TERRACE, British Columbia, July 25, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After years of growing opposition and pending legal challenges, today’s announcement from Petronas not to move forward with their Pacific Northwest (PNW) LNG facility on Lelu Island is a great victory for the Skeena’s wild salmon, and BC’s commitment to meet the challenge of climate change.
“When we have something in common like wild salmon, it binds all the peoples of the Skeena together to protect salmon for everyone, especially future generations,” said Chief Namoks of the Wet’suwet’en.
“For Petronas to pull out and walk away, it makes their investors realize the futility of such a disastrous proposed project. Wild salmon is the glue that holds all of us together in commonality.”
Dr. Jim Pojar, one of Canada’s greatest naturalists added, “From the outset, PNW LNG has been the poster child for everything that’s wrong with Canada’s environmental review process.”
The provincial and federal governments inability to effectively review massive resource projects like PNW LNG, and the pending lawsuits, shine a spotlight on the inadequacies of CEAA 2012 and why it needs to be overhauled and replaced with strengthened environmental assessments, supported by sound, independent science.
“The project was doomed from the beginning due to the lack of up front consultations with affected Indigenous communities and by selecting the worst possible location for a project of this magnitude,” said Greg Knox, Executive Director of SkeenaWild Conservation Trust.
“This proves how broken Canada’s environment assessment process is and why it is imperative that the federal government honours its election promise to institute an environmental review process that is based on peer reviewed evidence and independent science and replace CEAA 2012 immediately,” Knox said.
Although this is a welcome announcement, SkeenaWild remains fully committed to pursuing our legal challenge of PNW LNG to ensure the flawed federal approval of the project is quashed.