Environmental Law Alert Blog

Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:

  • proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
  • stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
  • emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.

If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

How can we stop stormwater from harming fish? We look at some of the ways that governments and communities can start filling regulatory gaps and implementing creative solutions for stormwater planning to reduce harm now.

Urban pollution is killing salmon and hurting local waters. Who is responsible? We explore sewage and stormwater in urban settings; how polluted stormwater affects urban creeks and fish; and how stormwater still exists in a regulatory no-man’s land.

Throughout West Coast’s history, we’ve been committed to transforming the legal landscape in ways that are more sustainable, more democratic and more just. As we celebrate our 50th anniversary, we’re reflecting on five key moments that have made the organization into what it is today.

A once in a decade opportunity: Have your say about how Metro Vancouver and its member communities manage wastewater and stormwater.

Get to know Staff Lawyer Deborah Carlson and West Coast Environmental Law's Liveable Sustainable Communities, where she works with communities in BC to develop legal frameworks that support healthy, low-impact urban areas, and community-based planning processes that start from our connection to the natural environment. The program also focuses on climate change challenges and how communities can adapt and thrive with ecosystem-based responses.

Rob Edward is a sməlqmíx community member & Lower Similkameen Indian Band (LSIB) tech specialist. He works with language and language translation for the sməlqmíx, the syilx people of the Similkameen Valley.

Spring is usually a beautiful, vibrant time in the Fraser River Estuary, but this year it also brought the dark cloud of federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s approval of the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 (T2) expansion project.

At the recent UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), Canada joined other countries in making ambitious commitments to protect nature.

One year on from the November 2021 flood events in BC, it’s clear as we look towards the future there are no easy answers for the Lower Fraser River floodplain and the communities who live there.

This joint op-ed was originally published in the Globe & Mail on April 14, 2022.