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ENVIRONMENTALISTS CHARGE CANADA WITH FAILURE TO PROTECT ONE OF THE WORLD’S RICHEST SALMON FISHERIES

Fraser Riverkeeper Calls for Investigation into Government’s Failure to Enforce Canada’s Environmental Laws Regulating Toxic Sewage Discharges

Vancouver, BC May 4^th, 2010 — Fraser Riverkeeper, together with a coalition of Canadian and American environmental groups, submitted a complaint today demanding an investigation into the Canadian government’s failure to enforce its environmental laws to stop pollution, impacting one of Canada’s, and the world’s, most productive salmon fisheries.  The announcement follows the submission of a petition to enforce environmental law to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

The groups claim that the Canadian government has failed to prevent ongoing and continuous discharges of toxic sewage from its Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant at the mouth of the Fraser River.  The discharge is entering directly into the Georgia Strait, through which millions of migrating salmon pass on their way to and from the Fraser River.  The Fraser is one of the world’s largest salmon rivers, and the Strait of Georgia is a renowned and economically important commercial and sport fishery.

“One of the greatest threats to North America’s waterways and fisheries is the lack of enforcement of our environmental laws,” said Douglas Chapman, Fraser Riverkeeper.  “Non-enforcement is essentially the removal of laws that protect the public and our common resources.  We have been told in the past that cleaning up the Fraser is not in the public interest; surely, it is a sad day when a clean and healthy environment is not in the public’s interest!”

The coalition includes petitioner Fraser Riverkeeper and co-petitioners Waterkeeper Alliance, Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, Ottawa Riverkeeper, Peiticodiac Riverkeeper, Fundy Baykeeper, Grand Riverkeeper, Georgian Baykeeper, the David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance and T Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation.  These groups allege that Canada’s failure to enforce provisions of the Fisheries Act has led to degradation of these water bodies, and that the Iona Island Waste Water Treatment Plan is violating the Act through systemic, ongoing contamination, causing harm to the watershed.

“The efforts to get sewage treatment plants to comply with Fisheries Act laws is a well-known problem that is long overdue for action — and our CEC submission is a last-ditch effort to get Canada’s government to take our environmental laws seriously,” said Lauren Hornor of Fraser Riverkeeper. “In appealing to the CEC, our groups are confident that a factual record of past legal proceedings and the pattern of government inaction will help educate the public and initiate change in Canada.”

The Canadian government has a history of deliberate inaction in its responsibilities regarding enforcement of the Fisheries Act.  In 1998, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development’s report, “Enforcing Canada’s Pollution Laws: The Public Interest Must Come First!”, laid out the weakness and ineffectiveness of Canada’s commitment to enforce environmental laws and to protect Canada’s water.

Here, the pattern of lax enforcement continues. In 2006, the Canadian justice system accepted charges laid by Douglas Chapman, represented by Ecojustice Canada, regarding the Iona Plant’s discharges, and a judge found that there was sufficient evidence to establish a case. Chapman states, “The toxic effects on fish in the Burrard Inlet, Fraser River estuary, and Georgia Strait cause harm to the people who rely on those fish for recreation, income, and sustenance. These effects include population effects and the safety of consuming fish from the area.”

Nonetheless, the Attorney General of Canada intervened, obtaining a stay of the charges that same day, alleging it was not in the public’s interest to proceed.

Meanwhile, the treatment plant continues to repeatedly fail the toxicity tests required by its provincial permit. Documents obtained by Fraser Riverkeeper show that since the federal government intervened in the case to allow the polluting to continue, acutely toxic sewage has been discharged from the Iona WWTP on at least eleven additional occasions between May 7, 2007 and October 6, 2009.

“The crimes continue at Iona, and the refusal to install secondary treatment, which would dramatically reduce the toxicity of the discharges, is made worse by the federal government’s improper interference in the prosecution” Chapman continued.

The CEC was formed under a side agreement to NAFTA and acts as a watchdog to ensure that each of the member countries enforces its environmental laws. The CEC Secretariat will have an opportunity to formally recommend that an investigation be launched into the allegations that the Canadian government is failing to uphold provisions of the Fisheries Act, with respect to toxic discharges at sewage treatment plants.