Whales’ ‘big voice’ helped derail Trans Mountain project
In court pipeline ruling, the 75 remaining orcas were mentioned 57 times
VANCOUVER— They are icons of B.C.’s pristine coast and wild beauty.
They are on the brink of extinction. Only 75 remain. And this summer, the heartwrenching image of a mother orca carrying her dead newborn in the Salish Sea drove home the severity of their plight.
But in their suffering, the southern resident killer whales underlined the potentially grave risks the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project would have brought with its influx of tankers.
The orcas may well have saved themselves, and assisted the Indigenous and environmentalist groups in having the pipeline’s construction suspended.
The whales did what scientists have been trying to do for decades, said Dr. Deborah Giles, a marine conservationist who sits on Washington’s orca-recovery task force.
“Scientists have a small voice. The whales have a big voice.”
Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that the National Energy Board’s environmental assessment had failed to consider the effect tanker traffic would have on the critically endangered southern resident killer whale population in the Salish Sea.
In the court’s decision to suspend the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, this particular population of killer whales was mentioned at least 57 times.
The images of J-35 repeatedly diving to retrieve her calf’s sinking body and pushing it to the surface pulled people’s heart strings in a profound and timely way, said Jason Colby, an environmental historian at the Uni- versity of Victoria.
“It clearly had a really powerful political impact and it focused people’s attention on the fate of the southern residents in a way that no human beings h
But the pipeline project’s fate is far from decided because the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion could still be built.
The court based its decision on two main considerations: The NEB excluded the effect of marine shipping on the endangered orcas and consultation with First Nations in the pipeline’s path was flawed. That means the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion could still be built if the federal government asked the National Energy Board for a new environmental assessment and conducted further consultations with Indigenous groups, explained Dyna Tuytel, an Ecojustice lawyer who represented the Living Oceans Society and Raincoast Conservation Foundation in the case.