Indigenous groups want study done on sea health

Indigenous groups in Canada and the United States are calling for a study of how human activity has degraded the waters off B.C’s coast before any new vessel traffic is allowed in the area, where port and pipeline activities are on the rise.

Members of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in B.C. and the Tulalip Tribes and Lummi Nation in Washington state say they want a halt to any more marine traffic in the Salish Sea until the study is complete.

“We’re Coast Salish nations that have come together from both sides of the border with the United States and Canada to address this urgent issue that’s happening to our Salish Sea,” Raynell Morris of the Lummi Nation said Wednesday.

They say the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and a new shipping terminal at Roberts Bank, 35 kilometres south of Vancouver, would increase pressure on sea life.

The Federal Court of Appeal quashed the Trans Mountain project’s approval in August in part due to the National Energy Board’s failure to consider marine shipping impacts.

Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh said the decline of salmon stocks — and, in turn, the endangered southern resident killer whales — should be a wake-up call to politicians on both sides of the border.

“To me it’s like the canary in mines. The animals are going and it’s happening and it’s not going to be too long before it’s affecting all of us,” George said.

The groups said fisheries, sacred sites and traditional economies are all threatened by new and expanding port facilities and they want the study to consider change over time.

They suggest establishing a baseline for Salish Sea health at 1985, when harvest levels were still considered healthy. The Lummi Nation also wants to meet with federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna on the topic, Morris said.

The groups did not rule out demonstrations if U.S. and Canadian authorities refuse to conduct a study, with Morris saying they would protect the land and sea “by any means available and possible and necessary.”

The Indigenous representatives spoke during a break at an information session held by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s review panel on the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project.