The B.C. government is failing to protect drinking water from increased risks that include climate change and industrial activities such as logging, auditor general Carol Bellringer found in a report released on Tuesday.

Bellringer’s independent audit zeroed in on the leadership roles of the health ministry and provincial health officer, saying accountability measures for safeguarding drinking water are “of grave concern.”

“We found that health and the PHO [provincial health officer] are not sufficiently protecting drinking water for British Columbians,” Bellringer told reporters at a news conference.

The health ministry does not know which water systems are at risk and has no strategy to address those risks, the report concluded.

Risk of contamination increases in small water systems

The audit comes as communities around B.C. grapple with imminent plans for logging and other industrial activities in watersheds that supply their drinking, irrigation and, in some cases, fire-fighting water.

In the Regional District of Central Kootenay, at least seven communities face plans for logging in their watersheds.

They include the bucolic village of Glade, where residents have gone to court in an effort to protect their drinking water from logging on nearby mountain slopes that feed Glade Creek, which supplies much of the community of 300 with water.

In April, members of the Glade Watershed Protection Society were surprised and dismayed when B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan said they had no legal right to clean water.

“Do you have a right to clean water?” McEwan said in court. “I’d suggest you don’t … there just is nowhere in the law where you can look and say, ‘there it is — there’s my right. I have a right to clean water.’ ”

‘You can’t drink money’: Kootenay communities fight logging to protect their drinking water

Heather McSwan, a spokesperson for the Glade Watershed Protection Society, said she hopes the auditor general’s report will raise awareness about the need to safeguard drinking water in B.C. 

“Maybe there’ll be some positive action on getting it protected,” McSwan told The Narwhal. 

McSwan said the report should catch the eye of people who aren’t involved in the type of struggles facing Glade and other communities.

“They might say, ‘Hey, I wasn’t aware that protecting our drinking water was so difficult and that there was even a need to protect drinking water, that it wasn’t already protected by the legislation we have in B.C.’ ” 

B.C. has 4,800 known drinking water systems to regulate — far more than other provinces — and 90 per cent of them are classified as small water systems, serving less than 500 people, Bellringer pointed out.

“The risks of contamination are intensified in small water systems, where some communities may be challenged to afford sufficient water protection systems or to attract and retain qualified water treatment staff,” she told reporters.

No drinking water protection plans developed in last 16 years

Sonia Furstenau, Green Party MLA for Cowichan Valley, said the report highlights the need to take immediate action to protect drinking water.

“Communities across the province are experiencing the impacts of climate change and industrial activity on their water sources,” Furstenau said in a statement. “This is especially true of small, rural and Indigenous communities.

Bellringer’s report singled out the Comox Valley as one example of the government’s failure to protect drinking water. The Comox Lake is the only viable drinking water source for a community of 45,000, the report noted.

“The lake, however, has no restrictions on access and the shores are owned by a variety of private and public entities,” the report said.

In keeping with current legislation, the provincial health officer asked the health minister to establish a drinking water protection plan for the Comox Valley in 2008, 2010, 2015 and 2018, Bellringer said.

“However, government still has not established a plan for the area,” she noted.

Bellringer’s audit found not a single drinking water protection plan has been established in the province over the past 16 years, since the B.C. government committed in 2002 to ensuring safe, reliable and accessible drinking water for all British Columbians.

Muddied waters: how clearcut logging is driving a water crisis in B.C.’s interior

Climate change affects water quality and quantity

Among the drinking water risk factors cited in the report are increasing demand from a growing population, recreation in source watersheds and the proximity of agriculture and livestock and range activities to drinking water sources.

“In rural and remote communities that are supplied by small water systems, these risks are amplified,” the report noted.

B.C.’s small drinking water systems serve approximately 480,000 British Columbians.

Yet actions to address risks in small water systems are “inadequate,” Bellringer concluded.

The report also found the quality and quantity of drinking water sources will be affected as climate change brings more wildfires along with more frequent and intense rainfall, flooding and severe droughts.

“The increase in frequency and intensity of these climatic events is expected to increase the need to upgrade drinking water treatment and distribution infrastructure,” it said.

“This is of particular concern in B.C., where most of the water infrastructure is over 50 years old, and aging equipment can be at risk of failure during climatic events.”

‘Constant vigilance’ of water systems necessary to protect public health

Bellringer told reporters the last known outbreak of waterborne illness in B.C. was in 2004.

“But a single event that contaminates the drinking water system can cause serious health impacts for numerous people. It’s estimated for every reported case of illness hundreds may go unreported,” she said.

“Constant vigilance of our drinking water is necessary to protect public health.”

The audit did not include drinking water systems on First Nations reserves because they fall under the jurisdiction of the First Nations Health Authority, Bellringer said.

The health ministry’s leadership role is “extremely complex and challenging” because 23 different pieces of water protection legislation are parcelled out among various ministries, the report noted.

But the health ministry did not effectively coordinate the involvement of all the ministries and agencies involved and lacked a strategy for providing clear direction for drinking water protection, the report concluded.

While the ministry has taken some action to mitigate risks to drinking water, “more needs to be done,” Bellringer said in a statement.

“Specifically, the ministry does not know which water systems are at risk and has not developed a strategy to address them.”

The audit found the health ministry did not follow through on a legislated mandate to provide updates about water protection in its annual service plans, while the provincial health officer did not demonstrate adequate oversight of drinking water protection officers.

Government not sufficiently informed about ongoing risks to drinking water

“We found that health and the PHO have not kept government sufficiently apprised of the ongoing risks to drinking water,” Bellringer said.

The audit also found that many of the committees formed to help protect drinking water have been disbanded. The health ministry failed to develop a strategic plan to provide clear direction on actions needed by the ministries and regional health authorities to improve drinking water protection, it concluded.

The ministry “has not been as vigilant about protecting our drinking water as it has been in the past,” Bellringer said, noting that the ministry’s leadership and coordination role has waned over time.

The provincial health officer was empowered to provide an annual report to the health ministry on actions taken to protect drinking water, “but this reporting has occurred infrequently,” the auditor general found.

Recommendations the provincial health officer made to various ministries and agencies in progress reports in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2015 “have seen limited or no progress,” the audit concluded.

The report makes eight recommendations to identify risks, improve oversight and monitor progress and trends.

Recommendations include a review of drinking water protection legislation and regulations, led by the health ministry, to identify risks and legislative gaps that may affect the government’s commitment to safeguarding drinking water.

The audit also recommends the health ministry identify risks related to source water protection, drinking water treatment, distribution and small water systems.

The audit will now go to the public accounts committee of the B.C. legislature, and the committee will call witnesses. The health ministry will be required to provide an action plan for the committee.

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Canadians have long been labouring under “the myth of abundance” when it comes to our water resources and we’re in the midst of experiencing an abrupt wake-up call, according to experts.

“We often think of the earth as this wonderful blue pearl, but how much water is there?” says Oliver Brandes, leader of the Water Sustainability Project at the University of Victoria. “Only 2.5 per cent of that water is fresh. A much smaller amount, about 0.3 per cent, is the ground or surface water where we live.”

Brandes told an audience at a September Walrus Talks event that Canada needs to modernize its thinking about water.

“Water, not oil, will define the 21st century,” he said, adding climate change and global conflict will only increase the value of water as a resource.

“If climate change is a shark, water will be its teeth — that’s how we’ll feel it.”

With World Water Day on our minds, here are five things you might not have realized about Canada’s water.

1) Climate Change is Already Threatening Canada’s Water Supplies

“In 2015 the drought spread northward” from California, renowned scientist David Schindler told the Walrus Talks audience in Victoria. “In this part of B.C. you enjoyed a summer of water rationing and red sunset in a grey sky with air quality you normally wouldn’t see outside of Beijing.”

Schindler reminded the audience how much the drought affected emergency teams trying to fight wildfires across the northwest.

“We’re assured by politicians and media that we have lots of water,” Schindler said. “But the water we can see isn’t the sustainable water that we have to work with.”

Schindler cautioned that the delicate balance between precipitation, winter snow pack and glacial runoff provides the foundation for freshwater. That foundation is threatened by the warmer temperatures and drier conditions attributed to climate change. 

2) Canada’s Water Isn’t Being Replenished

Although Canada has about 20 per cent of the world’s fresh water, it’s estimated that only about one per cent of that resource is replenished each year by rain or snowfall, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

3) 73% of First Nations’ Water Systems At Risk of Contamination

Across Canada, the issue of water is of special concern for indigenous communities.

According to the Council of Canadians, 73 per cent of First Nations’ water systems currently face medium or high-level risk of contamination. That figure is unchanged from 2012.

The group further reports that as of January 2015 there were 1,838 drinking water advisories issued in Canada, some of which date back to the 1990s.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives reports that in the fall of 2015 alone 120 First Nations communities were issued 168 drinking water advisories.

In good news, the Trudeau government has committed to ending First Nations drinking water advisories in five years and in today’s budget pledged $141.7 million to accomplish that task.

4) Canadians Guzzle Water

According to the federal government, Canada is one of the highest per-capita consumers of water in the world.

About 70 per cent of Canada’s fresh water is used for agriculture and because a high portion of those agricultural products are exported, Canada is the second highest virtual water exporter in the world (virtual water meaning the hidden cost of water used in the production of a product).

Canada’s net virtual water exports (so, exports minus imports) amount to nearly 60 billion cubic metres each year. That figure, according to the Council of Canadians, is based on outdated data and is likely much higher.

Beyond our personal and agricultural consumption, Canada’s energy industry also uses massive amounts of water for oil and gas production.

In 2011, companies in the Alberta oilsands used a reported 370 million cubic metres of water which is more than the city of Toronto, with a population of 2.8 million, uses annually.

It takes approximately 3.1 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil from the oilsands, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Fracking also uses massive amounts of water. In B.C. alone gas companies were granted permission to withdraw 33.3 million cubic metres of water through long and short-term water licences. A single fracked well can require between 5,000 and 100,000 cubic metres of water, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

5) Water Protections Gutted Under Conservatives

The Conservative government’s omnibus budget bills removed water protections from the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Fisheries Act as well as requirements to consider environmental impacts of major industrial projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Changes to these legal frameworks left 99 per cent of Canada’s freshwater bodies without protection and put thousands of federal scientists and researchers out of work.

Canada has a significant amount of work to do to restore the research and monitoring programs weakened during the last several years.

But in more good news, funding announced in the federal budget today gives some indication that work will be supported at the federal level.

Between 2011/2012 and 2015/2016 an estimated $73.4 million in funding was cut from water programs at Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The budget earmarks $197.1 million over the next five years to be funnelled back to Fisheries and Oceans Canada for ocean and freshwater research. In addition, $81.3 million is allocated for Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources Canada to protect 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas by 2020.

Another $3.1 million is allocated to Environment and Climate Change Canada to preserve the Great Lakes.

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The steady stream of trucks filled with contaminated waste that have been making their way to the small community of Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island for the last 10 months will come to a stop today after the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the province erred in granting a waste disposal permit for 460 Stebbings Road.   The B.C. Supreme Court ruled “a contaminated soil treatment facility is not a permitted use on the property” after finding the provincial Ministry of Environment granted a waste discharge permit to South Island Aggregates in August 2013 that violated local bylaws.   The court ordered an immediate injunction preventing South Island Aggregates from dumping more contaminated material.   “I’m just ecstatic,” Sonia Furstenau, elected representative of Shawnigan Lake with the Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD), told DeSmog Canada about the ruling.   “I’m overjoyed.”   In 2015 the CVRD filed a lawsuit against the permit, which granted the company permission to dump 5 million tonnes of contaminated soil in a local gravel quarry.

According to the permit, the waste could contain furans, dioxins, chlorinated hydrocarbons, glycols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, xylene and other materials known to cause cancer, brain damage and birth defects in humans.

The quarry is located approximately five kilometres uphill from Shawnigan Lake, a source of drinking water for 7,500 year-round residents. The population swells to 12,000 in the summer months. 

Residents of Shawnigan Lake aggressively opposed the project since it was first proposed in 2012, citing concerns over the potential contamination of drinking water.   “From the very beginning nobody thought the provincial government would approve this. It just seemed too crazy,” Fursteanau, a resident of Shawnigan Lake and organizer with the Save Shawnigan Water campaign, said.   She added today’s decision comes just over one year after the community lost its case with the B.C. Environmental Appeal Board (EAB).   “It’s ironic,” Furstenau mused, “I studied medieval history and it’s a year and a day today since the EAB decision and that was the period of punishment in the middle ages — you’d be exiled for a year and a day.”   “So our exile in Shawnigan is over.”

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The community of Shawnigan Lake is awaiting an additional decision from the B.C. Court of Appeal that seeks to overturn the Environmental Appeal Board ruling. In that case the CVRD and the Shawnigan Residents Association are arguing the permit approval process was corrupted due to a leaked profit sharing agreement between the company and the engineering firm hired to provide geotechnical analysis of the project.   “I’m hoping for another successful outcome,” Furstenau said.   “We are on the side of light and justice, on the side of truth and on the side of protecting drinking water, which all governments should protect.”

In an e-mailed statement the B.C. Ministry of Environment said "staff will need to review the decision to fully understand its impacts before we can provide further comment."*   Shawnigan Lake resident Georgia Collins said the Supreme Court’s decision has her “over the moon.”   “It’s literally the best day of my life,” she said over the phone. “I don’t know what to do with my self. I just went outside and screamed in the happiest way possible.”   Collins said the ruling is important because it upholds local bylaws and zoning restrictions over and above permits granted by provincial ministries.   “I have very little faith in the provincial government now,” Collins said. “There was such a failure of process”   Collins added she would still like to see the Ministry of Environment’s permit overturned by the B.C Court of Appeal.   “I think it needs to be shown that the process was faulty, that there was fraud and that the community was right in what it was fighting for.”   She added: “I know all kinds of appeals can be made, but right now I’m going to celebrate this.”   Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head, congratulated the community, saying the court decision “is a vindication of their concerns.”   "I want to recognize the hard work of Shawnigan Lake residents in coming together as a community and standing up for their rights in the face of government inaction.”

"I look forward to reviewing the ruling and working with local politicians and residents to ensure that we continue to move this issue forward in a way that protects the rights of the Shawnigan Lake community," Weaver said in a statement.   The B.C. Supreme Court did not order the company to remove contaminated soil already deposited at the site but indicated such matters will be handled by the Ministry of Environment and the Environmental Appeal Board.

*Updated to include comment from the Ministry of Environment.

Image: Protesters block trucks loaded with contaminated soil. Photo by Laura Colpitts.

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As 2015 drew to a close and families across the country planned for New Year festivities, Sonia Furstenau was busy trying to figure out how many officials, journalists and photographers she could get up in a helicopter on January 6 if she divided the day into 30-minute departure times.

Furstenau, an elected representative for the Cowichan Valley Regional District, is a resident of Shawnigan Lake where a protracted battle to keep contaminated waste out of a local watershed is gaining new momentum.

Along with other members of the Shawnigan community and the Save Shawnigan Water campaign, Furstenau arranged to get elected representatives and media up in the air above Shawnigan Lake and, a mere five kilometres uphill, above a nearby contaminated waste site.

If it was going to take a day’s worth of helicopter rides to generate media attention for her community’s plight, then, well, “get to the choppa.”

Four years ago, Furstenau agreed to fill a one-year teaching position at Dwight School Canada, a prestigious international boarding school located on a sprawling 23-acre campus on Shawnigan Lake. The alpine lake setting and small, friendly community won her family over immediately.

“We moved here by accident,” Furstenau said with a laugh, adding her family agreed to give the school one year before returning to Victoria. During that first year in Shawnigan, however, her blended family of seven began to put down permanent roots.

“We fell in love with the lake, with the community and the Cowichan Valley.”

But as Furstenau was eyeing Shawnigan as the perfect place to settle down and raise her children, the B.C. government and waste disposal company South Island Aggregates (SIA) had identified the area for something entirely different.

Shawnigan Lake. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

In 2012, SIA, owned by parent company Cobble Hill Holdings Ltd., applied for a permit to dump 100,000 tonnes of contaminated waste soil into a local quarry located in the headwaters of Shawnigan Lake, a local source of drinking water for the 7,500 permanent residents of Shawnigan Lake. During the summer months, that number balloons to 12,000.

The B.C. Ministry of Environment granted SIA a 50-year permit, allowing the company to dump a total of 5 million tonnes of industrial waste containing furans, dioxins, chlorinated hydrocarbons, glycols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, xylene and other materials know to cause cancer, brain damage, and birth defects in humans.

The landfill site is flanked by streams that flow downhill into the Shawnigan Lake watershed.

SIA maintains the site is cradled in a 75-foot layer of nearly impermeable bedrock. The company estimates it would take approximately 103,000 years for contaminants to reach local groundwater and migrate into Shawnigan Lake.

South Island Aggregates' landfill site. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

SIA based these estimates on the geotechnical work of Active Earth Engineering. In the summer of 2015 a document was anonymously provided to the Shawnigan Residents Association that showed SIA and Active Earth Engineering signed a profit sharing contract for the 50-year lifespan of the landfill. SIA maintains the agreement was never acted on and eventually abandoned.

Yet the community is arguing the project review process was corrupted and that the B.C. Ministry of Environment, as well as the Environmental Appeal Board through which the community sought to have the permit pulled, relied too heavily on the expertise of Active Earth — a company they say had a clear conflict of interest.

A judicial review in the B.C. Supreme Court began on Monday, January 11 in Victoria. The review is expected to take two weeks to complete.

“It doesn’t take long to understand why this community is up in arms and so determined to fight what is going on here,” Furstenau said.

“Putting a contaminated landfill on a mountain at the headwaters of your drinking watershed above the lake that is the heart of your community is insanity. We do not accept this and we never will.”

Up on the mountain during the January 6 protest Furstenau’s sentiment seemed widespread.

On that cold morning nearly 500 residents gathered outside the gates of SIA’s private facility to prevent the latest shipment of contaminated soil from reaching the landfill site. Protesters held signs that read “pull the permit” and “Save Shawnigan Water” and children built snowmen in front of a line of blockaded work trucks.

“I think almost anyone can tell you this doesn’t on the surface seem to be logical,” Steve Housser, Shawnigan resident and former CBC journalist, said outside the landfill site.

Protesters at the landfill site, January 6, 2015. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

“The government says the science says it’s okay,” Housser said. “Unfortunately that science was bought and paid for by SIA.”

Housser who ran as a BC Liberal candidate in the Cowichan Valley riding during the last provincial election said revelations about the profit-sharing agreement between SIA and Active Earth engineers “completely undercuts their independence, their professional integrity and almost makes a mockery of the word science.”

He added the community does not feel it had a legitimate role to play in the decision-making process.

A "Save Our Shawnigan Water" sign sits on the site of the contaminated soil landfill, January 6. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

“Any say we had was ignored,” Housser said, adding the community has sent in a 15,500 signature petition, demonstrated at the legislature and held multiple rallies. “I don’t know what the hesitation is to stop this thing.”

“If it can be done to us, if somebody thinks they can dump toxic, contaminated waste into a watershed in Shawnigan, who’s next?” he said.

Dwight Canada School student Dimitri Monti-Browning also attended the protest along with a handful of classmates.

“I feel that a lot of the Shawnigan Lake community and a lot of people in B.C. and on Vancouver Island really care about Shawnigan Lake and don’t want to ruin this beautiful place,” Monti-Browning said.

He added the night before the event he was with his grandmother, who owns a home on Shawnigan Lake Road. “I went over to her house last night and she was crying because we don’t want to lose our water and as I said before this beautiful place.”

“We want to save our water,” he said.

Dwight School Canada student Dimitri Monti-Browning, centre right, at the protest with classmates. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

Calvin Cook, president of the Shawnigan Resident’s Association, said the community has a lot of legitimate concerns about the risk of seismic events, like the December 29 4.7 magnitude earthquake that shook houses in Victoria, or what happens over time when the plastic liners used in the pits begin to break down.

“The quarry itself is 15 per cent dug. Still 85 per cent remains to be blasted,” Cook said. “We’ll have containment cells next to and adjacent to an active blasting site. That is unprecedented. That has never occurred before.”

“Shawnigan Lake and its citizens are being used as a test laboratory for this facility.”

On January 6 South Island Resource Management, the company managing the disposal site since June 2015, release a statement, saying, "We are fully compliant with the Ministry of Environment Waste Discharge Permit and with the Ministry of Mines Permit.There is no quantifiable risk from the site to human health in the Shawnigan Lake watershed and we continue to hope that reasonable debate will prevail.”

In November a breach of surface runoff from the site prompted the Vancouver Island Health Authority to issue a no-used water advisory to Shawnigan lake residents. 

Cook said despite what he sees as “unacceptable risks,” years of community opposition has fallen on deaf ears.

“Our minister [Mary Polak] and our Premier have steadfastly refused to act,” he said. “All we are asking them to do is put a stay in place to prevent further contaminants being brought to this site until a complete judicial review has been heard.”

During the ongoing judicial review, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Sewell will hear evidence the permit holder lacks credibility and relied on faulty engineering advice. 

Cook said while that review was waiting to hit the courts in November, new contaminated industrial waste was being trucked in from Port Moody.

“When we win, the site will have to be remediated,” Cook said. “Those costs will be borne by every citizen in B.C. Why further increase those costs? Let the judicial review take place. Let all the facts be heard by a judge.”

From an ad hoc helicopter landing pad one the shore of Shawnigan Lake, Port Moody city council member, Zoe Royer said she is “very concerned” about industry from her riding shipping contaminated waste to this community.

“I’m not here representing the city of Port Moody,” Royer said. “I’m here because I’m deeply concerned about the situation in Shawnigan Lake, about the contamination that is happening in this community.”

“My heart goes out to the people in this community. This was a pristine watershed and many, many people depend on it for their drinking water and their livelihood.”

“We have to stand together and help to stop this,” Royer said before boarding the helicopter for an aerial view alongside two other Port Moody city councilors.

Georgia Collins. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada.

Shawnigan resident Georgia Collins, who lives on the lake beside the makeshift helicopter pad, said when the company first came to the community they said the landfill site would benefit everyone.

“They said it was something that would be very helpful to the community, that it would be cleaning up contaminated sites that are in the watershed already,” Collins said. “But it turns out that it’s a permit to dump 5 million tonnes of contaminated soil over 50 years and that soil can come from anywhere.”

Collins’ young son played around her legs as we spoke. “We do have elected representatives and we expect them to protect our water,” she said. “We expect them to protect our livelihoods. What we’ve seen is them constantly ignoring our community.”

She added that since 2012 the company and the provincial government tried to manage the community to limit public backlash.

“But we’re not going away.”

“It’s hard to see this going on, that this is possible in any community,” she said. “There is the beautiful silver lining that this has galvanized the people and I love the people here. They’re my community and I want to protect them.”

Collins said Environment Minister Mary Polak has the authority to place a hold on the permit at any time.

“We’re a community in unrest and we deserve to have this put on hold. We deserve to have trucks stopped while we wait for judges to make the right decision.“

Images by Jayce Hawkins for DeSmog Canada.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by Ben Parfitt, resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It orginially appeared on policynote.ca.

Well, I won’t back down No, I won’t back down You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won’t back down

— Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty

In the mid 1960s, the world’s two superpowers hit on a novel idea to try to coax more oil and natural gas from the ground. In what they hoped would prompt the release of “endless fountains of fossil fuels,” first the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and then the United States of America detonated nuclear bombs belowground.

The hoped-for geysers of fuel never materialized. Instead, nearby oil and gas wells became contaminated with radioactive gases that in some cases later broke to the surface and swept over the homes of unsuspecting residents. Groundwater was polluted. And giant subterranean craters filled with cancer-inducing gases that no public power utility in its right mind would touch.

The failed experiments of a half-century ago were not, however, a surprise to those who were familiar with mining the earth’s depths for oil and natural gas. If anything, the nuclear detonations were simply part of a continuum that traced back to the mid 1860s in Pennsylvania. Flummoxed by the rapid decline in production from the world’s first intensively drilled oil field, wildcatters embraced the ideas of a Civil War veteran who sent torpedoes underground to stimulate oil flows.

The new technology, the magazine Scientific American enthused, “would fracture the rock, and clear the closed passages or make artificial ones reaching the oil veins.”

Many people would subsequently be blown to bits during well-torpedoing events and later with the use of nitroglycerin as a brute-force mining technology. But more oil flowed, and the era of hydraulic fracturing or fracking was born.

For Andrew Nikiforuk, the brutal antecedents to today’s fracking operations are critical to understanding what is going on now. Contemporary fracking involves pumping massive amounts of water, cancer-causing chemicals, fine-grained sands or artificial “proppants” belowground to fracture gas-bearing rock or coal formations. But the objective is no different than it was back when the industry and government played with nuclear bombs. Brute force is harnessed to fracture rock in an effort to make it let go of the oil and gas it stubbornly holds. And no amount of computer modeling has yet to make sense of how far those cracks or fractures will go or in what direction. “Chaos” reigns. And human life, human health, water, the environment, our climate be damned.

Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry, captures like never before how fossil fuel companies must do more and more to coax oil and gas from the ground. And how that each time more effort is made, the social and environmental costs mount. The publication of Nikiforuk’s most recent book could not be more fortuitous, as the B.C. government continues to woo energy industry giants to build liquefied natural gas plants on the province’s coastline: processing facilities that would link via new pipelines to the northeast interior of the province where B.C.’s largest natural gas deposits are located. The book should be required reading for every MLA.

Given the tricky geology where some of B.C.’s natural gas is found, unprecedented volumes of water would be required to “stimulate” gas production. To date, those stimulations or fracks in the northeast of the province have caused lake levels to drop dangerously low, triggered clusters of earthquakes, and led to “failures” or leaks at sites where highly toxic wastewater from fracking operations was allegedly safely stored. All of this and more occurred when drilling and fracking activities were a tiny fraction of what they would be were just one LNG facility to be built.

No one who has paid even modest attention to the controversies associated with fracking will have escaped noticing the many ways in which governments and oil and gas companies defend modern-day extraction techniques:

We drill and frack at such great depths that there’s no possibility of contaminating drinking water.

We pour cement around our wellbores to protect groundwater from gas leaks.

Household water that can be lit on fire and water wells that are filled with methane gas has nothing to do with us. Mother Nature is responsible.

In each case, Nikiforuk debunks such assertions with a wealth of data that will leave readers shaking their heads and questioning how, if at all, fracking operations can be conducted safely. But it is the human story — that of Jessica Ernst, a one-time energy industry consultant whose well water became heavily contaminated after Encana conducted numerous fracking operations in the aquifer that supplied her and other residents in and around Rosebud, Alberta, with their water — that is the most compelling, heart-breaking and anger-inducing.

And not just because of the shoddy, dismissive attitude that the energy company had when it came to what impacts its operations might have on peace and quiet and on water quality. More troubling by far is the almost complete lack of meaningful action, incompetence and acts of overt hostility and intimidation visited on Ernst by members of the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), Alberta’s then energy industry regulator, provincial environmental officials, and the RCMP.

From the moment that the energy company began experimenting with extracting gas from shallow, thin coal seams in and around Rosebud in the early years of the last decade, Ernst was in constant touch with the company and provincial agencies. First about the horrendous noise associated with compressors that the company had installed near her home to push gas to the surface. (Imagine a jet engine roaring constantly not far from your backyard fence.) And then, about her water. Water that came from a well that had been given a clean bill of health with no gas present before the frackers arrived, and that after the frackers left was so contaminated with methane that the water pouring from Ernst’s taps and showerhead could be lit on fire.

But if the company and regulators thought that Ernst would roll over like so many had before her, they were wrong, although precedent was clearly on their side.

Over and over again, landowners who got angry enough and rattled the cages of the fracking companies long and hard enough eventually got a cheque. The cheque covered the cost of their house and land if they were lucky, and they moved on. But there was always a catch. Landowners had to first sign papers that amounted to gag orders. They got the money in exchange for their silence. The silence even extended in some cases to the written record itself. If a landowner had filed a claim against a company in court, the court records were sometimes sealed under a “protective order.”

It was clear whose interests were thus protected. But Ernst wasn’t — and to this day still isn’t — rolling over. Instead, three years after Encana encroached on the unsuspecting citizens of Rosebud and began what amounted to a giant experiment to frack and extract methane gas from shallow coal seams, Ernst sued Encana, the EUB and Alberta Environment.

“Gag orders erased history, Ernst realized, and allowed regulators to claim there had been no proof of contamination in the first place. To her way of thinking, the courts were participating in ‘criminal activity’ by allowing the gag orders. She had compassion for families who signed to protect the health of their children but only contempt for the authorities that willfully covered up industry’s dangerous methane liabilities.”

Eleven years after Ernst’s problems first began and nearly eight years after lawyers filed her lawsuit, Ernst is still awaiting justice. The slug-like pace of the legal proceedings coupled with the drying up of all opportunities for her to work in the oil patch means that Ernst is draining her life’s savings in the fight. But she is not backing down. Blessed with an encyclopedic memory and a willingness to go to the wall to extract information from a government that holds onto it about as stubbornly as a shale rock formation holds onto its trapped gas, Ernst has armed her lawyers with a wealth of information that may one day set a precedent that tens of thousands of other landowners living in harm’s way will thank her for. She has also become a folk heroine in the process, speaking on the dangers of fracking to audiences in Ireland, England, the United States and Canada.

Fourteen years ago, Nikiforuk wrote Saboteurs. Subtitled Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Big Oil, the book recounted the horrors visited upon numerous rural landowners by encroaching natural gas operations, and in particular the toxic legacy of “sour” gas. Sour gas contains hydrogen sulphide, a neurotoxin that can be lethal at high enough concentrations and that has killed scores of workers in the oil patch. Farmers and ranches living in proximity to gas flares or gas lines, wells and other infrastructure that may leak such gas, frequently report that their cattle spontaneously abort. And then there are the miscarriages that have happened in farmers’ and ranchers’ homes . . .

Saboteurs went on to win a Governor General’s Award for non-fiction. In its first hardcover incarnation it featured a cover that looked like a stand-in for a still from a Quentin Tarantino film: a low-angle shot, of a thickly bearded Wiebo Ludwig, clutching a rifle. A light shines on Ludwig’s face, warming it and setting it off from the ominous gray sky behind him. He stares directly and somewhat impassively down into the camera. Behind him, a sign emblazoned in red and black block letters warns of the dangers to the local community of gas wells and orders the gas industry to abandon further operations.

Ludwig was eventually found guilty of sabotaging a string of oil and gas wells and infrastructure in northern Alberta. As the dispute between him and the industry intensified prompting one of the most expensive and bizarre police investigations in Alberta history, one company and one man in particular would become Ludwig’s primary adversary. That man was Gwyn Morgan, then president of Alberta Energy Company, which later merged with PanCanadian Energy Corporation to become Encana, a company that Morgan would go on to head and that would move aggressively into mining numerous “unconventional” gas reservoirs. Including, of course, those in and around Rosebud.

Ludwig was eventually stopped. Although another raft of sabotaging activity would subsequently occur in northern B.C., showing that for some “The Weibo Way” was the only way to deal with gas-drilling operations encroaching on their lands. The Weibo Way also factors into the Ernst story but in ways that one would not expect and that will leave readers shaking their heads at the levels to which vested interests will stoop to discredit those who seek justice.

Fourteen years into her battle with Encana and the Alberta government, Ernst is still very much on her own lonely path, continuing to remain strong in the face of government and industry adversity. She shows no signs of stopping. And there isn’t a shotgun in sight.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the Mount Polley mine spill, the largest mining disaster in Canadian history. On August 4, 2014 an estimated 24 million cubic metres of mining waste spilled from a failed tailings impoundment, flowing down the Hazeltine Creek into Quesnel Lake, a local source of drinking water and home to an estimated quarter of the province’s sockeye salmon.

DeSmog Canada spoke with local resident and fisheries biologist Richard Holmes to discuss the anniversary of the accident. Holmes said some members of his community are disappointed the mine hasn’t done more to repair the social and economic damage done to residents in the wake of the spill.

Although the Mount Polley mine, owned by Imperial Metals, has put an estimated $67 million into stabilizing the Hazeltine Creek, Holmes said the area resembles a “pretty ditch” that won’t be suitable fish habitat for at least two more years.

“It’s disappointing,” Holmes said.

“The last public meeting was about a month ago and I was really disappointed to watch the mine and their consultants and the government people act like they’d just won the lottery. There were as happy as pigs in shit.”

Holmes said the company was eager to have the mine up and running again — something the province gave them approval to do last month. The mine partially reopened in July to the frustration of locals who feel not enough has been done to make reparations for the spill.

“I felt somewhat insulted actually,” Holmes said. “Here our community had just gone through this year of frustration with both parties and their main focus was the environment, which is good, there’s no doubt about that, but their second focus, an equally important focus was on the economics of it.”

“But they've forgotten completely about the social impacts and the cultural and economic impacts on the people in the community.”

Image Credit: Water destined for Quesnel Lake gathers in a sediment pond, March 2015. Photo: Farhan Umedaly 

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The Soda Creek First Nation, traditionally called the Xatśūll First Nation, is going to tap into band savings for a community centre to pay for independent scientists to study the local environment in the wake of the Mount Polley mine spill that sent billions of litres of mining waste in Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake.

Bev Sellars, chief of the Soda Creek said ever since the spill occurred it has been difficult to find reliable sources of information.

“The reports coming out from mining and the government say everything is fine, but we don’t really believe that,” she said in an interview in Vancouver. “A disaster such as this – there are going to be long term effects.”

Major concerns for her nation have to do with the long-term effects of the spill on Quesnel Lake, which is in the traditional territory of the Soda Creek First Nation and the Williams Lake Indian Band.

“I don’t think anybody really knows how [Quesnel Lake] has been affected,” she said.

“I’m not a scientist but I know that it’s going to be drastically affected in some way, but how, I don’t know,” she added.

Last week a local drinking water ban was lifted for all affected water, excluding Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and where the Hazeltine meets Quesnel Lake.

Although the water ban has been mostly lifted, there are no clear plans for cleanup of the spill site yet.

And there won’t be, until Imperial Metals has completed a partial draining of Polly Lake into Hazeltine Creek, Sellars said.

At this stage, no involved party can claim the science is settled until the spill is, Sellars said.

“We were told when we met with Imperial Metals, I think it was four days after the spill, they hadn’t even started to [clean up] yet, that it would take three weeks to stop the spill before they could go and even start doing an investigation,” she said.

“It’s still spilling out.”

Sellars said word of the spill came as a shock to her community, who are still coming to terms with the news.

“We had a community meeting over at the Williams Lake Indian Band and the tears and the heartache, just people crying, worried about the spill and what that is going to do to the salmon,” she said.

“The Quesnel Lake area is an area where we go and find certain medicines and plants that we can’t find in other parts of our territory. That’s a real worry and concern.”

Sellars said she feels the provincial government has been too hasty in it’s assessment of drinking water and fish impacts.

“I think there they are too quick to say everything is fine. That it’s benign,” she said.

Bill Bennett, minister of mines for B.C., recently likened the spill to an avalanche, which happen frequently across the province every year, he said. Locals took offense to the comparison, saying it downplays the environmental damage and potential long-term consequences of the spill, which are yet to be seen.

Sellars said it’s true that avalanches occur across B.C., “but avalanches don’t have toxic material following right behind it,” she said. “Avalanches have natural materials, so there’s a big difference there.”

Sellars said a priority for her community now is to ensure they have access to independent information.

Her community has brought in a scientist who previously worked on the Exxon Valdez spill, a geochemist that worked at the Mount Polley mine and engineer Brian Olding, who wrote a technical report in 2011 warning the B.C. Ministry of Environment about the Mount Polley tailings pond.

These independent experts are warning the Soda Creek First Nation about the veracity of government and industry claims, Sellars said.

“They’re telling us that what Mount Polley and the governments are saying is absolutely not true,” she said. “So we have hired them to get our own answers and make sure that we get the answers. If they tell us everything is fine, then we’ll accept that.”

“But we’re not accepting Mount Polley or the government’s tests right now,” she said, adding there is an underlying element of mistrust.

“Definitely a lack of trust” she said. “Definitely.”

“I think it’s way too soon for anyone to say that there really are no consequences,” Sellars said, saying they’re expecting one of the largest salmon runs in years to begin next month. The salmon will have to swim directly through Quesnel Lake, which is home to 25 per cent of the province’s sockeye salmon, where the contents of the spill still linger.

Sellars said the impact of the spill is far from over.

“This is huge and it’s going to affect us for years to come. I just can’t understand how they can make statements like that,” she said, referring to the provincial government’s claim that drinking water is safe for consumption.

Sellars said the only way her community can move forward is if they can rely on the information they are given by experts.

“My community, we’ve been saving for a community hall for years,” she said. “We’re almost at the point where we can go to the bank and say we have this money and we want to build a community hall.”

“But we’ve taken money out of our own community hall money to hire our own experts because this has to be done. So that’s what we’re doing now – getting independent scientific analysis of the situation.”

This article is part of a joint-venture between DeSmog Canada and the Vancouver Observer.

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It’s Monday, August 11th, and both my gumboots are dangerously sinking into the muck I’m trying to cross.

I took far too bold a step towards a sturdy log ahead as I’m trying to cross a sludge river left behind in the wake of the Mount Polly mine tailings pond breach.

Now I’m balanced precariously, one boot in front, one behind, and trying not to topple into the muck beneath that could contain high levels of arsenic, mercury, zinc, lead and selenium – all toxins and heavy metals stored in the breached tailings pond fed by the Imperial Metals gold and copper mine near Likely B.C.

It has been one week since the waste pond wall breached, sending an estimated 10 million cubic metres (or 10 billion litres) of waste water and 4.5 million cubic metres of sandy sludge into the Hazeltine Creek that feeds Quesnel Lake. (For comparison, the Kalamazoo oil spill in Michigan totaled an estimated 3.3 million litres).

A field of debris and dried sediment from the Imperial Metals tailings pond can be seen pouring out of what once was Hazeltine Creek into Quesnel Lake. Photo by Farhan Umedaly, Vovo Productions. 

It’s at the convergence of the Hazeltine and Quesnel Lake that I now find myself, arms outstretched to maintain my balance, and sinking.

I finally manage to rock myself back far enough to regain balance on my back foot. I gently maneuver my front foot back and forth to relieve the suction around my boot. If I topple over I will plunge my bare hand into the sludge which, at this stage, contains an unknown mixture of chemical compounds known to cause cancer and birth defects. I didn’t know this until later, but even short-term exposure to selenium can cause respiratory problems like pulmonary edema or bronchial pneumonia.

A mud boulder sits in the deep sludge from the Mount Polley mine tailings pond. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

Like everyone else around here, I have imperfect knowledge of just what health effects to fear in the wake of the spill.

Maybe I should have worn that damn mask.

But that might have rubbed my guide, local carpenter Tate Patton, the wrong way.

Tate Patton, resident of Likely, B.C. lives on the shore of Lake Quesnel. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

Like a lot of local residents, Patton doesn’t like to play up the ‘disaster porn’ aspect of the accident. Having an out-of-towner tromping around in the wreckage taking selfies with a garish facemask is exactly what most residents are looking to avoid.

Despite the anger aroused by the incident at the Mount Polley tailings facility, a lot of folks in the community around Likely B.C. want to focus on recovery, rather than regret.

What was once the Hazeltine Creek is now a contaminated field of sludge and debris. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

There was no chance of traversing the deep muck, I realized, not without waders.

I manage to back track successfully to more solid ground. I survey my surroundings for another route closer to what remains of Hazeltine Creek. No dice.

Soft silty mud from the spill. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

The spill caused a massive mudslide down the once humble creek bed, expanding its width from a mere six feet, to an incredible 150 metres.

As the material from the tailings pond flooded down the creek it tore at the surrounding forest, stripping the bank of trees, boulders and vegetation. The debris field at the mouth of the Hazeltine Creek stretches for more than a kilometer across.

A portion of the debris field shows the massive amounts of trees pulled down by the flood of tailings pond water and waste. Photo by Farhan Umedaly, Vovo Productions.

Ropes slung to the shore are used to contain the stacks of limbless trees, stripped of their branches and bark from their violent tumble down the creek.

Ropes secured to the shore contain the debris field in Quesnel Lake. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

The mixture of sediment, fine sand, chemicals and heavy metals that collects at the bottom of tailings ponds is known as “slurry.” According to Gerald MacBurney, a former tailings foreman at the Mount Polley mine, the water from the tailings pond is less of an environmental concern than the slurry. “That’s where all the nasty stuff is,” he told me.

Tate Patton, who brought me to Hazeltine Creek, said it took hours for the tailings pond to drain out, the roaring sound of the flood carrying down Quesnel Lake for over six hours.

“I live about five or six miles down the lake and you could hear the sound from there for hours until the wind switched direction and you couldn’t hear it as well,” Patton said.

For several hours the tailings waste and debris poured into Quesnel Lake, one of the world’s deepest glacial fjord lakes. To this day no one knows quite how deep the lake is. The deepest recorded measurement reached down 610 metres. The lake is home to a quarter of the province’s sockeye salmon and is world famous for its brightly coloured rainbow trout among fly fishers.

Debris stretches across the shore near the mouth of the Hazeltine Creek. Photo by Farhan Umedaly, Vovo Productions.

Temperatures of the water flowing out of Quesnel Lake can quickly fluctuate eight degrees, leading hydrogeologists to theorize about complex water currents and circulation within the waterbody.

Patton said the depth of the lake is a bonus when it comes to dilution of the spill materials. “We have a lot of pluses,” he said. “The water is deep, the levels are high right now, and we haven’t had much rain.”

When the floodwaters subsided, a wide river of slurry and mud had entirely replaced Hazeltine Creek, leaving fluvial fans of sludge along low-lying areas and trailing into Quesnel Lake.

Sludge from the spill carries out into Quesnel Lake. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

At the base of the creek the floor of the lake quickly drops out. Sediment from the spill poured out into the depths leaving only a plume of suspended solids, visible only from the air, behind.

What remains of the spill on land sits caked in tailings waste. No clean up or dredging of the creek bed or debris area is expected until additional pumping of tailings waste from Polly Lake is complete.

Tate Patton points to beaver tracks in mud from the spill. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

Patton pointed at a beaver track in the drying mud. “Lots of animal tracks around here,” he said.

Bloomberg journalist Christopher Donville (left), Tate Patton (centre) and author Carol Linnitt (right) journey back to the town of Likely. The debris field is just visible in the background. Photo by Farhan Umedaly, Vovo Productions.  

We took a final survey of the scene as the sun retreated behind Mount Polley. Patton stopped the boat on the way back in to dislodge broken sticks and branches from the outboard motor.

“That’s a camp site, over there,” he said, pointing to an area not more than two kilometres from the mouth of Hazeltine Creek. “They were evacuated. Must have been terrifying,” he said. “Must have been loud.”

This article is published as part of a joint-venture between the Vancouver Observer and DeSmog Canada.

All images by Carol Linnitt and Farhan Umedaly, Vovo Productions.

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There were audible scoffs from the crowd Tuesday as Cariboo MLAs told residents in Likely, B.C. that the drinking water ban has been lifted for areas near the Mount Polley mine where a tailings pond breached Monday, August 4th sending billions of litres of mining wastewater and solid materials into Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake.

The drinking ban remains in effect for Mount Polley, Hazeltine Creek and an area 100 metres immediately surrounding the visible sediment plume at the mouth of the Hazeltine Creek where debris and sludge from the spill poured into Quesnel Lake, the primary source of drinking water for local residents.

At a small community press conference on the edge of the Quesnel River in Likely, B.C. Donna Barnett, MLA for the Cariboo-Chilcotin and parliamentary secretary for forests, lands and natural resource operations for rural developments, said, “this is a good news story.”

Residents have been dealing with uncertainty since last week, she said. “Well, finally we can give you some certainty.”

The announcement follows the release of a Ministry of Environment water test that found water from Polley Lake to be near “historical levels” taken prior to the tailings breach.

A press release on the Interior Health website states “Interior Health has no reason to believe that this water was ever exposed to unsafe levels of contaminants from the mine breach.”

Coralee Oakes, minister of community, sport and cultural development for the Cariboo region, told a small crowd that had gathered, “The results have come back from…our chief medical office for this region who is independent of government [and] has come forward…to announce that we will be removing the drinking water, recreation and fishing ban.”

A small crowd gathered on the banks of the Quesnel River in Likely, B.C. August 12 to hear the water ban for the area was mostly rescinded. Photo by Carol Linnitt.

Yet locals have expressed significant concern over water quality issues, even after the drinking water ban was partially lifted Sunday.

A journalist in the crowd, Christopher Donville from Bloomberg, remarked that it is generally accepted that tailings are better off in a tailings pond, and yet billions of gallons of tailings have spilled into the local environment seemingly without any negative effects. He looked to Minister Oakes for comment, but his remark was met with a chorus of other voices.

“Isn’t that wonderful?” Skeed Borkowski, the owner of a local fly fishing lodge, sarcastically remarked.

“What about testing the water column?” another woman chimed in.

Local resident and former Mount Polley mine employee Doug Watt asked for more information on the suspended solids causing a murky cloud in Quesnel Lake near his home.

Minister Oakes defended the water study results to the crowd, saying the experts who provided the information are “independent” and “reviewed all the data at a professional standard.”

Oakes said the Cariboo Regional District will continue to provide drinking water to residents and will keep the temporary shower facilities in operation.

When asked if the test results will change their interaction with the water, couple Doug and Marlene Watt, were split.

Doug, a former metallurgist and shift supervisor at Mount Polley mine, said he will drink the water after it’s been filtered. His wife said she “isn’t ready yet” to drink the water.

“Again we apologize to folks who were looking for information and couldn’t find it,” Oakes said.

In the early evening representatives from the Ministry of Environment came by to drop off information packets to locals at their homes and businesses. Avtar Sundher, head of government and compliance with the environmental management section of the Ministry of Environment pointed out the regions still under a drinking water ban on a map.

“All these hash areas are still affected,” he said, pointing to Polley Lake and Hazeltine Creek.

A map provided by the Ministry of Environment shows the areas still under a water use ban, including the 100-metre area in yellow and red surrounding the debris field at the mouth of Hazeltine Creek.

The information package states “the tailings liquid released from the impoundment moved very quickly through the system and was diluted greatly by the water in the lake, the Quesnel River and ultimately the Fraser River.”

“Generally, bio-accumulation of contaminants in fish occurs over a longer exposure than a few days,” the bulletin stated.

“We understand what a spectacular area it is that we live in and we understand how important it is that people come and visit and that tourism operators have every opportunity to showcase the pristine beauty that we have. And that young families know that this is a great, safe place to come and raise your families,” Oakes said to the crowd.

“Now it’s our job to make sure we get the story out that the Cariboo, that Likely, is open for business.”

This article is published as a part of a joint-venture between the Vancouver Observer and DeSmog Canada.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.