Shubenacadie River is the most important striped bass spawning ground in Nova Scotia.
KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Alton Gas likes to brag about the soundness of its approach and its willingness to share information with the public.
However, if it weren’t for Rachael Greenland-Smith and Dale Poulette, two stubborn citizen-researchers, we would never have seen evidence that the federal department of Environment and Climate Change (ECC) point blank refused to approve the project as it is currently proposed.
Alton Gas intends to dump 1.3 million cubic metres of salt into the Shubenacadie River over a two- to three-year period. The salt would be flushed out as nearby natural gas storage caverns are being excavated.
Indigenous water protectors and their allies believe that this will harm creatures that live in and around the river and that the Mi’kmaq people who traditionally hunted and fished the area never surrendered the land and were not properly consulted.
The last striped bass spawning ground in Nova Scotia
Natural gas is a fossil energy source that formed deep beneath the earth’s surface. Natural gas contains many different compounds. The largest component of natural gas is methane, a compound with one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms (CH4). Natural gas also contains smaller amounts of natural gas liquids (NGL, which are also hydrocarbon gas liquids), and nonhydrocarbon gases, such as carbon dioxide and water vapor. We use natural gas as a fuel and to make materials and chemicals.
Shubenacadie River, Nova Scotia
The plan to store the gas in caverns is flawed. Despite assurances it will be absolutely safe, there aren’t any guarantees. There have been some very serious leaks causing explosions and fires and although these represent extreme failures, constant leaking occurs. In an EPA report, it said that in 2012, twenty-seven percent of the leaked emissions were from transmission and storage. Forty-five percent from production, sixteen percent from distribution and twelve percent from processing. Similar failures are reported across the globe, not just the U.S., so is it any wonder the safety of the Alton Gas project needs to be questioned?
Although the brine is a salt solution, the Nova Scotia Striped Bass Association feels these releases could have a negative impact on the fish during spawning season. It also begs the question about toxic blooms of algae that could grow with the increase salt discharge. It would absorb oxygen out of the water and leave the fish more susceptible to disease.
In an article by the Council of Canadians titled “The Unacceptable Risk of Alton Gas Storage” it says, “An independent quantitative risk analysis done in 2015 by Rob Mackenzie for a similar project in Seneca Lake looked at the risk of underground hydrocarbon storage, including salt cavern storage. His risk analysis concluded that salt cavern storage poses an unacceptable risk due to the medium likelihood and extremely serious to serious consequences.”
In B.C., open pit mines have leached selenium into rivers in the Elk
Valley area for years. Selenium is a metal that is safe in water in low
levels, but in high levels can cause nausea or even neurological
problems from long-term exposure.
“The way the province rescinded the coal policy from the ’70s, they
did it with no public consultation and it happened really quietly,” she
said.
“I get that we need jobs and I get that we’re struggling, but I think
that even in a desperate time we need to think long term and not forget
that what we do today will impact 50 to 100 years down the road and
it’s not just about the next 10 to 20 years.”
So when the Lethbridge resident, Nichole Robinson, heard that the provincial government had rescinded a decades-old policy that banned open-pit coal mining in many parts of the province, she felt that despite not being an activist, she had to find a way to draw attention to the situation.
In B.C., open pit mines have leached selenium into rivers in the Elk Valley area for years. Selenium is a metal that is safe in water in low levels, but in high levels can cause nausea or even neurological problems from long-term exposure.
“The way the province rescinded the coal policy from the ’70s, they did it with no public consultation and it happened really quietly,” she said.
“I get that we need jobs and I get that we’re struggling, but I think that even in a desperate time we need to think long term and not forget that what we do today will impact 50 to 100 years down the road and it’s not just about the next 10 to 20 years.”
The Oldman River is a river in southern Alberta, Canada. It flows roughly west to east from the Rocky Mountains, through the communities of Fort Macleod, Lethbridge, and on to Grassy Lake, where it joins Bow River to form the South Saskatchewan River, which eventually drains into the Hudson Bay.
The Bow River
The Bow River is a river in Alberta, Canada. It begins within the Canadian Rocky Mountains and winds through the Alberta foothills onto the prairies, where it meets the Oldman River, the two then forming the South Saskatchewan River. These waters ultimately flow through the Nelson River into Hudson Bay.[1] The Bow River runs through the city of Calgary, taking in the Elbow River at the historic site of Fort Calgary near downtown. The Bow River pathway, developed along the river’s banks, is considered a part of Calgary’s self-image.
Bow Rover Bridge in Calagry
The Toxicity of Coal Mining
In another article, it was mentioned that the run-off tailings from these mines get held in ponds, treated to some and released back into the environment. This contains various heavy metals mixed with selenium. Selenium is toxic to birds, fish and humans in large quantities. Releasing this type of chemical into the environment will eventually leech into the waterways. There have been a lot of attempts by various companies employing different methods to filter and extract the selenium, and regardless of the success they claim to have achieved, they have all failed.
According to Yale University, “in humans, chronic exposure to high selenium concentrations can cause nausea, fatigue, skin lesions, and neurological disorders. In other animals, high levels of the element have been shown to cause liver damage, paralysis, and even death. In the waterways it leeches into, it bioaccumulates in fish and plants, meaning the concentration keeps becoming more toxic to its host. It will kill the fish and deplete the resources altogether. Larger animals like cattle have become infected and gotten sick so it’s very important to monitor any water supply where animals or birds will have access to.
One of the biggest selenium contamination issues in the world is taking place in the Elk River’s tributaries to waters downstream that cross into the United States. Tech Resources has a number of metallurgical coal mines operating just inside the border of British Columbia in roughly the same area as the Grassy Mountain mine will be. The issues they are facing with international lawsuits and million dollar fines will be echoed by Alberta’s Coal mine. See the environmental hazard assessment of Benga Mining’s proposed Grassy Mountain Coal Project.
If this toxic mixture of selenium and heavy metals can travel into the United States, it’s easy to see how quickly it will reach Lethbridge and Calgary. There is a lot of development and work towards finding a solution to deal with this contamination, but putting hope and optimism aside,,, nothing has worked.
For years, the Council of Canadians has been calling for a modernization of federal water policies, including the establishment of the Ministry of Water to coordinate water protection, management and stewardship.
In the 2019 federal election, the Liberals committed to establishing the Canada Water Agency with a promise it would “keep our water safe, clean and well-managed.” Since the election, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have been tasked with creating the agency and MP Terry Duguid of Winnipeg South is overseeing it.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has released an online consultation platform to invite input into the mandate of the Canada Water Agency. Submission to this consultation process can be made via the online platform PlaceSpeak, or by emailing ec.water-eau.ec@canada.ca. Communities and individuals have until May 31, 2021, to provide input.
The former Harper Conservative government slashed legislative protections of 99 per cent of lakes and rivers. In their last term, the Liberal government partially restored protections for waterways through the new Canada Navigable Waters Act and Impact Assessment Act, but did not remove exemptions for major fossil fuel projects like pipelines and power lines. The new legislation also fails to require free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous communities as required by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Meanwhile, Schedule 2 of the Fisheries Act still allows industries to turn freshwater bodies into tailings impoundment areas (tailings ponds).
Upholding and implementing the human rights to water and sanitation means protecting water at its source. The federal government must close the loopholes in the Canada Navigable Waters Act, Impact Assessment Act and Fisheries Act to fully protect every waterway, while committing to respecting Indigenous water rights, titles, governance structure and law.
EcoWatch writer Krystyn Tully wrote in 2012, ‘Canada’s New Normal — Ignore Environmental Protection’. She says:
“The exercise is over. The “new normal” is here.
“For the last thirty years, Canada was a rule-of-law kind of country. Our environmental laws spelled out what you can’t do (for example, pollute or block a river). They spelled out how decisions had to be made (for example, major projects were reviewed by independent panels, with input from qualified experts). Those who wanted to develop or dump on the water had to prove to a decision-maker that their actions would not harm other people’s abilities to safely swim, drink or fish those same waters. With a few notable exceptions, the federal rules were generally the same across Canada.
“This is no longer true. When yet another omnibus budget bill passed through Parliament this week, it ushered in a new era in Canadian history. The Navigable Waters Protection Act no longer protects water. The Fisheries Act no longer protects fish. The Environmental Assessment Act no longer requires environmental assessments be done before important decisions are made. If you are looking to federal environmental law and policy to protect Canada’s environment, you’re a dinosaur. A throwback. A relic of the 20th century.
“No need to worry,” the federal government says, “the provinces will protect you now.”
The omnibus budget bill was rushed through parliament by Stephen Harper, the prime minister. We are still dealing with the aftermath today. In 2015 Justin Trudeau of the Liberal party was elected in 2015 and one of his campaign promises was to “review these changes, restore lost protections, and incorporate more modern safeguards.”
Although there have been some minor changes, the majority still exist, with Prime Minister Trudeau heading into his second term. Granted, it’s hard to remember exactly what those changes were and why we should want them rolled back, considering it happened over five years ago.
Blue Betrayal by Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow documented the changes Mr. Harper’s Conservatives enacted in a sixteen-page report called Blue Betrayal.
In her report she says, “The Harper government has put Canada’s freshwater heritage at great risk and increased the likelihood of water pollution by Canadian mining companies in the Global South. The values of greed driving the Harper government’s policies are not shared by the majority of Canadians who want our waterways protected by strong laws and who view water as an essential public service. It will take political will, given the straight-jacket that NAFTA, CETA and other similar trade deals have imposed on future governments, to undo the damage done in the last decade. But in a world running out of accessible water, we have no choice but to fight for the laws and policies that will protect our water for people and the planet forever.”
As true today as when she wrote it five years ago — maybe worse.
Fishing Bass in the Shubenacadie River
Across Canada, Nova Scotia has a small community called Alton. Residents there have been fighting ATCO, a natural gas distribution and transmission company known as the Alton Natural Gas Storage Project. They want to build caverns to store gas. They will be flushed out with a saline brine and the runoff will be discharged into the Shubenacadie river. It will dump the equivalent of 3,000 tons of hard salt into the river everyday. In addition to supporting First nation communities with food and a livelihood, the brine is six times stronger than most aquatic species can safely consume, and the river is the main breeding ground in the province for Striped Bass. Fishing for these large fish is one of the most popular sports in the province.
The provincial government intended to permit Alton Gas to proceed. Residents started a campaign for a federal assessment. It never came. But there are sine regulations to get approved when the price for Natural Gas improves. Once approved, this change to the regulations gives Alton Gas permission to dump the toxic brine into the river.
The Navigable Waters Protection Act has become a farce. We will have water issues with coal mines if the federal government passes their environmental assessment. Not only will the coal mines use a lot of it, it will be polluted with heavy metals and selenium. This puts all the water Lethbridge uses at risk.
Krystyn Tully’s conclusion reads:
Some day, years from now, when you’re remembering how Canada used to be the “environmental” country and wondering what happened to those days, check your notes. Find today’s date on your calendar, and you’ll know. This is the time when everything changed.
And if, on that day in the future, you can still safely swim, drink and fish in your community, know that it will be because of the actions of dedicated individuals, not government regulators.
On the evening of Saturday July 25, the MV (Merchant Vessel) Wakashio grounded on coral reefs in the south-east of the Indian Ocean tropical island of Mauritius. The ship, a Japanese-owned but Panama-registered bulk carrier designed to transport unpackaged goods such as coal or grain, was empty of cargo but had an estimated 200 tons of diesel and 3,800 tons of heavy fuel oil onboard. The ship sat for over a week before cracks emerged in its hull.
Fuel oil began to leak into the expansive turquoise blue lagoon outside the coastal village of Mahébourg. Striking satellite images show the resulting oil spill weaving a black slick between the mainland at Pointe D’Esny and the flat round island of Ile-aux-Aigrettes. The impacts seen closer up are gruesome. On August 7, nearly two weeks after the shipwreck, the government declared the incident a national emergency.
With at least 1,000 tons of fuel oil estimated to have already emptied into the lagoon, two ships moved alongside to transfer off remaining fuel in a race against time as the vessel threatened to shear into two.
I’m a Mauritian living in the UK and visit my dad’s house in Mahébourg once or twice a year. The coastline affected is the waterfront at the end of our street and the beaches where we swim and picnic. It feels scary and strange to be writing this from 10,000km away but inspiring to see local people taking action and coming together.
What’s under threat?
Spills like this harm marine life because the chemicals that make up oil are toxic to plants and animals, including mangrove forests and the corals that build reefs. While the black and sticky heavy oils used to fuel ships are less toxic than light oils like diesel or petroleum, they persist longer and smother life in the sea and on the coasts. Ecological effects ripple across interconnected marine and land ecosystems.
It’s very difficult to predict how severe the impacts will be in Mauritius – and how quickly or well the environment might recover – from even detailed analyses of case studies and ecology of mangroves and coral reefs. There are just too many variables, including the complexity of the ecosystems, what mix of oil has been spilled, and how clean up is attempted, which can have negative environmental impacts too.
The 22 hectares of mangrove that make up the Pointe D’Esny Wetlands (roughly the area of 22 soccer pitches) are designated as a Ramsar site, a protected area for internationally important wetlands. The mangroves are home to species and habitats of conservation importance and to nurseries of fish supporting coastal fisheries.
Just along the coastal road to the south is Blue Bay Marine Park, another Ramsar site, with 353 hectares of coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and more mangroves. It is home to turtles, 72 species of fish, and an exceptional coral diversity of 38 species from 15 families.
Ile-aux-Aigrettes, opposite Pointe D’Esny, has the last remaining coastal ebony forest in Mauritius and is an island I spent three months living on as a volunteer in my youth. The coastal ebony species is one of 11 remaining endemic ebony species of Mauritius, a twelfth is believed extinct. This 27-hectare island nature reserve is named for the egrets, various long-legged and typically white-feathered species of the heron family that fish these coasts.
Successful conservation efforts have restored numbers of the Pink Pigeon, one of the rarest birds in the world in 1990, on Ile-aux-Aigrettes. It was brought to the island by the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, the conservation charity that has painstakingly restored its ecosystems. Conservationists have been helped by the reintroduction of free-roaming giant tortoises who act as ecological engineers in the restoration of the various coastal islands.
Local fishermen depend on the now oil-polluted lagoon for their livelihoods and local people depend on it for most of the fish they eat. Many local small businesses, often family run, such as guest houses, tour guides, eateries and tourist shops are geared towards holidaymakers attracted by the beautiful sea, beaches and nature that Mauritians enjoy every day.
And it seems the oil spill could eventually devastate most of the east coast of Mauritius. This includes stretches further north that host a large share of luxury coastal hotels. The coronavirus has closed international tourism since March. It would have been a slow recovery even without the environmental degradation.
Leaking oil. Office of the Reunion Region in Mauritius/EPA handout
Volunteer efforts
The MV Wakashio is wrecked on almost the same spot where a British steel-hulled sailing vessel, the Dalblair, sank carrying coals to Mauritius in 1902. The jagged remains of its decaying hull protrude to this day as a landmark above the waves, which ironically in daylight would have been a sobering warning.
After the oil spill, the usual sights of families strolling by the sea were quickly replaced by volunteers working hard in a grassroots effort to protect their coast. Packing straw from the fields of tall swaying sugar cane into homemade floating booms, self-organised groups of local people and activists deployed these along kilometres of coast with visibly evident success, halting expansion of the slick and soaking up oil.
The Mauritian government has told volunteers to stop and leave any efforts to officials. But people and local organisations are carrying on their making and deploying booms, which is the only apparent action dealing with the oil floating on the sea. It seems better to risk a fine or arrest than to stop. And local sentiment seems to be unanimously negative about the government’s slow response and lack of action targeting the slick.
Why the mistrust? Just four years ago on June 17 2016 another bulk carrier, the MV Benita, ran aground in Grand Port just 7km along the coast to the south. I was in Mauritius when this happened and looked out at the MV Benita (which had a fifth the cargo capacity of MV Wakashio) from the beach at Blue Bay.
There had reportedly been a fight on board and the ship had lost power, before drifting to Mauritius – without coming to the attention of the national coastguard. How the ship could simply crash into Mauritius without the authorities knowing bewildered people locally.
The vessel was there for five weeks before it was finally refloated, thankfully the oil having been taken off without major spillage or tank rupture. It was being towed to be scrapped in India when it then sank 90km offshore from Mauritius.
Satellite evidence suggests in July 2020 the MV Wakashio had been on a clear direct collision course with Mauritius for several days and hit the reefs at Pointe D’Esny with ocean cruising speed maintained, meaning the government was again likely taken by surprise. The same evidence suggests it took six days for the government to even send out a tug to try to refloat the ship.
Governance failures in shipping
The recent Beirut tragedy – a deadly explosion of ammonium nitrate in long-term port storage – and now this Mauritius incident raise questions about governance and security in international shipping. Ships can be registered (flagged) in any country of choice, meaning owners are able to find jurisdictions with least regulations. As a Forbes article suggested: “It is unclear how effective the regulators of the flagged nations were in ensuring the safety of the vessel, port, crew and locations through which the vessel travelled.”
This will need to be investigated.
Mauritius is perhaps best known for the flightless bird, the dodo, that has become emblematic of the island and of extinction. The tragic case of the dodo became a lesson for the environmentally conscious who developed the modern conservation movement. If the grounding of MV Wakashio and its destruction of environment and livelihoods can become a lesson for the global leaders who can bring about change, maybe we can at last have international shipping fit for the modern world.
