Ellen Page has thrown her support behind Mi’kmaq land protectors opposing a controversial plan to use water from one of Nova Scotia’s major rivers to create huge underground caverns to store natural gas.

The Halifax-born actress tweeted out a link to a Change.org petition on Thursday morning, encouraging her 1.48 million followers to sign the petition and “support our environment and indigenous rights.”

For the past 12 years, Alton Gas has been planning to pump water from the Sipekne’katik (Shubenacadie) River to an underground site 12 kilometres away, where it will be used to flush out salt deposits, creating up to 15 caverns.

The leftover brine solution would then be pumped back into the river over a two- to three-year period.

The project, which lies on unceded Mi’kmaw territory, has drawn criticism from Indigenous land and water protectors, who say they’re worried the project will damage the 73-kilometre tidal river system that runs through the middle of the Nova Scotia mainland.

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Page,
an Oscar-nominated actress, has previously spoken about her
responsibility to put a spotlight on the efforts of marginalized
communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental
disasters and environmental racism.

“There are so many issues
happening, and not enough people know about it, and that’s because, of
course, marginalized people are continuously silenced,” Page said.