“They modelled the effects of decreased salmon prey, they modelled the effects of noise, they modelled the effects of oil spills and potential collisions with ships, individually and together, and the result of this modelling was a conclusion that with the project they have a greater than fifty percent chance of being effectively extinct this century. Which is pretty stark.”
“Of course the tankers should have been considered, and of course the species at risk act should have been applied because there’s no practical way that the shipping isn’t part of the project.”
“People will flock to the side of the ferry to see the whales, and get so excited and go on whale watching tours, and clearly love this species, but maybe don’t know how few of them there are, or how much they depend on this specific area that they live in, or just how unique they are. The fact that they have their own language and culture, and don’t interbreed with other killer whales, and that there are different types of killer whales. I think that that information really galvanizes people to care about the whales and to take action.”
“I feel like I’m fighting on my client’s behalf, but that we are all fighting on the Orcas’ behalf. Everyone is so committed to protecting this amazing species. I would describe us as a team that is working for the Orcas.”
“The start of the problem is that when the NEB reviewed the project, they separated out the pipeline and the marine terminal from the ships. So they’ve defined the project as ending at Westridge marine terminal, and shipping being related to the project, but not part of it. And so what that approach means, is that under the environmental assessment act, the environmental assessment is only of the pipeline and the marine terminal, and the tankers were considered and reviewed but only under the more general provisions of the National Energy Board Act, where they consider the public interest broadly speaking and weigh the pros and cons.”
“So by not considering the tankers as part of the project, and not subjecting them to the same environmental assessment, the NEB has said that the species at risk requirements that are triggered by an environmental assessment don’t apply to its review of the tankers. So there’s a key provision of the Species at Risk Act, that’s triggered by an environmental assessment, that says that when a project is under review you have to ensure that there are measures to avoid or lessen the impacts on endangered species. So by treating the ships as separate from the environmental assessment and separate from the project, they’ve said that this provision of the species at risk act does not apply in this case.”
“The whales themselves can not get standing, but my clients can get public interest standing to represent the interests of the whales, and the environment.”
“I think the risk of oil spills has somehow been downplayed throughout the review process and since. And just the fact that even in the official DFO recovery strategy it says clearly that an oil spill would be potentially catastrophic for this population is something that doesn’t get talked about very much. And I think there’s also a tendency to downplay the additive effect of this project. Sort of saying “oh, it will only be such and such percentage of shipping traffic in the area” or something, whereas it’s really important to keep in mind that the threats facing them, everything is already too bad. We need to stop adding new threats, and we also need to mitigate existing threats.”
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