What a disaster. #CoastalGasLink tried to lay a pipeline through this wild salmon wetland while it was frozen. Then the whole thing melted. Now construction is halted because they can’t get vehicles in. The road is floating.
This is Gosnell Creek on Wet'suwet'en territory – home to coho, steelhead, rainbows, cutthroat, Dollies, bull trout, whitefish and more. The B.C. government calls it “a pristine wilderness area with high fisheries and wildlife values.” Not anymore.
The company is now under eight (!) different stop-work orders because of failures like this. From the northern Rockies to the Kitimat River, CGL is sending mud and construction debris into fish habitat.
Project monitors took photos above and below the confluence of the Gosnell and Wedzin Kwa (the Morice River) on the same day. This is not natural. This is runoff from pipeline construction. Trashing some of the last best salmon habitat on the planet.
Ministers @GeorgeHeyman and @josieosborne need to get control of this project. They need to hold #CoastalGasLink accountable. And they damn sure better not approve another pipeline through the Skeena watershed after this.
BREAKING: #CoastalGasLink has been ordered to stop work on a three kilometre section of pipeline. Inspectors caught the company pumping sediment-laden water into an unapproved location, where it flowed into an environmentally sensitive fish-bearing tributary of the Anzac River.
This is a violation of the company's 2022 compliance agreement with the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, after repeat failures to control sediment and erosion along the pipeline route. The stop-work order goes into effect at 6pm today. #bcpoli
Today is the consultation deadline for Indigenous groups along the Enbridge Westcoast Connector pipeline route.
B.C. environment minister George Heyman is preparing to decide on Enbridge's request for an emergency extension of the pipeline's certificate to 2029. #bcpoli
The WCGT pipeline was first proposed by Spectra Energy in 2012, and approved by the Christy Clark government in 2014.
Enbridge later bought Spectra, and all its projects and permits, to become the largest pipeline company in North America.
The project sat on the shelf for years, until Russia invaded Ukraine. The resulting spike in gas prices got Enbridge thinking again about a route to the West Coast.
But they have a problem: the project certificate can only be extended once under B.C. law. It expires next year.
BREAKING: The B.C. government is halting fracking subsidies that have cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
Under a new royalty system, companies will pay more to the public to extract oil and gas starting this September. #bcpoli#climate#fracking
However, the province is still planning a massive expansion of fracking to fuel a global gas export industry.
Under B.C.'s new royalty regime, taxpayers will continue to subsidize new drilling, pipelines and well cleanup.
Today's announcement is a step in the right direction after years of public outrage over B.C.'s egregious oil and gas subsidies. "I believe the system has failed British Columbians," says Premier @jjhorgan. He promises higher revenues from publicly-owned resources.
Hard to imagine a more backwards and despicable act than flying RCMP into #Wetsuweten territory to raid Indigenous pipeline opponents while 17,000 people are forced out of their homes by a climate disaster. #bcpoli
The dispute over the #CoastalGasLink fracked gas pipeline has simmered for years.
The public safety minister pulled the trigger on this raid now, precisely because most people in southern B.C. are distracted by basic survival – and cannot travel there in support.
The politicians will hide behind the RCMP and the corporation, as they always do, by saying they don't 'direct' the police on tactics.
But the government created this entire situation – by giving $5 billion in subsidies to foreign gas companies to build the "LNG Canada" project.
B.C. has declared a state of emergency for the third time this year, amid deadly landslides and floods. Our thoughts are with the families of people killed or still missing, and all those left stranded or homeless by B.C.'s latest climate disaster. #BCflood
Thank you to the local officials, First Nations governments, search and rescue teams, Gurdwaras, first responders and thousands of volunteers working around the clock to take care of those in need.
We are alarmed by the slow response of the provincial government, which was warned about the coming deluge last Friday and failed to get people out of the path of danger.
Yesterday Premier John Horgan gave a speech in the B.C. legislature about what he called the “atrocities” committed at Indian Residential Schools. “This is not something that happened in the past. It is something that is going on right now,” Horgan said.
He’s right.
Content warning: this thread discusses the mass grave of children’s bodies uncovered in Kamloops, and ongoing acts of colonial violence. @IRSSurvivor offers counselling services and a 24-hour crisis line at 1-800-721-0066
There are more than 4,000 Indigenous children in the custody of the B.C. government today. Some were seized from their mothers as newborns, part of a dehumanizing practice called “birth alerts” that didn’t end until 2019. cbc.ca/news/canada/br…