canada’s commitment and long-term support for the salmon fishery in British Columbia is demonstrated by the significant annual investment that is made on a wide range of activities including fisheries science, protection of fisheries habitat, salmon enhancement, catch monitoring, and enforcement. Currently, DFO invests more than $65 million per year, of which about $20 million is directly related to Fraser River sockeye.
Reid: Well, no. My estimate of habitat restoration needs is $500 Million over five years. If you look at the Clay Bank on the Cowichan that was fixed for a cost of $1.5 M and is perhaps 300 yards long, it is immediately clear the cost of habitat restoration needed in BC. And on the Fraser, DFO actually allowed removal of spawning gravel that resulted in the destruction of 3 Million pink salmon. And where is restoration for 20 miles of San Juan River that looks like a lunar landscape from logging damage? Ditto for the Klanawa. And there are those 77,000 culverts all over BC with electrical potentials fish will not cross to feed or spawn. The BC government fixed 50 and stated the rest would take 3,080 years. It has been letting science people go for years, and the Harper Government has been in the news for dismantling science all over Canada.
So, please, send me a disaggregated budget that identifies real projects and costs. Salmon enhancement is about $21 M for all of BC – but it’s not habitat restoration. Furthermore, by comparison, Bonneville Power, invests more than $40 Million each year for one river, the Columbia, with the entire US budget reaching $1 Billion some years. And your panel that follows Fraser sockeye stocks is an impressive technical achievement, requiring DNA analysis twice per week in real time. This is outstanding, but it is not habitat restoration, nor enhancement. And what does enforcement do with rehabilitation of freshwater salmon habitat which all agree is the real problem? I will take your budget apart to see what, if anything, matters to the issue.
Shea: In addition, Economic Action Plan 2013 included three major measures that are directly addressing Cohen Commission recommendations. First, the Government committed $57.5 million over five years that will help bolster environmental protection in the aquaculture sector through science, enhanced regulatory regime and improved reporting. Second, it contained a new program to support recreational fisheries conservation activities through partnerships with community groups. Third, all revenue collected from the Salmon Conservation Stamp will be dedicated to the Pacific Salmon Foundation, which will mean approximately $1 million more in revenue every year to support the Foundation’s great work.
Reid: Well, no, putting $57.5 M into fish farms is not the same thing as addressing the Wild Salmon Policy, enhancement and habitat restoration for wild, native Pacific salmonids. BC wants fish farms out of the water.
Second, your community group program is only $1.9 M over two years, with only $.2M on Vancouver Island in 2013.
Third, the Salmon Stamp money given to the PSF is actually $1.8 M per year – and is not new as it has been done for some years. I recommended to Brian Riddell, CEO, that he suggest quadrupling the Stamp so revenue was $7.2 M per year to local projects, and gain a commitment from DFO and BC for $7.2 M per year each. The resulting $21.6 M is the beginning of a program of some size, with the leverage of local restoration groups and businesses, that begins to seriously address habitat restoration.
And, in all fairness let’s put this $1.8 M in proper perspective. You are putting $400 M into NL for fish farms, so the $1.8 here is .45% of what you are currently giving to fish farms that Cohen said you should hive off from your activities because it is fundamentally opposed to your responsibilities for wild fish. Where is the $400 M for wild BC salmon?
Shea: The Government has also decided to limit salmon farming activities in the Discovery Islands until September 30, 2020, including not allowing any new marine aquaculture sites; this is in line with Commissioner Cohen’s recommendations. During this time, additional scientific research will be conducted and a disease risk assessment process will be completed. While the Canadian aquaculture industry already operates under some of the strictest regulations in the world in order to minimize risks to the environment, this action responds to the Commission’s call to address “scientific unknowns” in the Discovery Islands.
Reid: Well, yes, a moratorium on the Discovery Island farms is in line with Cohen. On the other hand, his terms of reference, which you set, only allowed him to look at Fraser sockeye. His recommendations should be viewed as applying to the entire province.
As for science, this paper shows a 50% drop in wild salmon numbers in BC since fish farms were introduced. They note the same in Ireland, Scotland and Atlantic Canada, in fact anywhere farmed salmon are introduced. Note that Commercial sector employment has been cut 50%, 1,700 jobs, in the same time period. So fish farm jobs likely eliminate jobs in other sectors, resulting in a net employment loss.
Also, you may recall that your own scientist, Kristi Miller, found the exotic disease, ISA, back to 1988 in Fraser sockeye and both ISA and HSMI, also an exotic Norwegian disease, in the Creative chinook farms – roughly 125,000 diseased fish per farm – in Clayoquot where your own estimate is only 501 wild chinook remaining in 6 streams. And didn’t they just win one of your ‘awards’ for being environmentally sustainable?
You will be aware that the Cohen evidence found an inability for DFO’s Moncton Lab, the CFIA and BC to find ISA disease. And now Miller and Riddell will be doing such work, which sounds good, but you have only allowed this with DFO, CFIA, and fish farms parsing the news releases. I’d say this is a ‘no’ as well.
And on the ‘strictest laws’ comment, this is regularly said all over the world. In the recent past, in Chile, USA, Norway and Scotland. The obvious answer is that your assertion cannot be true because every nation has its own laws.
Shea: The Department is committed to the viability of the salmon fishery in British Columbia so that it remains a sustainable and prosperous resource for years to come.
Reid: I would say, sadly, BC opinion is that DFO is managing wild salmon into extinction and in the end there will be no problem when all the salmon are gone. This includes Kennedy Lake sockeye, Georgia Strait coho, those Fraser 4-2s and 5-2s and the Owikeno sockeye that collapsed more than 20 years ago but have not recovered. Your own science says these are small fry and not killed in freshwater. You will know that the SFU Routledge Owikeno fry were the first ones to be found with ISA in BC, by three different labs.
The 3-member Joint Review Panel for the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline
Not even a month has pass since the federally-appointed Joint Review Panel (JRP) released its official report recommending approval of the Northern Gateway Pipeline, pending the fulfillment of 209 conditions. Yet already two separate suits have been filed against the integrity of the report, with groups requesting Cabinet delay a final decision on the pipeline project until the federal court of appeals can assess the complaints.
One of the suits, filed Friday by the Environmental Law Centre on behalf of B.C. Nature (the Federation of British Columbia Naturalists), requested the JRP’s report be declared invalid and that Cabinet halt its decision on the pipeline project until the court challenge is heard. The second suit, filed by Ecojustice on behalf of several environmental groups claims the JRP report is based on insufficient evidence and therefore fails to constitute a full environmental assessment under the law.
Chris Tollefson, B.C. Nature’s lawyer and executive director of the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria, says “we have asked that the federal court make an order that no further steps be taken by any federal regulator or by Cabinet until this request is adjudicated.”
[quote]We’re confident that the federal court will make that order because we’ve raised some serious issues with the legality of the report and if the report is flawed then it can’t go to Cabinet, and it shouldn’t go to Cabinet.[/quote]
Legal errors in Enbridge review prompt challenge
B.C. Nature has identified almost a dozen legal errors that bring the legitimacy of the JRP’s recommendation into question.
“The two [errors] that we think are the most serious among those are the finding with respect to justification of serious harm to caribou and grizzly and the ruling with respect to a potential major oil spill and its consequences. We say that in both of those areas there is a glaring error that’s occurred that has to be addressed by the federal court of appeal,” Tollefson said.
A federal recovery strategy for humpack whales on the B.C. coast released in October cited potential increased oil tanker traffic as a danger to dwindling populations. The recovery strategy, released after a five-year delay, also noted the danger toxic spills posed to critical habitat.
A federal caribou recovery strategy is expected by the end of the month.
“Both those federal strategies have to be consider by the Cabinet when it ultimately rules on this [project]… For caribou this pipeline has some serious consequences and it will be interesting to see what happens when the federal strategy comes down.”
JRP hearing a “failure”
For Tollefson, the inadequacy of the official JRP report points to a failure of the Northern Gateway hearing process.
“It’s disappointing for everybody involved on the intervenor side, how this has unfolded,” he said.
[quote]The report is not only legally flawed in relation to the specific issues that we’ve raised but I think there’s a more general flaw, which is that it’s failed the test of transparency, it fails test of intelligibility. It basically doesn’t grapple with the evidence.[/quote]
The report reaches its conclusions “without setting out its analysis,” Tollefson says, “without discussing the evidence that forms the basis for those conclusions.”
“So we think there’s a basic rule of law issue here: does this report even conform with the basic requirements in terms of intelligibility and transparency that we expect from tribunals?”
“And we say that it doesn’t.”
Tollefson anticipates that the request will delay Cabinet’s 180 decision period, saying it would be “very difficult” for Cabinet to address and respond to B.C. Nature’s complaints within that timeframe.
For Tollefson a delay in Cabinet’s decision isn’t only foreseeable, it’s appropriate.
“Cabinet after all has to make its decision based upon the findings and the recommendations that arise out of this report.” Without a reliable report, what kind of decision can British Columbians expect?
The errors in the report could send the JRP back to the drawing board.
“If we’re upheld on any of our arguments, that report will have to be sent back to the JRP, redone, and we’ll basically be starting, potentially, back where we were in June. In those circumstances, it makes little sense for Cabinet to make a decision given that level of uncertainty around the future of the report.”
An oil pipeline crossing the Tanana River in Alaska
The federal NDP’s BC-based deputy fisheries critic is questioning a quiet deal signed just before Christmas that saw the Department of Fisheries and Oceans hand over the protection of fish habitat and species at risk along energy pipelines to the National Energy Board.
“The Conservatives have gone too far,” says New Westminster–Coquitlam & Port Moody MP Fin Donnelly.
[quote]They have gutted the Fisheries Act, slashed DFO’s budget, launched an all-out attack on science, and now they have handed over the power to make decisions on the environment to a body whose mandate is to deal with pipeline and energy development.[/quote]
The NEB lacks the knowledge to properly assess fisheries issues, says Donnelly. “The federal government is still the only body with the jurisdiction and sufficient expertise to assess potential damage to fisheries.”
Rather than making any legal changes to the Fisheries Act or Species at Risk Act, the deal came in the form of a “memorandum of understanding” between DFO and the NEB, making the Calgary-based energy regulator the point agency in determining whether aspects of a pipeline project could pose a risk to fish habitat or species at risk. Only then, in certain specific cases, would the NEB turn to DFO for what sounds very much like a rubber-stamped permit:
[quote]The NEB will assess a project application and determine if mitigation strategies are needed to reduce or prevent impacts to fish or fish habitat. If the project could result in serious harm for fish then the NEB will inform DFO that a Fisheries Act authorization under paragraph 35(2)(b) is likely to be required. DFO will review and issue an authorization when appropriate, prior to project construction. Authorizations issued by DFO would relate to those watercourses impacted, not the entire project.[/quote]
“Streamlining” pipeline approvals
The memo clearly states the reason for its creation – part of the Harper Govenrment’s continued efforts to clear roadblocks to energy development: “This MOU better integrates the Government of Canada’s initiative to streamline application processes by eliminating the requirement for duplicate reviews.”
“This clearly demonstrates the Conservative government’s complete lack of understanding of and regard for science in decision-making, and the importance of proper environmental assessment,” counters the NDP’s Donnelly.
DFO: Nothing fishy about deal
DFO issued a statement yesterday in response to concerns about the MOU, suggesting that the deal with the NEB is similar to previous collaborative agreements with provincial regulators. “Over the years, DFO has established similar arrangements with some Provinces and with Conservation Authorities,” the statement read. “In all cases, the standards for fisheries protection are established by DFO and the Fisheries Act Authorizations continue to be done by DFO.”
Yet the department strains belief in touting the NEB’s ability to protect fish habitat as well as DFO:
[quote]Our collaborative arrangement builds on the decades of training, experience and expertise of NEB biologists in assessing the potential environmental impacts of development projects, including regarding fish and fish habitat…The National Energy Board is best placed to deliver regulatory review responsibilities under the Fisheries Act for activities relating to federally regulated energy infrastructure (such as pipelines).[/quote]Ecojustice Executive Director Devon Page sees this as the latest in a long line of coordinated attacks on Canada’s environmental laws by the Harper Government. Says Page, “Taking authority for assessing harm to fish and their waters from fisheries experts and granting it to a pipeline approving body, after having vastly weakened of our laws through omnibus bills, is pretty much the straw that breaks the environment’s back when it comes to appropriate stewardship of the thousands of lakes, rivers and streams that are proposed to be bisected by pipelines.”
Cayoose Creek, where construction of a municipal water intake may be harming salmon habitat (Jim Upton)
LILLOOET, B.C. – Members of a First Nation in Lillooet, B.C., have set up a blockade near that Fraser River district to protest work they believe is destroying fish habitat on disputed land.
Sekw’el’was Chief Michelle Edwards says the blockade on Cayoose Creek (a.k.a Seton River), on Lillooet’s southern outskirts, began at 7 a.m. Friday.
There’s no indication when it could be removed, but Edwards says traffic on nearby Highway 99 is not affected and members are only halting hired contractors at the work site.
Early construction of a water intake on Cayoose Creek Thursday (Michelle Edwards)
She says the District of Lillooet has fast-tracked construction of a water intake on land claimed by the Sekw’el’was, although it knows the project will be appealed to the provincial Environmental Appeal Board.
Edwards says damage is not yet irreversible, but warns the work has the potential to wipe out spawning beds and incubating eggs in a section of Cayoose Creek used by coho, steelhead, chinook, pink, sockeye and bull trout.
She says many First Nations along the Seton and Fraser rivers rely on those salmon runs and, as caretakers of the watershed, the Sekw’el’was must protect the fish.
It’s the latest in a long line of efforts by the Harper Government to dismantle Canada’s environmental laws in order to facilitate energy development. In a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the National Energy Board – quietly released just before Christmas – DFO relinquished much of its oversight of fish habitat in pipeline corridors.
The decision means that Enbridge and Kinder Morgan – which formally filed its own pipeline application on December 16, the same day the NEB memo was made public – will no longer need to obtain permits from DFO to alter habitat for their projects. “Fish and fish habitat along those pipelines is now the responsibility of the Alberta-based, energy friendly National Energy Board,” notes Robin Rowland of Northwest Energy News, who broke the story yesterday.
NEB takes point on fisheries, species at risk
Under the terms of the agreement, the NEB becomes the lead agency in determining issues that relate to the Species at Risk Actorthe Fisheries Act and, only involving DFO should they deem it necessary:
[quote]The NEB will assess a project application and determine if mitigation strategies are needed to reduce or prevent impacts to fish or fish habitat. If the project could result in serious harm for fish then the NEB will inform DFO that a Fisheries Act authorization under paragraph 35(2)(b) is likely to be required. DFO will review and issue an authorization when appropriate, prior to project construction. Authorizations issued by DFO would relate to those watercourses impacted, not the entire project.
This MOU better integrates the Government of Canada’s initiative to streamline application processes by eliminating the requirement for duplicate reviews.[/quote]
Asks Rowland, “Just how much expertise, if any, in fisheries and fish habitat can be found in the Calgary offices of the National Energy Board?”
First Nations consultation impacted
The memo – particularly the following passage – is likely also to provoke legal challenges from First Nations over the dimishing of their constitutional rights to consultation and accommodation:
[quote]When the Crown contemplates conduct that may adversely affect established or potential Aboriginal and treaty rights in relation to the issuance of authorizations under the Fisheries Act, and/or permits under SARA, the NEB application assessment process will be relied upon by DFO to the extent possible, to ensure Aboriginal groups are consulted as required, and where appropriate accommodated[/quote]
The move hardly comes as a surprise, given the gutting of the Fisheries Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act, and many other longstanding Canadian environmental laws in order to push forward the Conservative energy policy. Yet it is sure to provoke a serious backlash amongst British Columbians and First Nations as the ramifications of this quiet deal sink in.
Asian carp have overtaken the Mississippi basin. Plans are afoot to keep them out of the Great Lakes.
by John Flesher, The Associated Press
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to release a long-anticipated study Monday listing options for shielding the Great Lakes from an attack by ravenous Asian carp.
The corps has spent years examining ways to block aquatic pathways that invasive species could use to migrate between the lakes and the Mississippi River basin.
Bighead and silver carp that were imported from Asia and have infested the Mississippi and its tributaries are the biggest concern. Scientists also have identified about three dozen other aquatic invaders that could move from one watershed to the other.
Physically separating the two basins where they connect in the Chicago area is expected to be among options in the report.
Some in Congress favour that. But local business groups say it would hurt the economy.
