Groups join fight to revoke permits

Two environmental groups are calling on the province of B. C. to revoke Kinder Morgan’s permit to conduct industrial research in parks.

In a statement Wednesday, the Wilderness Committee and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society said they have consulted with lawyers at Ecojustice and West Coast Environmental Law Association and have determined that a park use permit to conduct research for industrial purposes is likely unlawful and should be revoked.

The permit was issued to Kinder Morgan by the provincial government last November, four months before the Parks Act was amended to allow for industrial research in parks. In March, when Minister of Environment Mary Polak amended the Act, she said the government had been advised that the permits being issued by the government would not stand the test of a judicial review so they needed to amend the Park Act to continue legally.

Before the amendment, park use permits could only be granted in Class A parks if it was necessary to preserve or maintain the recreational value of the park involved.

Now companies can legally conduct invasive research in parks and then turn around and request that land be removed from park boundaries for pipelines, logging roads and transmission lines, the environmental groups said in a joint statement.

Peter Wood, a spokesman for CPAWS- BC, said more than 167,000 people have already signed a petition demanding that the Parks Act amendment be repealed. “Now we demand that Kinder Morgan’s permit be revoked as well,” he said.