By: Andy Crosby
A number of environmental and Indigenous groups are taking legal action against the Joint Review Panel (JRP)’s approval of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, claiming the panel’s report contains several legal errors and is based on insufficient evidence.
Applications for judicial review were filed on Jan. 17 with the Federal Court of Appeal by the Haisla Nation, the Gitxaala Nation, Ecojustice, and the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre (ELC). The ELC is representing the Federation of British Columbia Naturalists, and Ecojustice is representing ForestEthics Advocacy, Living Oceans Society, and Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
Environmental lawyers are seeking to prevent Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet from relying on the JRP report to approve the project.
“The JRP did not have enough evidence to support its conclusion that the Northern Gateway pipeline would not have significant adverse effects on certain aspects of the environment,” said Karen Campbell, a staff lawyer for Ecojustice, in a press release.
“The panel made its recommendation despite known gaps in the evidence, particularly missing information about the risk of geohazards along the pipeline route and what happens to diluted bitumen when it is spilled in the marine environment.”
The shoddy report comes as no surprise following the Harper government’s Bill C-38 in 2012, which was widely criticized as a mechanism to fast-track energy projects by gutting Canada’s environmental protection laws and bypassing meaningful consultation with Indigenous communities whose territories are affected.
“We have no choice but to go to court and challenge the JRP’s final report,” said Karen Wristen, executive director of Living Oceans Society, in a press release.
“The panel’s recommendation was made without considering important evidence that highlights the threat Northern Gateway poses to the B.C. coast.”
Despite the panel’s conclusion that the pipeline be approved because of supposed benefits for Canadians, Ecojustice’s legal team will challenge the report’s assertion that “diluted bitumen is unlikely to sink in an ocean environment,” even though a study released by three federal government departments earlier this month suggests otherwise.
The team will also argue that the report does not adequately factor in the habitats of affected species, such as the Pacific humpback whale and caribou populations. Although the JRP included the economic benefits of upstream tar sands development, it failed to consider the environmental impacts despite a clear request to do so, according to Ecojustice.
“The panel cannot consider the so-called economic benefits of oilsands expansion tied to this pipeline but ignore the adverse impacts that expansion will have on climate change, endangered wildlife and ecosystems,” said Nikki Skuce, senior energy campaigner with ForestEthics Advocacy, in a press release.
“The environmental assessment process is supposed to consider both sides of the coin, and in this instance the panel failed.”
Pipeline and other energy projects have been met with formidable resistance across Canada, with Indigenous groups vowing to block construction of the Northern Gateway pipeline.
This article first appeared in the Leveller Vol. 6, No. 4 (Jan/Feb 2014).
