Environmental assessment not yet complete; B.C. not obligated to proceed with Coastal GasLink Pipeline

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

January 28, 2020

While Coastal GasLink has approval from the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, a condition of the approval is that construction can’t proceed until the Condition 1 Final Report #2 is approved. This report has not yet been approved by the Environment Assessment Office.

The Condition 1 Final Report assesses the Economic and Social Effects of the proposed project, among other impacts. Regarding Community and Regional Infrastructure and Services, the report states that the assessment of potential adverse effects was completed as part of the original environmental assessment application and that no further studies are required. However, since the time of the original environmental assessment application in 2014, the Unist’ot’en have built and begun operating a wilderness lodge and healing center.

The investment in buildings and infrastructure is valued at over $2 million and the institution has just received $400,000 from the First Nations Health Authority to continue to run land-based trauma and addictions treatment programs at the site.

“No construction can happen until this report is approved,” said Sierra Club BC’s campaigns director Caitlyn Vernon. “And to approve this report without fully considering the impacts of this proposed pipeline on the Unist’ot’en wilderness center and healing lodge would be profoundly problematic. I doubt a non-Indigenous wilderness lodge would be omitted from a report such as this.”

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Unist’ot’en media release: http://unistoten.camp/coastal-gaslink-pipeline-lacks-bc-eao-final-permits-for-construction-in-wetsuweten-territory/

 

Media contact:

Caitlyn Vernon

Campaigns Director, Sierra Club BC

250-896-3500

caitlyn@sierraclub.bc.ca