The neighbour of a composting facility is sued by its owner when she complains about odours and pests. An elderly couple arguing that a trail across private property is public receive a threatening letter from a lawyer telling them that they will be sued if they don’t stop talking about the trail.
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.
On January 30th, 2018, the BC government decided to drop the private prosecution launched by Bev Sellars into the Mount Polley disaster. Through her private prosecution, Bev, a grandmother and former chief of the Xat’sull First Nation, gave the provincial government a second chance to show that BC can enforce its own environmental laws.
Wild salmon just can’t seem to catch a break right now.
This week I had the opportunity to listen to the story of how the Concerned Citizens of Quesnel Lake came together to demand accountability from Mount Polley Mining Corporation in the aftermath of the Mount Polley mine disaster.
This post is Part 2 in a series about NAFTA and its implications on the environment. Read Part 1 here.
West Coast's 2017 Summer Law Students (left-right): Don Couturier, Nico McKay, Mari Galloway, Karyn Leslie, Matt Hammer.
Last month Michael Sawyer (with funding from our Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund (EDRF) won a major victory against liquefied natural gas (LNG) development – and for environmental oversight of oil and gas pipelines.
West Coast is proud to ally with the Stk’emlúpsemc te Secwépemc Nation (SSN) in their use of their own laws to determine the future of Pípsell (also known as Jacko Lake and environs), a sacred area threatened by the proposed open pit Ajax mine.
At the end of May, as a summer law student at West Coast Environmental Law, I attended Federal Court as an observer at the hearing where the Communities and Coal Society and Voters Taking Action on Climate Change called into question the legality of the Vancouver Fraser
Yawn. Late last night, I watched the election results come in during a nail-biter of an election, and tried (eventually successfully) to get my 11-year old daughter – an ardent Green Party supporter – to go to sleep.