DILBIT : NEBBY's Fish 'n Chips!

Northwest Coast Energy News: DFO hands over fisheries protection along pipelines to the NEB.

"The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has handed responsibility for fish and fish habitat along pipeline routes over to the Alberta-based, energy friendly National Energy Board. The same agreement also gives the National Energy Board responsibility for dealing with First Nations fisheries if a pipeline or power line crosses their traditional territory.

As of December 16, 2013,  Enbridge no longer has to apply to DFO for permits to alter fish habitat along the Northern Gateway route." 

From the NEB MOU : 

"... the NEB application assessment process will be relied upon by DFO to the extent possible, to ensure Aboriginal groups are consulted as required, and where appropriate accommodated."

Yesterday the DFO issued a clarification :.

"Fisheries and Oceans Canada has established a collaborative agreement with the National Energy Board that will help eliminate overlap and duplication during regulatory reviews while maintaining a strong regime to manage threats to fish and fish habitat.

The National Energy Board is best placed to deliver regulatory review responsibilities under the Fisheries Act for activities relating to federally regulated energy infrastructure (such as pipelines)." 

This is the same NEB that worked with the RCMP and CSIS to "monitor the risk posed by environmental groups and First Nations" prior to public hearings into Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline project, which the NEB then dutifully approved in December :

"In the unlikely event of a large oil spill ... we found that the adverse effects would not be permanent and widespread."

No mention as yet of Nebby's Fish'nChips shops opening up along the proposed pipeline route.

Previous DILBIT toons
.

Bruce Carson and the tarsands fox - streamlining the henhouse

Yesterday the Edmonton Journal reported :

More than 75 environment officers who watched over oil industry activities left the provincial environment department this fall, to take higher paying jobs with the new industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator. Another 75-plus are expected to leave in the spring.
In mid-November, the department also began handing over to the regulator thousands of files on oil industry activity pertaining to the Public Lands Act, according to documents obtained by the Journal. 

This shift in staffing and the moving of years of files out of a government department to the new arm’s length regulator are key steps in the government’s plan, announced last spring, to create a more streamlined approval process for oil companies that wanted “one window” to get permits for new projects.

The article notes that the chair of the 100% industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator, Gerard Protti, is "a founder of the oil industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers." He also spent 15 years as an executive officer of EnCana Corporation. 

Not mentioned in the article, or in Protti's bio at the AER, is that in 2011 Gerard Protti and disgraced Harper advisor/fraudster/fixer Bruce Carson were both vice-chairs of the oil industry lobby group EPIC, Energy Policy Institute of Canada, and produced a paper calling for exactly the "streamlined approval process for oil companies" that the new Alberta Energy Regulator is mandated to deliver.

EPIC : A Strategy for Global Leadership, Jan 2011

"Streamline Canada's regulatory processes to end overlap, duplication, and delays which can negatively impact Canada's competitiveness and productivity. This could be accomplished by implementing a one-project, one-process review to end duplication in regulatory regimes within one level of government and between governments ..."

Also not mentioned is that as EPIC's representative, Protti registered as a federal lobbyist from July 2012 to April 2013 to lobby for :

"a philosophical energy strategy that is adopted politically and then motivates regulatory activity in terms of economic development, energy and the environment."

to

• Canadian Coast Guard (CCG)
• Environment Canada (EC)
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)
• National Energy Board (NEB)
• Natural Resources Canada (NRCan)
• Prime Minister's Office (PMO)
• Privy Council Office (PCO)

And voilà, in June 2013 the Alberta Energy Regulator is proclaimed with Protti as chair.

Jan. 28 Update : From Dec. 2012 to March 31 2013, Protti was hired by DFO to help negotiate transfer of Experimental Lakes Area.

.

.

Fish 'N Flush Farming

Despite a recent scientific paper warning that parasitic sea lice infestations from fish farms could wipe out 99% of wild Pacific pink salmon within 4 salmon generations or 8 years, don't expect to see any radical mobilizing action from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans any time soon.

Not only is fishfarming part of the DFO mandate, the DFO deputy executive director of the Office of Sustainable Aquaculture expects fish farming to overtake industry fishing soon :

"While the salmon farming industry nearly doubled in size between 1997 and 2005, output from the wild commercial sector fell by more than 30%."

"They don’t believe their interests are in conflict."

"Fisheries scientists try to stay neutral"

"They want to avoid polarized debate."

"A transition to a floating closed containment system could possibly be phased in over 10 years."

Trouble is if this latest scientific paper is correct, the pink salmon don't have 10 years.

Last year, marine ecologist John Volpe of the UVic said that sea lice from fish farms kill up to 95 % of wild juvenile salmon that pass by the open net fish farms.

Yet according to independent researcher Alexandra Morton , "some see wild salmon as just too costly to protect - they require a long corridor of protection from the tops of the rivers all the way out to the ocean and this would "force the politicians to say no to all the hands that feed them."

As a result, "big industry [including logging and offshore drilling] fit well with salmon farms," she says "

So there ya go.

Pink salmon routes and fish farms in Broughton archipeligo, BC.