We’re going to court!
In April 2024, the BC Energy Regulator (BCER) greenlit construction to begin on a section of the 900-km Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline in northern B.C. without fulfilling a legal requirement for the BCER to do an assessment of the cumulative effects that the project, as a whole, would have on the environment and communities. Construction on the project started in August 2024 and paused in November.
That’s why Ecojustice lawyers are going to court on behalf of our clients, the Kispiox Band, the Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association, and the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, to demand the BCER follows its own rules and make sure the pipeline’s cumulative impacts are fully and fairly considered and mitigated before construction continues. Our clients, who live along the proposed pipeline route, are concerned about the impacts of the project on their communities, their health and safety, their livelihoods, and the environment.
What’s the problem?
The permits that the BCER issued for the pipeline require that, before construction can begin, the BCER must conduct a cumulative effects assessment of the project. Our clients allege that the BCER didn’t actually conduct a cumulative effects assessment of the project at all. Instead, the BCER’s “assessment” only focused on a small section of the pipeline and relied on information from a 2014 environmental assessment as well as from environmental assessments for different projects without considering how the project, communities, ecosystems, climate, science or laws have changed over this time.
The problem with a decade-old environmental assessment?
- Over the last ten years, the pipeline route and, watersheds and communities along the route have changed — all while climate impacts have worsened.
- There are more frequent and severe droughts and wildfires in the region, and continued industrial development in northern B.C. has made sensitive ecosystems and endangered species’ populations (including salmon and caribou) more vulnerable.
- Even though the BCER was required to complete a cumulative effects assessment prior to construction start, there is no sign that the BCER assessed any of these changes in making its decision.
The decision to allow construction to start without a proper cumulative effects assessment has been shrouded in secrecy. The details of how this decision was made only came to light when our clients and other concerned citizens started asking questions about how construction could start when there had been no public cumulative effects assessment.
People impacted by this project deserve to understand how their regulator is assessing and mitigating impacts on their communities and the ecosystems on which they rely.
What we’re fighting for:
On behalf of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association, and Kispiox Band (a Gitxsan community), we’re demanding that the BCER follow its own rules and conduct a cumulative effects assessment on the whole project before construction continues on the pipeline.
Ecojustice lawyers will be in court from March 25-28, 2025, fighting on behalf of our clients.
