Liberals aim to regulate underwater shipping noise

The federal government is seeking a way to regulate underwater shipping noise as part of its plan to protect an endangered group of killer whales from increased oil tanker traffic off Vancouver.

The news comes as environmental groups are poised to file a new lawsuit challenging the Liberal cabinet’s approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, alleging the government failed to mitigate the project’s impact on the iconic southern resident killer whales.

Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he has been working with Transport Minister Marc Garneau on a revamped recovery plan for the approximately 80 remaining whales that spend about half their lives in the busy Salish Sea.

“Certain ships emit more noise than others, certain kinds of propellers and other things in the water are noisier than others,” said LeBlanc.

“There is an engineering and a scientific way that the noise can be limited by regulation. We would hope to get to a circumstance where there would be no net increase in the noise — in spite of the potentially increased tanker traffic.

“We don’t yet have what the final answer looks like.”

LeBlanc acknowledged that the fate of the emblematic British Columbia marine mammals, formally listed as endangered since 2005, has been further complicated by the Liberal government’s approval late last month of an expanded Trans Mountain oil pipeline.

Under the plan, about 34 tankers a month will move diluted bitumen from the pipeline terminal in Burnaby, B.C., through Burrard Inlet and into Juan de Fuca Strait, up from about five a month currently making the passage.

Shipping noise interferes with the ability of killer whales to track prey and communicate with one another in the hunt, and is considered one of several key stressors on the population, along with declining chinook salmon stocks and environmental pollutants.

“I’m not minimizing it, and we’re prepared to deal with it,” LeBlanc said.

“But it is a tiny fraction of the total marine traffic that has existed for a long time and that is on an increase because of other international, global economic factors — separate and apart from the pipeline.”

Transport Minister Marc Garneau said in an email the government “will also be looking to work with our U.S. neighbour on a joint noise mitigation approach.”

Three environmental groups sought a judicial review in June of the National Energy Board’s approval of

WE WOULD HOPE TO GET TO A CIRCUMSTANCE WHERE THERE WOULD BE NO NET INCREASE IN THE NOISE.

the pipeline, arguing the regulator failed in its duty to consider the Species At Risk Act as it applied to the project’s impact on the killer whales’ habitat.

“If you can’t mitigate effects on an endangered population, your project cannot proceed. So we’re saying that this is unlawful,” Misty MacDuffee, a biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said in an interview.

Raincoast, Living Oceans and Ecojustice were all part of the original June lawsuit against the National Energy Board process and will now challenge the Liberal government.

MacDuffee said she welcomes the government’s stated commitment to the whales’ recovery but is skeptical of Liberal promises to regulate shipping noise for international oil tankers.

“I’m really curious on how — within the next year or two — they’re going to mitigate,” she said. “Because mitigation means refitting and redesigning vessels.”