Pipeline would defy plan - held in limbo - to protect sturgeon
By Dene Moore, The Canadian PressSeptember 27, 2012
One of the most powerful foes of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline through northern British Columbia is not a lawyer or a conservation group or any of the many First Nations who have lined up against the project.
It's a very large, very, very old fish.
The Nechako white sturgeon is listed as an endangered species under the federal Species At Risk Act, a designation which is supposed to legally protect the sturgeon's habitat so the species can recover.
The pipeline could cross the Stewart and Endako rivers, where the highly imperilled species - there are estimated to be only 335 left - live.
But the recovery plan for the distinct sturgeon species has languished for seven years in draft form, never officially published and, therefore, never offering that protection. That recovery plan was due on Aug. 15, 2009.
"That (plan) creates an obligation on the government to ensure that the critical habitat of the white sturgeon is legally protected," said Susan Pinkus, a biologist for EcoJustice, one of a coalition of conservation groups who will announce today they will sue Ottawa to force it to enforce its own legislation on the proposed pipeline route.
"This is a population that (the Department of Fisheries and Oceans) has assessed as being able to tolerate no additional harm, for obvious reasons. These guys are just barely hanging on."
Exposing this species on the brink to potentially catastrophic disruption puts it in jeopardy, she said.
"I can see how this would be controversial and perhaps uncomfortable, but I also think that this is why the Species at Risk Act (SARA) exists," Pinkus said.
The sturgeon is just one of several endangered or threatened species along the proposed route of the pipelines that would carry bitumen from the Alberta oilsands to tankers on the B.C. coast.
The status of the sturgeon and Pacific humpback whales are mentioned repeatedly in countless documents obtained by The Canadian Press through Access to Information legislation or found among the thou-sands filed with the joint review panel conducting an environmental assessment of the project.
"Under SARA, all harm, harassment or killing of individuals from a species listed as endangered or threatened is prohibited," said a Fisheries and Oceans memorandum on the project.
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