Energy and Climate Change

VANCOUVER – Living Oceans Society, the Pembina Institute, and ForestEthics are calling on the federal government to significantly strengthen the proposed environmental assessment for the proposed Enbridge Gateway Pipeline. If built, the dual pipelines would extend from the Alberta tar sands to the British Columbia coast, requiring tankers to ship both crude oil to markets in Asia and the US, and condensate, a product used in tar sands production, to Alberta.

SOINTULA, B.C. -  At 3:00 p.m. yesterday, the fuel truck potentially loaded with approximately 10,000 litres of diesel was successfully recovered from Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. In August 2007 the fuel truck, along with 10 other pieces of equipment, tipped from a barge being towed through Robson Bight which is critical habitat for orca whales.

VANCOUVER – A coalition of community and conservation groups has called on Ottawa to establish a full public inquiry to look into the far-reaching effects of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines proposal. Enbridge proposes to build twin pipelines carrying crude oil and condensate, a toxic petroleum product, across 1000 rivers and streams BC from the Alberta tar sands to the coast at Kitimat, where massive super tankers would carry oil through dangerous inside coastal waters to Asian markets.

PRINCE RUPERT - Criticism of the federal government’s review of theEnbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal is building. Nineteen environmental and community organizations have written to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency expressing concern that the terms of reference for the review ignore climate change, tar sands expansion and the question of allowing oil tankers on B.C.'s North Coast.



VANCOUVER — One day after the twenty-first anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a powerful coalition of environmental groups are putting Enbridge and governments on notice that they will step up their activities to support a Coastal First Nations’ declaration made on Tuesday to keep tar sands oil tankers out of their ancestral territories on Canada’s Pacific North Coast.

SOINTULA, B.C. – Ted Leroy Trucking was found guilty yesterday on six pollution charges resulting from a 2007 accident where 11 pieces of heavy equipment carrying 20,000 litres of fuel slipped off the company’s barge into the waters of the Michael Biggs Ecological Reserve at Robson Bight, home to B.C.'s Northern Resident orcas.

In light of the failed attempts to clean up the oil that is spewing from a sunken rig in the Gulf of Mexico, First Nations and environmental groups are calling on the federal government to implement a permanent ban on oil and gas development and tanker traffic on the North Coast of British Columbia. Despite having the required safety mechanism on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, an explosion occurred, the technology to stop the oil from spilling in to the ocean failed, and the weather delayed the clean up efforts.

SOINTULA, B.C. -- On May 27 Enbridge escalated conflict on the coast when they took steps to break the First Nations ban on tanker traffic by applying to the federal government for approval of their Northern Gateway pipeline.

“Enbridge poses a grave threat to the future of coastal First Nations’ way of life,” says Art Sterritt, Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations. “We will not allow Enbridge to do to us what BP has done to the people of Louisiana.”

Vancouver, B.C. – Environmental groups are praising Michael Ignatieff and the Liberal Party of Canada for their commitment today to formalize the oil tanker ban in British Columbia. Such a ban would prevent crude oil tankers from traveling through B.C.’s Central and North Coast.

OTTAWA -– An unprecedented delegation of First Nations, commercial fishing, tourism representatives and environmental groups from Canada’s Pacific North Coast is in Ottawa today, calling on the federal government to ban oil tankers from the region.

The federal government is currently considering allowing over 200 oil tankers per year to travel through some of the most dangerous waters in the world, despite polls that show 80 percent of British Columbians support banning crude oil tankers.