A court in Toronto will soon begin deliberating over whether or not to seize Chevron's Canadian assets in order to force the company to comply with an $9.5-billion judgement in Ecuador.

The company doesn’t deny that Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2000, deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon, resulting in massive environmental devastation and a health crisis affecting thousands of people. But the company claims it did its part to clean up the rainforest.

But the settlement Chevron had with the Ecuadorian government and the state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, does not preclude citizens affected by that oil pollution from seeking damages. Ecuadorian plaintiffs first filed a suit against the company in 1993. Chevron lost a high-profile trial in Ecuador in 2011, and every Ecuadorian court that has considered the evidence since then — including an appeals court and the country's Supreme Court — has ruled against Chevron.

Yet still the company refuses to pay. Chevron has even gone venue shopping in an attempt to avoid paying for a cleanup of its toxic mess — filing an investor-state dispute at the Hague, pressing RICO charges against the Ecuadorians and their lawyers in a New York court. But the communities in Ecuador affected by Chevron’s pollution have not remained idle, and have instead pursued Chevron in Canada to try and collect on the company's debt.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously in 2015 that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs could pursue an enforcement action against Chevron. In the majority opinion, Justice Clément Gascon wrote: “In a world in which businesses, assets and people cross borders with ease, courts are increasingly called upon to recognize and enforce judgments from other jurisdictions. Sometimes, successful recognition and enforcement in another forum is the only means by which a foreign judgment creditor can obtain its due.”

Now, in an open letter released this week, more than a dozen Canadian organizations, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Idle No More Canada, MiningWatch, Sierra Club British Columbia, United Steelworkers, and Unifor, have called Chevron out for its attempts to abuse the civil justice system and evade paying the Ecuador judgment.

“While Chevron continues its international litigation ‘shell game’ thousands of people continue to be systematically poisoned and suffer daily from Chevron's refusal to pay a $9.5 billion judgment to clean up its toxic waste in Ecuador,” the letter states. “Chevron's refusal to honor the judgment against it has forced these communities to come to Canada in a last ditch effort to seize assets to force Chevron to comply with the rule of law.”

"We are grateful that the people of Canada, just like their Supreme Court, have chosen to side with those of us affected by Chevron's deplorable actions when it polluted our communities and water supply,” Humberto Piaguaje, President of the Union of Affected Communities in Ecuador, who will be attending the court sessions in Canada, said in a statement. “The indigenous peoples of Ecuador deserve full access to justice and a healthy environment so that we and our Amazonian neighbors can live with dignity.”

There are signs, however, that Chevron is already attempting to circumvent enforcement of any ruling against the company in Canada. Recent reports have stated that Chevron is currently trying to sell several billion-dollars-worth of its Canadian assets. After insisting the original trial over its pollution in the Amazon be held in an Ecuadorian court, Chevron stripped its assets from the country, which some saw as a deliberate attempt to avoid having to pay any adverse judgement against the company. The fear is that Chevron is attempting the same thing in Canada.

Canadian Civil Society: Freeze Chevron Assets, Use To Cover #Ecuador Judgement on #Amazon Destruction https://t.co/ZL1Y4l8TNS #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 13, 2016

In their letter, the groups call on Canadian authorities to stop Chevron from selling its Canadian assets before a decision can be reached in the trial, stating in the letter that it "would set a terrible precedent for other corporations intending to evade responsibility for environmental and human rights crimes."

Chevron’s tactics of delay and obfuscation are nothing new for the oil industry, of course. BP held out for two years before finally agreeing to pay $1 billion to fishermen and others affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And the recent #ExxonKnew scandal erupted after it was discovered that the oil giant’s own scientists had been warning of the dangers of carbon pollution leading to runaway climate change since at least the 1970s — but Exxon continued to fund climate denial anyway.

Sierra Club BC Campaigns Director Caitlyn Vernon said that oil companies have operated with impunity for years, despite leaving a legacy of environmental destruction and human rights abuses. "Whether in Canada or around the world, oil companies such as Chevron, Enbridge and Kinder Morgan must be held accountable for oil spills, climate change impacts, and their treatment of local and indigenous populations," she said.

Now, environmentalists say, the Canadian court system has the opportunity to see some small measure of justice is done in this precedent-setting case.

"The Canadian environmental and human rights community has joined forces with the affected communities in Ecuador because we recognize this to be one of the most important corporate accountability cases in history," said Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Climate & Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. "Chevron must not be allowed to evade its legal and moral responsibilities simply because it has the might to fight on indefinitely in the courts.”  

Image Credit: Oil pollution in Lago Agrio, November 2007. Texaco operated dozens of drilling sites in the area before pulling out of Ecuador altogether. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

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In April and May alone, Lone Pine Resources Inc. — the oil and gas company that’s currently suing the government of Canada for $118.9 million in alleged damages — lobbied 11 MPs, a policy advisor for the Prime Minister’s Office and the chief of staff for Natural Resources Canada.

The sole subject matter listed for the lobbying efforts was: “Claim against the Government of Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by Lone Pine Resources Inc.”

The company is actively claiming damages for Quebec's 2011 decision to revoke oil and gas exploration licenses located beneath the St. Lawrence River that were granted to its subsidiary, Lone Pine Resources Canada Ltd., via a “farmout agreement” with Junex Inc. The $118.9 figure represents Lone Pine’s estimated sunk costs and lost future profits.

Actual case proceedings haven’t started yet: the last publically available document — a 251 page rebuttal by the Canadian government written entirely in French — is from July 2015.

These recent meetings could mean the company — which Sujata Dey, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians, dubs “a Canadian company suing Canada through their U.S. tax haven and subsidiary” — is attempting to seek an out-of-court settlement with the government, an option that would allow Lone Pine to avoid mounting legal fees and the unpredictable nature of investment tribunals.

Investor-State Dispute Settlements Can Result In Large Payout, Rollback In Policies

Ben Beachy, senior policy advisor in the U.S. Sierra Club’s Responsible Trade Program, notes some settlements such as the Ethyl Corporation’s successful suit against Canada in the late ‘90s have resulted in weakened policy.

Even if that doesn’t occur, he says such investor-state dispute settlement procedures can create a “chilling effect” on governments: with the looming threat of lawsuits from foreign companies, officials are less likely to implement strong environmental protections.

Beachy said the threat of legal action is concrete: “It clearly is a consideration on the mind of policymakers: ‘Am I going to get sued in front of not a domestic court but three private lawyers whose rulings are unpredictable for millions or billions of dollars?’”

Lone Pine Suing Canada Over Quebec's Fracking Ban, Aggressively Lobbying in Ottawa https://t.co/YlkUqSMPTD @ccpa #NAFTA #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 25, 2016

Canada Argues Claims By Lone Pine Are ‘Highly Exaggerated’

Lone Pine Resources is suing the government via the infamous Chapter 11 of NAFTA for what it describes as the “arbitrary, capricious, and illegal revocation” to frack under the St. Lawrence River “without due process, without compensation, and with no cognizable public purpose.”

The government of Canada has contended: “The measure was enacted by a fundamental democratic institution of Quebec and was preceded by numerous studies that establish that the Act seeks to achieve an important public policy objective, namely, the protection of the St. Lawrence River” and that “the damages claimed by the claimant are highly exaggerated.”

Investment Tribunals Lack Safeguards and Equal Standing, Says Investment Law Expert

Gus Van Harten, associate professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and expert in international investment law and arbitration, emphasizes that investor-state dispute settlement procedures don’t constitute an actual judicial process, lacking the usual safeguards of independence that judges have in domestic and international courts, or the ensuring of standing for all affected parties.

“It’s obvious that there are some foreign investors — not a lot — that benefit from it,” he says. “What’s usually claimed is ‘we’ll get more foreign investment and that will help the economy’ but there’s a real lack of evidence on that point.”

Over 70 Per Cent of NAFTA Claims In Past Decade Have Targeted Canada

Canada is the most sued country in the “developed” world.

A report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in January 2015 noted that via NAFTA, the government has been sued 35 times since 1994, losing seven cases and paying out over $170 million in damages.

Over 70 per cent of NAFTA claims since 2005 have involved Canada. Two-thirds of the total suits have been related to environmental or resource management policy.

Over 70% of #NAFTA Claims In Past Decade Have Targeted Canada https://t.co/YlkUqSMPTD @TheEnergyMix #oilandgas #fracking #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 25, 2016

Nine foreign investors are currently suing Canada via NAFTA.

Beachy — who wrote and researched the Sierra Club’s recent report “Climate Roadblocks: Looming Trade Deals Threaten Efforts to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground” — notes that 2015 featured the largest number of investor-state dispute settlement cases launched globally, double the number from just five years before.

In 2014, half of new cases globally were challenging policies related to oil and gas extraction, mining or power generation.

Investor Suits May Increase In Number With Implementation of New Trade Deals

Beachy describes the Lone Pine case as being similar in significance to TransCanada’s $15-billion suit against the United States for blocking its proposed Keystone XL pipeline as both “serve as a wake-up call that deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership would undermine our efforts to keep fossil fuels in the ground.”

Dey notes the ratification and implementation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership would add nine countries to the list in which companies could incorporate or set up legal vehicles in and sue Canada via investor protection clauses.

Beachy adds there are investors currently fracking in a dozen states that would gain new rights to sue the United States via proposed trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

“This one is clearly not hypothetical because of Lone Pine,” Beachy says. “We are anxiously looking at the Lone Pine case given that more and more states in the United States are trying to do what Quebec and New York have already done to protect their citizens from the dangers of fracking.

“It’s a really ironic time to be handing more power to fossil fuel companies, just after the world committed to curb greenhouse gas emissions and transition to green energy in Paris,” he says.

Lone Pine Filed Notice of Arbitration Three Weeks Before Announcing Its Restructuring

Lone Pine Resources has had a rough few years. In December 2012, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Lone Pine’s “corporate family rating” to Caa1 due to “strained liquidity and sharply declining production and reserves.”

Two-and-a-half months later, the company fired its CEO and CFO.

By January 2014, it completed financial restructuring and emerged from creditor protection, a process started in September 2013 (less than three weeks after it filed its notice of arbitration to the government).

In the process, it cut long-term debt obligations by over four times and rescinded its position as a publically traded company in Canada and the United States. As a result, it’s impossible to tell what Lone Pine’s net earnings are looking like these days and the potential significance of a $118.9 million settlement for the company.

Regardless of the outcome, Dey contends it’s a deeply troublesome example of what’s wrong with investor-state dispute settlement: “This is completely undemocratic,” she says. “It takes power from elected people and puts them into a supranational system that gives rights to corporations. It has nothing to do with democracy.”

“This is a corporate rights system that is even higher in position that our own democratically elected governments.”

Image: Mysterious foamy water collected after heavy rainfall near a fracking site. Joshua B. Pribanic/Public Herald.

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Nearly $1 trillion (£700bn) is being invested in new coal-fired power plants worldwide despite the fact that the demand for electricity generated from coal has declined for two years in a row, shows a new report released today.

The report, by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and CoalSwarm, warns that this problem of overbuilding is creating an “increasingly severe capacity bubble”.

Last year the global power sector added at least 84 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity. This is a 25 percent increase from 2014.

As the report explains, across the world a generating capacity equal to 1,500 coal plants is either in construction or in various stages of planning. The amount of capital potentially wasted on these plants comes to US$981 billion.

Yet, the average coal plant is running fewer and fewer hours each year.

In China for example, the consumption of coal for electricity generation dropped 3.6 percent last year. Currently, the average Chinese coal plant runs less than half the time – the lowest level since 1969 – and the government recently announced plans to halt new coal plant approvals.

And in India, 11GW of thermal capacity is lying idle. Last year saw the first drop in India’s annual coal power installations since 2006 and the report expects this the drop “to be even more pronounced” in 2016.

“The era of Big Coal is clearly coming to an end,” said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner for the Sierra Club’s International Climate and Energy campaign. “Coal use keeps falling off a cliff and plants are sitting idle, yet more money is being wasted on misguided attempts at locking in this dirty, dangerous fuel.”

Lauri Myllyvirta, senior global campaigner on Coal and Air Pollution at Greenpeace, described the situation as a “last-ditch push” by an industry which is becoming “rapidly uncompetitive”.

But while coal plant retirements may be growing globally, led by efforts in Europe and the US, this is not happening fast enough to balance out the overbuilding.

As the report warns, the danger of all this potential capacity sitting idle is that, in the end, it might be used but with significant impact on the world’s ability to meet its climate targets under the Paris Agreement.

“Even with no further building of coal plants, emissions from current coal plants will still be 150 percent higher than what is consistent with scenarios limiting warming to 2°C,” it explains, “meaning that most operating and new coal-fired plants will have to be phased out well before the end of their planned lifetime.”

Even building “high efficiency” coal plants is not a viable solution the report states, since this would lock in “large, long-lived carbon emitters, interfering with the need to fully decarbonize the power sector by 2040 in order to limit warming to 2°C”.

Instead, the report argues that the amount wasted on the coal capacity bubble should be direct towards alleviating energy poverty and investing in clean energy such as wind and solar power.

It notes that the nearly $1 trillion wasted is equivalent to the total level of investment needed to provide electricity to the 1.2 billion people currently lacking access to energy according to the International Energy Agency.

This would also be enough money to increase the amount of solar and wind power installed globally by 39 percent, the report finds.

“The hundreds of billions being thrown at coal could instead go toward the booming clean energy sector, helping more than a billion people get access to the clean, reliable electricity that fossil fuels have failed to deliver,” explained Ghio.

In addition to its significant climate impact, the report finds that the additional new proposed coal capacity would result in over 130,000 more premature deaths worldwide each year due to air pollution.

“The clock is ticking on the transition to clean energy,” said Ted Nace, director of CoalSwarm. “Although this research has revealed hundreds of billions being squandered on unneeded coal plants, there’s more at stake here than money.”

Photo: Tennessee Valley Authority via Flickr

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The end of the fossil fuel era is being signalled loud and clear here at the Paris climate conference as ministers enter the final hours of negotiations.

It's crunch time and everyone is saying the elements needed for an ambitious deal are still on the table. An essential part of this includes establishing a clear long-term goal to guide investor confidence toward a low-carbon society.

And with a 1.5C degree target option currently alive in the text, along with words such as ‘decarbonisation’ and ‘carbon neutral’, the signal couldn’t be clearer.

“The message that we expect this conference to send investors in the fossil fuel industry is get out now,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “There is no future in fossil fuels.”

Pointing to the 1.5C target, Kasia Kosonen from Greenpeace added: “We are now for the first time really having a serious debate around strengthening the temperature target to 1.5C and recognising that 2C is already too much. This de facto means that we are talking about moving away from fossil fuels in a short period of time.”

Policy Framework

And it’s not just those inside the negotiations that are looking for clarity. Businesses have also been calling for a clear long term goal, stressing its importance for investors.

As Michael Jacobs, senior advisor at the New Climate Economy project, explained: “Emissions will be cut through the application of investment and technology in a whole series of infrastructure projects… that’s how you actually do this. And the piece of paper that will be signed is a push to those processes but it doesn’t guarantee them."

“The way it pushes them is it requires government to respond to goals by putting in place policies which will then help drive investment, and demand creation, and technological innovation.”

Alden Meyer, strategy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, agreed – and he’s been to virtually all the major climate talks since 1995.

He explained that a Paris deal must send a clear signal to the global industry that investments can shift from high-polluting industries towards clean energy – a trend he said we were already witnessing. 

“That will affect their decisions on trillions of dollars of asset investments,” Meyer told The Guardian. “If they think that governments are serious about going where the science says we need to go, then they will respond in kind. If they think that governments are wishy-washy, and are wobbling or uncertain, then they will hedge their bets.”

It seems the oil and gas industry is at the very least hearing what’s being said. But will it listen?

The Industry's Future

We’re already seeing dramatic shifts in the energy market signalling the end of coal. According to estimates by commercial intelligence company Wood Mackenzie more than 65 per cent of the world’s coal production is unprofitable as prices decline for the fifth year in a row.

Last Friday at a side-event inside the COP21 delegates’ space, oil executives from Shell, Total, and Statoil, along with industry trade bodies, sat down to discuss the future of their industry. While there was little talk of renewables, the industry figures recognised that there was strong global pressure to cut fossil fuel emissions.

Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of Virginia-based non-profit C2ES – and who was described as being close to negotiators – explained: “Paris has already sent many signals… The [pledges], the presence of world leaders, the agreement itself… [and] the debate on long term goals such as the decarbonisation of the economy.”

He continued: “If all of that comes together what we’ll have is a reshaped, reframed political and policy context. The question for all stakeholders is how do we engage coming out of Paris to achieve the transformation we keep talking about?”

Jean-Francois Gagne, head of technology policy division at the International Energy Agency, told industry figures in the room: “We have to realise the rate at which we decarbonise is going to have to increase, so we need to think about [what we invest in] in the future.”

Solutions which “would give credibility” to the industry, he said, included energy efficiency and renewables, as well as ending coal and reducing methane emissions from gas.

As Margaret Mistry, sustainability communications leader at Statoil, added: “We need to relate to the climate goals that people are talking about outside of our industry. Whether it’s two degrees or net zero emissions. It’s important to speak the same language.”

“From our point of view,” she continued, “the stronger the agreement the better. What we’re seeking is predictability and investment signals. The more certainty… the better it is for us to plan our business.”

Photo: UN Climate Change via Flickr

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Some of the strongest legal challenges against the federally approved Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline come from B.C.’s First Nations and supporters from across B.C. are digging into their pockets to help ensure those are a success.

Pull Together, a grassroots campaign to raise funds for the legal challenges of six First Nations, has been so successful organizers are bumping their goal from $250,000 up to $300,000 by December 31.

On Thursday the Haidi Nation announced they would join the initiative alongside the Gitxaala, Heiltsuk, Kitaxoo/Xai’xias, Nadleh Whut’en and Nak’azdli Nations to carry legal challenges forward against Enbridge’s project.

“The Pull Together campaign is driven by people who care and are politically astute,” said kil tlaats ‘gaa Peter Lantin, President of the Haida Nation. “They can see how the future of the country is shaping up and want to be part of it.”

Chief Marilyn Slett of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council said the fight against the Northern Gateway is a “global issue.”

“It’s an issue that we all should be standing up to protect the land and the sea, we have that responsibility as human beings.”

First Nations lead legal challenge against Northern Gateway

First Nations hold unique constitutional powers in Canada and assert Canada’s “duty to consult and accommodate” leaves individual nations with the ultimate decision-making power over resource projects on traditional territories.

Since 2010 over 100 First Nations have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, an indigenous-law based agreement definitively banning oil pipelines and tankers in their territories. In 2010 nine coastal First Nations signed the Coastal First Nations Declaration that pledged “oil tankers carrying crude oil from the Alberta Tar Sands will not be allows to transit our lands and waters.”

According to a legal analysis performed by West Coast Environmental Law, B.C.’s First Nations “have the right to issue a ban on oil pipelines and crude oil tankers in their territories, based in their own ancestral laws, in Canadian constitutional law, and in international law.”

At least nine legal challenges have been launched by First Nations to stop the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline from being built. After the federal government approved the pipeline, a large group of First Nations, Councils and Assemblies launched a joint federal suit announcing,  “we will defend our territories whatever the cost may be.”

While some have criticized these legal arguments as tenuous, a historic decision in the June 2014 Williams Case for the first time acknowledged a local First Nation, the Tsilhqot’in, has legal title to their traditional territories. This sets a legal precedent for other First Nations to make similar claims to legal rights and title over their lands.

Under the Tsilhqot’in decision, economic development can still proceed on traditional territories with local First Nations’ consent or where the government can demonstrate that development is pressing and substantial.

As part of its pre-construction conditions Enbridge must prove it adequately consulted with all potentially affected First Nations and that it has plans in place to mitigate or repair any damage caused by the construction and operation of a pipeline on traditional lands.

Individuals, businesses, faith groups get behind B.C.’s First Nations

Over 30 businesses and more than 1,000 individual donors have come together in more than 100 online fundraisers to help Pull Together, an initiative of the Sierra Club BC and Victoria-based legal defense fund RAVEN, work towards its goal.

“British Columbians do not want First Nations to stand alone against Enbridge and they’re demonstrating this with passion, creativity and their wallets,” said Sierra Club BC campaigns director Caitlyn Vernon. “It’s incredible to think that Pull Together began in the summer with a community group in Terrace raising $2,000, and now we have raised a hundred times that.”

SumofUs.org, a global corporate watchdog and advocacy group, raised more than $40,000 for Pull Together and Heiltsuk councilor, Jess Housty, contributed over $5,700 from funds her and her husband raised at their October 18th wedding.

Moksha yoga studios are also participating in a “Stretch Across B.C. Challenge” which has raised $8,500 from participating studios across the province. The community of Pender Island raised over $4,000 by hosting a local concert and the United Church of Canada pledged to fundraise from its congregations throughout the month of November.  

Susan Smitten, executive director of RAVEN said financing legal challenges against the pipeline is a “an extensive, costly legal process.”

“The next stage involves gathering all of the evidence required for the Nations to make their cases at Court,” she said.

“While the Nations are committed to going it alone, standing together and pooling resources with all British Columbians ensures equal access to justice and a successful outcome with much more likelihood of success.”

Image Credit: Mandy Nahanee speaking at The Answer is Still NO!, a public rally in response to the Northern Gateway federal approval. Photo by Zack Embree.

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I round a bend on Highway 29 just west of Fort St. John and a magnificent river valley opens up before me.

At the bottom of the winding road, farmers' fields stretch as far as the eye can see along the banks of the mighty Peace River.

This is the same valley explorer Alexander Mackenzie paddled through in 1792, noting in his journal that the valley was so rich in wildlife that in some places it looked like a barnyard.

“Ninety per cent of the people who take that drive remember it for a lifetime,” says local rancher Leigh Summer. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

Today, the highway toward Hudson’s Hope is dotted with trucks carrying canoes and kayaks, all converging upon one spot: the Halfway River bridge, where the 9th annual Paddle for the Peace will launch.

The Paddle is an annual pilgrimage for people who want the valley to be protected from BC Hydro’s proposed Site C dam, which would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace River and 24 kilometres of its tributaries. The two-hour paddle takes place on a section of the river that will be flooded if the dam is built.

Highway 29 between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope is home to several billboards with slogans like “Keep the Peace,” “Site C Sucks” and “Save the Peace Valley.”

With the federal and provincial governments expected to make their decisions on the project this fall, there’s an undercurrent of tension at this year’s Paddle as farmers, ranchers and First Nations wait to see what will be next in their decades-long fight to stop the dam (the project was first rejected in 1982).

The people of this area know a thing or two about dams given that the Peace River is already home to two major ones.

Leigh Summer was just 14 years old when his family’s ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in 1967. His grandparents homesteaded that land in the 1920s and his mother was born there.

“We were told it was going to be good for the economy, so we took it in stride,” Summer says while sitting in his boat with his family during Saturday's Paddle for the Peace.

The W.A.C. Bennett dam stretches two kilometres across the head of the Peace canyon and creates Williston Reservoir, B.C.’s largest body of freshwater.

“I think the Williston Lake has paid dividends to the province,” Summer says. “But I think the time has come to realize that it’s a decent energy, but it’s a thing of the past.”

Now, 47 years after being flooded out for the first time, Summer's ranch is at risk again — this time from BC Hydro’s proposed third dam on the Peace, dubbed “Site C.”

With a price tag of $7.9 billion, the Site C dam is the largest infrastructure project in Canada and would produce about 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year. But the demand for the power has been questioned by economists and by the joint review panel that reviewed the project.

The panel's report, released in May, was inconclusive, saying both that the dam could provide cheap, reliable power for B.C. and that the demand for that power is not clear. The panel asked the provincial government to refer the project to the B.C. Utilities Commission to analyze the costs — something the province has yet to do.

“Justification must rest on an unambiguous need for the power and analyses showing its financial costs being sufficiently attractive as to make tolerable the bearing of substantial environmental, social and other costs,” the report says.

If the dam is built, Summer would be one of dozens of families who will impacted by flooding, slope instability and road re-alignments. His family could end up with a road through the field in front of their house. He finds it galling how BC Hydro talks about this being the Crown corporation's last chance to build a big dam.

“Why is this the last if this is such a good thing? They are admitting that hydro electricity was good in the 19th and in the 20th century. We’re in the 21st century … we have to either look to conservation or other forms of energy,” he says. “It’s so archaic. Building this dam isn’t even progress for the province.”

Leigh, his wife Darcy and their three young children spend most of the summer enjoying the Peace River. Their youngest son, a fifth generation Peace Country boy, is even called River.

Leigh Summer's family ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett dam in 1967.

River Summer spends a lot of time on the Peace River with his parents and two older sisters.

“I’m just sad at what they lost already with the two valleys,” Darcy says. “When you see pictures and when you do research on that, it was just beautiful, it was so magnificent. To think that we’re going to keep destroying it.”

This stretch of the Peace valley between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope is the last intact part of the river in British Columbia.

“Why can’t we leave a piece of the Peace intact for future generations?” Leigh says, his daughter sitting in his lap. “Let them have a choice. If we flood it, we take that choice away from them, from ever seeing what the Peace River was like.”

Out of sight, out of mind for the voting majority

For those trying to stop the Site C dam, one of the biggest challenges is that this part of the province — a 14-hour drive from Vancouver — is out of sight, out of mind for the voting majority of the province.

A September 2013 poll commissioned by BC Hydro found only four in 10 British Columbians had even heard of the Crown utility’s proposal to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.

“That’s what this event is all about,” says Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation. “There are people who are making a decision about this valley who have never even been here.”

Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation.

“There is nothing better in the world than to be able to put your boat on the water or go stand knee deep in the water and catch a fish and eat that fish. And drink the water. That in itself is something that’s worth saving,” Willson says.

Because the Peace River is the only river to break the barrier of the Rocky Mountains between the Yukon south almost to Mexico, it has provided a gateway for wildlife and people for thousands of years.

Although few British Columbians make it up to the Peace region nowadays, Fort St. John is the oldest non-native community in British Columbia, established as a fur trading post in 1794 — and First Nations have been here more than 10,000 years. Indeed, the Peace got its name from a peace treaty signed between the Danezaa people, called the Beaver by the Europeans, and the Cree signed in 1781.

As I float down the river in one of about 250 boats taking part in the Paddle, First Nations drummers start to sing alongside. At just that moment, an eagle swoops overhead.

About 250 boats were on the water for Paddle for the Peace on Saturday July 12.

“We’re prepared to take any means necessary to stop this project in support of the Treaty 8 First Nations leadership,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told Desmog Canada at the Paddle. “I really hope that this project is buried once and for all.”

People aren’t the only ones who will be impacted if the dam is built.

“Site C will make a major contribution toward severing that Rocky mountain chain that goes all the way from Yellowstone to Yukon,” says Sarah Cox, senior conservation program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.  

“The science shows that vulnerable species like grizzly, wolverine and lynx will be greatly impacted to the extent that populations may not be recoverable,” she says. “It’s hard to imagine that the beauty of this valley will be completely flooded and underwater.”

Last week, the Sierra Club BC, Peace Valley Environmental Association and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative launched a new website, StopSiteC.org, where citizens can sign a petition to voice their opposition to the project.

'The Peace … has paid her price'

Doug Donaldson, the NDP’s aboriginal affairs and reconciliation critic, spoke to the crowd of paddlers before they hit the water.

“I think that this river and the Peace River Valley and you have given enough to the province,” he said.

A billboard protests the Site C dam above Bear Flats in the Peace Valley.

Organizers said BC Liberal representatives were invited to speak, but did not attend. Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett has said he has not made up his mind about the dam yet.

For Leigh, who’s watching and waiting to see whether his family may be uprooted a second time by one of BC Hydro’s dams, the Peace has shouldered more than its fair share of the impacts of providing power for the province.

“The Peace River in British Columbia has paid her price for prosperity,” Summer says. “Do we have to completely destroy the whole Peace River in all of B.C.?”

He’s frustrated that the province has exempted the project from the review of the B.C. Utilities Commission, the independent regulator that turned the dam down in 1982.

“That’s wrong. We call ourselves a democracy; that’s not democracy,” Summer says.

“The truth would set us free here, but the truth never gets to the right people.”

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On July 6th, 2013, one year ago today, a train carrying oil derailed in the sleepy Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic, resulting in an explosion so wild and so hot it leveled several city blocks and incinerated the bodies of many of its 47 victims. The accident put the tiny town on the international media circuit and dragged a new social concern with it: oil trains.

Whether you call them oil trains, tanker trains or bomb trains, chances are you didn’t call them anything at all before this day last year.

Before the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, several smaller tanker train accidents across North America had already raised alarm over the danger of transporting oil and other fuels by rail in small communities with tracks often running through city centres and residential areas.

In the wake of Lac-Mégantic, however, critics, environmental organizations, journalists and concerned communities began tracking the growing movement of volatile oil shipments across the continent.

Keeping pace with oil transport

Overall shipments of oil by rail have increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009.

In 2012 nearly 40,000 barrels of oil were shipped to the U.S. each day, although surging oil production in the Bakken Shale has simultaneously led to an increase of oil by rail shipments of crude north of the border.

In 2013 oil train accidents resulted in more than 1.15 million gallons of spilled oil. This represents a 50-fold increase over the yearly average between 1975 and 2012.

According to some, the surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight. Lax oversight may have contributed to the devastation at Lac-Mégantic, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

In an October 2013 report, author Bruce Campbell, the CCPA’s executive director, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”

According to Transport Safety Board of Canada data, accidents involving dangerous goods have increased since last year.

Screen grab of TSB Canada data complied by CTV News. 

Poor tank design, poorer response plan

According to CN Rail chief executive Claude Monegau, poor tank car design was “one of the most important systematic issues” leading to the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. Earlier this year a Canadian government-commissioned rail safety group said more needed to be done to ensure the safety of oil tanker cars carrying crude through communities.

Since then the government has implemented a plan to upgrade or retire generic oil tanker cars, known as DOT-111s. In February there were roughly 228,000 DOT-111 cars in operation across North American and 92,000 of those were carrying flammable liquids.

Civil engineering expert and professor Roza Galvez-Cloutier, who examined the derailment in Lac-Mégantic, recently said no appropriate plans or equipment are in place to prevent a similar situation from recurring in Canada.

“There was an evident lack of preparation at all levels,” Galvez-Cloutier said recently in a Science Media Centre of Canada webinar reviewing the events at Lac-Mégantic. “Prevention measures, preparedness and emergency plans need to urgently be updated.”

“I think there was a panic and there was a lack of co-ordination,” she said.

At the time of the incident, firefighters were cooling oil tankers without having subdued the fire, Galvez-Cloutier recounted, adding the emergency response personnel did not know what the composition of the burning oil was.

Had they known, it’s likely they would have responded more appropriately to the fire, she said, using foam suppressants, for example.

“I know that Ultramar brought in, as a last resort, some foam to assist, but this was based on their goodwill, not a pre-planned emergency measure,” she said.

Grassroots groups respond

The increase in oil tanker accidents led a coalition of environmental organizations to create an ‘Oil by Rail Week of Action’ between July 6 and 13.

The coalition includes ForestEthics, Oil Change International, 350.org and the Sierra Club.

On Monday the groups plan to launch a ‘blast zone’ website which will make communities along oil tanker routes searchable by address.

Eddie Scher, spokesperson for ForestEthics, said the website brings together rail industry data and Google maps to make evacuations zones visible.

“It allows you to plug in your address and see where you sit in relation to this Google map blast zone,” Scher told DeSmog by phone.

“And what you find, which isn’t that surprising, is that these trains — mile long trains carrying 3 million gallons of oil — go right through the centre of almost very major city in U.S.”

“Our rail system was designed to carry goods, not carry hazardous materials through city centres,” he said.

Major cities including L.A., Oakland and Chicago have oil trains running through them.

The database, which is searchable for both U.S. and Canadian addresses, is designed to bring information about oil train transport to the public, something Scher says should already be available to the communities along rail transport lines.

“It’s pretty outrageous that we’re the ones to have to do this. We’re happy that emergency responders have this information but everyone should know what’s going on.”

“We’re working on the numbers right now, but it’s easy to say with the information we have that 10 of millions of Americans live in that blast zone,” he said.

“The amount of the populations that is threatened is huge. What we’re really trying to do is to let folks see what is going on.“

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board via flickr.

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“Our plan is working, thanks to our Prime Minister’s strong leadership on the environment,” states a new sleek ‘fact sheet’ released to the public after the federal government announced a new National Conservation Plan (NCP) last week.

The Harper government is committing five years and $252 million to the NCP, an initiative they say is aimed at conserving land, restoring ecosystems, and connecting Canadians to nature.

"Our Government is committed to working closely with Canadians so that together we can provide effective stewardship of Canada’s rich natural heritage for present and future generations," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement.

"The National Conservation Plan will help ensure the sustainability of our nation’s greatest resources, contribute to our country’s long-term prosperity and further position Canada as a world leader in conservation. It will also help ensure that Canadian families and visitors can enjoy the beauty of our country from coast to coast to coast for years to come," he said.

The rollout of the conservation plan has been accompanied by a substantial public outreach campaign, including an email from Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq encouraging Canadians to get their own “free fact sheet” to “ learn more about what PM Harper and the Conservative Government have done to protect our natural heritage.”

Short on substance

The ‘fact sheet’ claims Canada is a “world leader in clean energy production,” investing “more than $10 billion in green infrastructure, energy efficiency, and clean energy since 2006.”

According to Simon Dyer, regional director for Alberta and the North at the Pembina Institute, "Canada's investments in clean energy per capita are significantly less than U.S. or Europe." A significant amount of money is being directed to carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, while the federal government has cancelled its Ecoenergy programs for efficiency and renewable energy, "which is a big gap," Dyer told DeSmog Canada.

And although the Ontario government has successfully phased out coal, Dyer said federal rules allow some Canadian coal plants to operate as late as 2062.

Prominent conservation groups are calling the government's plan into question, saying a more clear and rigorous strategy needs to be put into place. The federal government also needs to lay out how action on climate change will factor into the conservation picture, they say.

“Preserving land…without reducing greenhouse gas emissions is public relations, not conservation,” John Bennett from the Sierra Club said.

“We do need to preserve much more of nature but it is more complicated [than just] putting up a no trespassing sign.”

Alison Woodley, national director for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) Parks Program, told DeSmog Canada there is “potential for progress” in the announcement of the NCP but how the plan will be implemented remains unclear.

“It is not clear how this announcement will enable Canada to meet its international commitment to protect at least 17 per cent of our land and 10 per cent of our oceans by 2020,” Woodley said. Canada currently protects 10 per cent of land and 1 per cent of Canadian waters.

“We desperately need a nation-wide, science-based plan to get there, and the federal government should be leading this effort. Yet this was not part of the announcement,” Woodley told DeSmog Canada.

Climate change is making nature conservation a more urgent issue, according to Woodley.

“We need to ensure that much more of our lands and waters are protected, and that these areas are connected together so wildlife can move through the land and seascape as they adapt to changing conditions,” she said.  

The conservation of Canada’s park land has an important role to play in addressing climate change.

“Conserving natural areas can also help with efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, by storing carbon and by buffering against extreme weather events like flooding and storm surges,” Woodley added.

Éric Hérbert-Daly, national executive director of CPAWS wrote it was “shocking” to see the government’s plan offered no support for National Parks. As DeSmog Canada recently reported, federal funding cuts to Parks Canada has left many of Canada’s national parks unattended, with little to no research being conducted on an ongoing basis, even in regions harshly affected by the pine beetle epidemic.

“National parks are the federal government’s flagship conservation tools that are beloved by Canadians,” Hérbert-Daly said. “A national conservation plan that ignores our national parks has an enormous gap.”

The Conservative government's 'fact sheet.'

A new 'environmental' brand for the Harper Government?

In 2012 Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an internationally binding climate change agreement, and made major cuts to science programs and research at both Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The funding cuts, coupled with strict communications procedures that prevent scientists from speaking freely with the media, have been cited as evidence of the Harper government’s “war on science.”

As Andy Radia from Yahoo Canada News points out, the Conservative’s rebranding exercise makes sense, given how poorly the party is perceived when it comes to environmental policy.

As a potential sign of more aggressive environmental campaigning to come, Radia points to a much-publicized speech Conservative thought-leader Preston Manning gave at the Manning Conference earlier this year:

While conservatives are generally seen to be competent on the economy, we continue to be seen as defensive and weak on the environment. In our Quebec poll, for example, perceived weakness on the environment was given as the number one policy reason for not supporting conservative parties.

Of course, what is most exasperating is that this need not be so. I know, you know, all kinds of people – especially ranchers, farmers, loggers, fishers, hunters, hikers, out-door people who either work or recreate in close communion with their physical environment – who are fiscal or social conservatives and environmental conservationists all at the same time. They hold all of these commitments and positions in common.

And this shouldn’t surprise us. Conservative and conservation come from the same root. Living within our means financially is easily and logically extendable to living within our means ecologically. And market mechanisms, which conservatives prefer to excessive regulation by governments, can just as readily be harnessed to environmental protection as to economic development.

But this perceived weakness on the environmental front needs to be more seriously addressed if conservative support is to be broadened, especially among the young. The philosophical and policy means for doing so exist in the growing body of literature and activity on the “green conservative” theme. And the appointment of Leona Aglukkaq as Canada’s Environment Minister is a most positive and welcome step as the Arctic, with which she is intimately identified, is seen by many Canadians as the place to make a “fresh start on the environment” and the better management of the environment/economy interface.

Ultimately, says Woodley, the government has to make good on the promise to conserve Canada’s green spaces.

“The announcement was just that, an announcement – with a list of investments, but no details about what they are meant to achieve,” she said. 

“It is not clear if they are going to now create a plan with clear goals and objectives and strategies to achieve these. We hope there is something more comprehensive coming, but the announcement didn't mention anything along those lines.”

Image Credit: Prime Minister Stephen Harper announcing the NCP. Photo courtesy of the Prime Minister's website.

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Climate change is already negatively affecting every region in the United States and the future looks even more dismal if coordinated mitigation and adaptation efforts are not immediately aggressively pursued, according to the third U.S. National Climate Assessment report released Tuesday.

“Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present,” notes the massive NCA report.

“Corn producers in Iowa, oyster growers in Washington State, and maple syrup producers in Vermont are all observing climate-related changes that are outside of recent experience. So, too, are coastal planners in Florida, water managers in the arid Southwest, city dwellers from Phoenix to New York, and Native Peoples on tribal lands from Louisiana to Alaska.”

The report adds evidence of human-induced climate change continues to strengthen and that impacts are increasing across the nation. The report says Americans are already noticing the results of climate change, from longer and hotter summers to shorter and warmer winters. Rain falls in heavier downpours, there is more flooding, earlier snow melt, more severe wildfires and less summer sea ice in the Arctic.

“Scientists who study climate change confirm that these observations are consistent with significant changes in Earth’s climatic trends,” says the report that was prepared by hundreds of scientists for the U.S. government.

“Precipitation patterns are changing, sea level is rising, the oceans are becoming more acidic, and the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events are increasing.”

The climatic changes are triggering wide-ranging impacts in every region of the U.S. and throughout the nation’s economy, the report says, adding that while some of the changes can be positive over the short run, most are detrimental since American society and its infrastructure was not designed for the rapidly-changing climate now being experienced.

The report analyses impacts on human health, water, energy, transportation, agriculture, forests, and ecosystems. It also assesses impacts on the country’s eight major regions.

“What is new over the last decade is that we know with increasing certainty that climate change is happening now,” the report says. “While scientists continue to refine projections of the future, observations unequivocally show that climate is changing and that the warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. These emissions come mainly from burning coal, oil, and gas, with additional contributions from forest clearing and some agricultural practices.”

Noting that the climate is projected to continue to change over this century and beyond, the report says there is still time to act to limit the amount of change and its damaging impacts.

The report says U.S. average temperature has increased by 1.3°F to 1.9°F since 1895, with the most recent decade being the nation’s and the world’s hottest on record.

Temperatures are projected to rise another 2°F to 4°F in most areas of the U.S. over the next few decades. The report says by the end of this century, a roughly 3°F to 5°F rise is projected under a lower emissions scenario, which would require substantial reductions in emissions, while a higher emissions scenario assuming continued increases in emissions, predominantly from fossil fuel combustion, would result in a 5°F to 10°F rise.

Many scientists suggest that the safe and manageable level of global temperature rise due to climate change should not exceed 3.6 °F (2°C) above pre-industrial levels.

“Climate change poses a major challenge to U.S. agriculture because of the critical dependence of agricultural systems on climate,” the report says.

“The United States produces nearly $330 billion per year in agricultural commodities. This productivity is vulnerable to direct impacts on crops and livestock from changing climate conditions and extreme weather events and indirect impacts through increasing pressures from pests and pathogens.”

“Climate change will also alter the stability of food supplies and create new food security challenges for the United States as the world seeks to feed nine billion people by 2050.”

Water quality and quantity are already being affected by climate change, the report says, adding changes in precipitation and runoff, combined with changes in consumption and withdrawal, have reduced surface and groundwater supplies and increasing the likelihood of water shortages for many uses.

The report adds that climate change affects human health in many ways.

“Increasingly frequent and intense heat events lead to more heat-related illnesses and deaths and, over time, worsen drought and wildfire risks, and intensify air pollution,” the report says.

“Increasingly frequent extreme precipitation and associated flooding can lead to injuries and increases in waterborne disease. Rising sea surface temperatures have been linked with increasing levels and ranges of diseases. Rising sea levels intensify coastal flooding and storm surge, and thus exacerbate threats to public safety during storms.”

The report says that Americans face choices as the impacts of climate change are becoming more prevalent. It adds that some additional climate change impacts are now unavoidable because of past emissions of long-lived heat-trapping gases.

“The amount of future climate change, however, will still largely be determined by choices society makes about emissions. Lower emissions of heat-trapping gases and particles mean less future warming and less-severe impacts; higher emissions mean more warming and more severe impacts.”

The report may give President Barack Obama more power to deal with climate change, the environment and energy issues through administrative amendments during his last 2.5 years in office. On Tuesday, the White House issued a media release saying the report underscores “the need for urgent action to combat the threats from climate change, protect American citizens and communities today, and build a sustainable future for our kids and grandkids.”

Lou Leonard, the World Wildlife Fund’s vice president for climate change, said the report provides a pathway for Americans to choose a more beneficial future.

“We need to use this practical report as a guidebook for preparing local communities for extreme weather and other climate impacts,” Leonard said. “At the same time, we need to transform the way we produce and use energy, leaving dirty coal, oil and gas behind. There is no time to lose.”

Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune applauded the report and urged the Obama administration to promote clean energy solutions like wind and solar power. “We can create good American jobs and power homes and businesses nationwide without polluting our air, water, or climate,” Brune said.

Image Credit: Map showing consecutive dry days from NCA report website

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This is a guest post by Caitlyn Vernon and Torrance Coste.

The February 25th headline, “10 million scallops are dead; company lays off staff,” hit British Columbians like a punch in the stomach. The shellfish industry has been an economic powerhouse on central Vancouver Island for decades, providing hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue every year – over $30 million in average wholesale value. 

But when we talk about shellfish, we aren’t just talking jobs and economics. We are talking about food. Shellfish harvesting is one of our most robust local food systems, and the prospect of losing this industry makes us all feel, quite frankly, a little hungry.

Of the possible causes of the recent scallop die-off, ocean acidification seems the most likely. Ocean acidification is directly connected to climate change and to our runaway consumption of fossil fuels. In short, acidification occurs when carbon is absorbed into the ocean from the atmosphere, making the water more acidic. Acidification strips the ocean of carbonate ions, which marine species like scallops and oysters need to build their shells, therefore reducing the ability of these species to survive.

For years, groups like the B.C. Shellfish Growers Association have been raising the alarm about the verified threat of acidification to the shellfish industry.

Roberta Stevenson, the Association’s Executive Director, told us that the public and our elected decision-makers need to understand how serious the situation is for shellfish growers on B.C.’s coast. She said the significant economic benefits the industry provides could disappear if we don’t start to see the health of the oceans as an economic priority.

A major source of atmospheric carbon is the burning of fossil fuels: oil, coal, and gas. Here in B.C., we have a stake in important decisions over whether or not to build fossil fuel export infrastructure. The proposed Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines, the prospective B.C. LNG industry, and the proposed Raven Coal Mine will all put much more carbon into the atmosphere, further acidifying the ocean and directly threatening the survival of shellfish species and coastal communities.

All these proposed projects need our consent. It’s important that we make the right choices and get on a path to a low-carbon future.

The recent scallop die-off is a clear illustration of what we will face if we don’t act now to reduce our carbon emissions. Climate change and ocean acidification will continue to have devastating consequences; not just for coastal economies, communities, and families, but for anyone who depends on the ocean as a source of food.

What’s more, coal, oil, and gas are finite resources, guaranteed to go bust when they run out, become too expensive, or when the environmental impacts are deemed not worth the risk. Any financial benefits we gain from extracting and exporting them will one day disappear completely. We will be left with the socio-economic hardship and lingering environmental problems well-known to many communities where boom-bust extractive industries have run their course.

By continuing to promote the extraction and export of coal, tar sands, and fracked gas instead of sustainable sectors in B.C., our government is making a political choice to prioritize short-term profits over renewable industries that can provide economic stability and contribute to viable, healthy communities over the long term.

We all deserve good jobs that don’t destroy our children’s future. For the sake of these shellfish and the families that depend on them, let’s work together to develop a smart and creative strategy to transition away from fossil fuels and toward a low carbon economy – with meaningful jobs in sustainable industries that don’t compromise ecosystems. A healthy coast is one with abundant food that can still be pulled from the ocean, as it always has been.

If we keep pumping carbon into our atmosphere we’re investing in an acidic ocean for decades if not centuries to come, and we’re forsaking the sustainable shellfish industry and the communities, businesses, and jobs it supports.

Caitlyn Vernon is Campaigns Director for Sierra Club B.C. Find her on twitter: @caitlynvernon. Torrance Coste is Vancouver Island Campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. Find him on twitter: @TorranceCoste.

This article originally appeared in the Times Colonist. Reprinted with permission.

Image Credit: The Scallop by 5k1nnyt1g3r via flickr.

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Two B.C. environmental groups are taking the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission to court next week over practices they argue unlawfully permit oil and gas companies to use water.

Sierra Club B.C. and Western Canada Wilderness Committee — in documents filed with the Supreme Court of B.C. — argue the Oil and Gas Commission has been engaged in a “systemic” practice of issuing back-to-back “short-term” water approvals and call for permits issued to Encana to be quashed.

The case will be heard in the Supreme Court of B.C. in Vancouver on March 17 and 18.

“Under the Water Act, if you want long-term access to water, you need a water licence,” says Caitlyn Vernon, campaigns director with Sierra Club B.C. “What the Oil and Gas Commission is doing is granting consecutive short-term approvals to oil and gas companies.”

The case centres around water approvals under Section 8 of B.C.’s Water Act, which governs short-term use and diversion of water for up to 24 months.

By requesting and analyzing Section 8 water approvals going back seven years, Sierra Club B.C. and the Wilderness Committee — represented by lawyers from Ecojustice — determined the approvals were being given to the same companies for consecutive terms.

“Multiple approvals are routinely granted over multiple years to the same company, for the same purposes, at the same locations and thereby violate s. 8 of the Water Act,” reads the groups’ petition to the court.

The groups argue this is illegal — that if a company requires water for more than one term or more than 24 months, they should have to obtain a water licence, not a short-term approval.

This is an important distinction, says Karen Campbell, the Ecojustice lawyer arguing the case. When a company applies for a water licence, its application has to be posted publicly and there’s opportunity for a public hearing. With a Section 8 approval, the public is not notified and there’s no chance for public input, she says.

83% of “short-term” approvals granted for more than one term

Sierra Club paid more than $1,000 to obtain copies of 1,352 Section 8 approvals — 83 per cent of which grant the right to use or divert water for more than one term to the same company, for the same purposes, from the same location.

Encana, along with other companies working in B.C.’s northeast gas fields, requires vast amounts of water to conduct hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — a process that involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground at pressure to fracture the rock and release the natural gas trapped inside. Afterward, some of the water is re-used, but much of it is contaminated and stored in tailings ponds or injected into deep wells underground, where it is removed from the hydrological cycle.

The Encana water approvals that could be revoked are in the Montney shale basin in the South Peace, near Dawson Creek.

“People in the north are already seeing their water depleted and contaminated by fracking and drilling,” Vernon says. “The case is about fixing the way water permits are handed out, so any long-term water withdrawals go through a review process with oversight.”

One lake, five “short-term” approvals

In an affidavit filed with the court, Eoin Madden of Western Canada Wilderness Committee notes Encana has five approvals at Wasp Lake, which allow Encana to use water for the same purpose for five years. Encana also has a water licence for the same lake.

The short-term approvals allow eight times more water to be drawn annually than the water licence does — up to 69,000 cubic metres per year, or enough water to fill 27 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The approvals also allow water to be drawn year-round, while the licence prohibits withdrawals between May and October.

If Encana withdrew the daily limit set out in the approval, it would take less than three days to withdraw the annual limit of their Wasp Lake water licence, says Morgan Blakley, a staff lawyer with Ecojustice.

“They’re violating the spirit of the legislation,” Blakley says.

The LNG connection

Image credit: Shell via Flickr

With all the talk of building liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities on B.C.’s coast, Vernon says it’s important for people to make the connection between fracking and LNG.

“Building any LNG terminals will require an increase in fracking, with associated impacts on water,” she says. “In a climate-changing world, freshwater is an increasingly scarce resource and we need to be managing it responsibly for communities, for agriculture, for our children’s future.”

In a recent blog in the Vancouver Sun, Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and David Hughes, a geoscientist, wrote that if even 70 per cent of the current LNG proposals go ahead, about 39,000 new wells would be required by 2040. If nine of ten of those wells were fracked, at least 582 billion litres of water would be polluted and removed from the hydrological cycle.

Encana, Oil and Gas Commission Respond

In an affidavit filed with the court, Cameron Buss of Encana Corporation says the company tends to rely on Section 8 water approvals during the exploratory phase.

“Encana’s use of water under Section 8 approvals is for discrete operations, which are short term in nature, but continue throughout the life of a play,” his statement reads.

Encana argues that if the Oil and Gas Commission’s practice of granting back-to-back short-term water approvals is declared unlawful, there will be significant harm to Encana and others.

“There are not readily available alternative water sources for Encana's ongoing operations in the Montney area,” Buss states.  “Many of these operations would cease if the order sought … is granted.”

The Oil and Gas Commission’s response to the petition says: “The Water Act contains no express prohibition on repeats of approvals under Section 8” and argues it interpreted the Water Act “reasonably.”

Main image: Jeremy Buckingham via Flickr

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