Addressing cumulative effects in BC's north

Today, in conjunction with the Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research (NWI), West Coast Environmental Law is releasing our report Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment for Northern British Columbia: The Case and Opportunity. The report offers an intimate glimpse into the hearts and minds of northern residents as they face a multitude of proposals for industrial development in their communities, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), forestry, mining, oil and gas, and hydroelectric projects. 

Over a period 18 months we travelled across the north and spoke with residents about the cumulative effects of these projects and heard from nearly 200 people in six communities: Prince Rupert, Terrace, Kitimat, Hazelton, Fort St. John and Chetwynd. We are pleased to be issuing our report based on these in-person conversations as well as two follow-up webinars. Our report also offers suggestions for enhancing public participation into environmental decision-making and improving cumulative effects management, in the context of a government-to-government relationship with Indigenous peoples. 

To access the full document online, please click here.

Travelling to northern communities to hear first-hand from articulate, passionate residents about the impacts of industrial development on their lives was a profound experience. Our first two dialogue sessions were held in Prince Rupert at the Museum of Northern British Columbia and were well-attended by individuals from diverse backgrounds including municipal council members, First Nations, biologists, fishermen, doctors and nurses, small business owners, non-profit environmental sector workers, industry representatives and housing advocates.  

The tone of these first sessions was one of pent-up anxiety and frustration: people spoke of their fear that proposed LNG projects might irrevocably harm their ways of life (particularly the Pacific Northwest export facility at Flora Bank and Lelu Island), and some said that the stress and uncertainty they felt regarding the future of their region was so severe that they were considering moving away.  In fact, one person said they had already put their house on the market. 

Many participants emphasized that they had few formal opportunities to talk about their concerns, and that differences of opinion over proposed projects was creating discord and tension in the community.  People in these sessions emphasized the detrimental impact that feelings of powerlessness and exclusion from environmental decision-making were having on their mental health and well-being.     

Our next sessions were held in Terrace and Kitimat during an intense snowstorm. In spite of the cold and bad driving conditions, these events were well-attended also. In an evening session held at the community hall in Terrace, some participants brought their children, who played quietly at one end of the hall, while the adults talked.

People spoke passionately about their dependence on wild foods, particularly wild salmon, and their concern that salmon stocks and other wild food sources be protected in the face of development.  Some Indigenous participants spoke of the devastating collapse of the oolichan stocks in the Kitimat River that had resulted from logging and aluminum production decades earlier. Another issue emphasized in Terrace and Kitimat was the threat of “renovictions”: landlords evicting tenants under the pretext of renovations in order to have the opportunity to rent dwellings out at significantly higher rates to project workers moving into town.  A young couple spoke movingly about one of their mothers who was living on a fixed income and facing a major rent increase.  The couple was fearful that she would have to move away from her home and family to a strange town in order to have an affordable place to live.  Participants in general spoke about their fears that low-income, elderly and other vulnerable members of the community might be made more marginalized or pushed out altogether in the face of new development.

The dialogue session in Hazelton had strong attendance from Gitxsan Nation members as well as local, not-for-profit environmental groups.  A dominant theme that emerged was the need for proactive environmental planning.  Participants stated that they were tired of being asked to invest their time into responding to constant new proposals from industry, and were instead looking for opportunities to proactively plan for their own future. 

In break-out groups, participants brainstormed alternative possibilities for economic development that would draw on local knowledge and protect and nurture local values.  One example discussed was creating and marketing products made from wild berries that were prolific in the region.  Participants expressed how much they appreciated having the space in our session to proactively imagine different paths that future development might take in their communities, and stated that they felt that this type of opportunity was sorely lacking in the existing project-by-project environmental assessment process.

Our final in-person sessions were held in northeastern BC in Treaty 8 territory, in the communities of Fort St. John and Chetwynd.  This region has experienced intense industrial development in recent decades, and much of the conversation in these locations focused on the significant social and ecological losses that had been sustained as a result of this development. 

Participants discuss issues at the dialogue session in Fort St. John (Photo: Hannah Askew).

In particular, people spoke about harm to water due to unsustainable levels of groundwater extraction for various industrial purposes as well as the injection of toxic chemicals into water for fracking, and the devastation of culturally and economically important species such as moose and caribou due to habitat loss.  Participants expressed frustration at the failure of the provincial and federal governments to effectively manage cumulative effects in the region, and spoke approvingly of the lawsuit launched by Blueberry River First Nation to hold the provincial and federal governments accountable for this failure and its impact on First Nations people in the area to effectively exercise their Aboriginal and treaty rights.

Listening to the voices of northern residents in regards to the cumulative, social and ecological impacts of industrial development in their communities was an illuminating experience.  The level of alienation from provincial and federal environmental decision-making processes that participants expressed is not only troubling from a justice perspective, but also represents a lost opportunity.  Northern residents are knowledgeable and passionate about the health of their land and communities, and have enormous value to contribute to environmental decision-making.

Our report offers specific suggestions for how both the federal and provincial governments can enhance participation in environmental decision making and cumulative effects management, in the context of a government-to-government relationship with impacted First Nations. Residents of northern British Columbia are deeply invested in the future of their lands and communities. They deserve meaningful participation and influence in environmental decisions that affect their futures and a legal framework for cumulative effects management that safeguards their rights and values.

By Hannah Askew, Staff Counsel