A B.C. environmental organization is warning that a new B.C. port being designated as a \u201cproject of national interest\u201d might result in the loss of the southern resident killer whales.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced<\/a> earlier today that the federal government is giving this designation to the new Roberts Bank Terminal 2 container superport project<\/a>, which is a status that \u201cprovides the immediate regulatory certainty\u201d to build the terminal in Delta.<\/p>\n The final investment decision on this B.C. port is expected to be made in 2027.<\/p>\n The Wilderness Committee, an environmental non-profit, immediately slammed the designation, saying the federal government announced it \u201cjust two days after the project was expected to receive a decision on its Species at Risk Act (SARA) authorization.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe timing raises serious concerns that the designation is being used to evade the project\u2019s final, and arguably most important permit, and with it responsibilities to avoid the extinction of the endangered southern resident killer whales,\u201d a release from the Wilderness Committee reads.<\/p>\n The organization said that the southern resident killer whales face risk from weakening environmental protections and regulations, as well as the fact that Roberts Bank Terminal 2 could be used \u201cas the end point of the Pacific Link pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n They said this is because the 2025 Building Canada Act and proposed Bill C-39 would allow the government to \u201cignore the advice of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.\u201d The organization further suggested that the timing of the announcement could mean that \u201cthe department was not able to justify granting the permit\u201d and the project of national interest designation \u201cwas the only viable way to bypass that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Wilderness Committee added that under Bill C-39, the Pacific Link pipeline could also bypass an environmental assessment process and its \u201cresponsibilities\u201d under the Species at Risk Act.<\/p>\n \u201cThis could mean the cumulative impacts of both projects on endangered southern resident killer whales are never fully assessed, while the very safeguards designed to prevent their extinction are weakened or bypassed,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n Lucero Gonzalez, the conservation and policy campaigner for the Wilderness Committee, said that the organization is calling on the government to have both the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project and the Pacific Link pipeline undergo the entirety of the requirements under the Species at Risk Act.<\/p>\n \u201cIf either or both projects cannot prove that their activities will not jeopardize the survival of the species, they must be rejected. Anything less puts the potential extinction of the remaining 76 southern resident killer whales in Mark Carney\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n In the federal government release, they said they would invest almost $2 billion to protect \u201crotect fish and fish habitat, marine mammals, Pacific salmon, southern resident killer whales, and other species at risk,\u201d she said in the release.<\/p>\n The federal government said that Roberts Bank Terminal 2 contributes to its goal to double exports to non-U.S. markets by 2035, adding that \u201cmodern ports are crucial to this mission.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey move goods quickly, attract investment, and ensure Canada competes in a rapidly changing global economy,\u201d reads the government release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A B.C. environmental organization is warning that a new B.C. port being designated as a \u201cproject of national…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-952748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}