Read this media advisory from Fraser Riverkeeper regarding the announcement today that the Commission on Environmental Co-operation – an international regulatory body set-up under NAFTA – will conduct an investigation in possible failure of Canada to enforce environmental laws with regards to the Iona Sewage Treatment Facility in the mouth of the Fraser River.

The Commission, set up under the North American Free Trade Agreement, has authority to investigate wherever a member nation is failing to live up to its own environmental laws. Fraser Riverkeeper and the David Suzuki Foundation, working with Waterkeeper Alliance groups throughout North America, filed a complaint with the Commission in April, 2010, based on Canada’s failure to enforce the Fisheries Act against the Iona Sewage Treatment Facility in the Fraser River.

“The Iona facility continues to this day to fail its toxicity tests,” said Doug Chapman, Fraser Riverkeeper. “That means that the discharge from the plant kills fish: the very Fraser River sockeye stocks whose alarmingly low numbers are currently the subject of the Cohen Commission hearings in Vancouver.” (Dec. 16, 2011)

Read more: http://www.fraserriverkeeper.ca/2011/12/cec-to-investigate-metros-sewage-treatment-record/