An artist’s rendition shows floating LNG facilities envisaged by Ksi Lisims LNG, which hopes to export liquefied natural gas from Wil Milit on Pearse Island on British Columbia’s north coast.Supplied
The B.C. government needs to conduct a new environmental assessment for a pipeline project that would transport natural gas across the province, climate activists say in court affidavits.
The proposal to pipe natural gas to the West Coast from fracking operations in northeast B.C. dates back to 2014.
The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) project is co-owned 50-50 by the Nisga’a Nation and Houston-based Western LNG. They acquired the pipeline project from Calgary-based TC Energy Corp. TRP-T last year.
The PRGT route was originally intended to extend nearly 900 kilometres from northeast B.C. to Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, and supply natural gas to Pacific NorthWest LNG. Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas cancelled the Pacific NorthWest joint venture in 2017.
Under revised plans, the $12-billion PRGT pipeline would feed the $10-billion Ksi Lisims LNG project, which would produce liquefied natural gas for export to Asia.
Opinion: To become an energy superpower, Canada needs to use its structural advantages
Climate activists argue that a new environmental assessment is required to take the cumulative impacts of the entire pipeline project into account.
“Much has changed since the project was approved in 2014,” Graeme Pole, a member of the Kispiox Valley Community Centre Association, said in an affidavit filed recently in B.C. Supreme Court.
The association, Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition and Kispiox Valley resident Kathleen Larson are the petitioners seeking a judicial review to quash a ruling in June by Alex MacLennan, head of the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, that the pipeline project has been substantially started.
That decision by Mr. MacLennan paved the way for further construction on the revised pipeline route of 750 kilometres.
The respondents in the case are PRGT and B.C. Environment and Parks Minister Tamara Davidson, who delegated the decision on the pipeline plans to Mr. MacLennan.
Alberta Indigenous Affairs Minister meets with B.C. First Nations amid talk of pipeline
Last month, the B.C. and federal governments conditionally approved Ksi Lisims. Two floating production platforms are scheduled to be opened off Pearse Island in Nisga’a territory by 2029, with other vessels exporting LNG to Asia.
PRGT initially received its environmental assessment certificate in 2014, and won approval for a five-year extension in 2019, giving the project until last November to substantially start pipeline construction to prevent the certificate from expiring.
Changes since 2014 raise “questions about the continued accuracy of the environmental assessment’s conclusions about project impacts to our community, as well as the adequacy of the conditions established to address these impacts,” Mr. Pole said.
Shannon McPhail, co-executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, signed an affidavit that included a letter from environmental law charity Ecojustice, which is representing the petitioners.
“A new environmental assessment is required to assess the impacts of the pipeline, identify adequate mitigations and determine whether it is in the public interest of British Columbians,” Ecojustice lawyers said in their letter in late 2024 to Ms. Davidson and Mr. MacLennan.
Opinion: Canada needs to act like a fox on pipelines and oil
Shell PLC-led LNG Canada became the country’s first export terminal for the fuel when it began shipments in June to Asia from Kitimat, B.C.
The Nisga’a, Houston-based Western LNG and a group of natural gas producers named Rockies LNG are partners in Ksi Lisims.
Eva Clayton, elected president of the Nisga’a Lisims government, has argued that there are global benefits to exporting LNG.
But the David Suzuki Foundation said in a report released on Monday, titled Running on Fumes, that LNG is a fossil fuel harming the climate.
Ksi Lisims is facing two separate legal challenges in Federal Court, with one launched by the Lax Kw’alaams Band and the other by the Metlakatla First Nation.
The Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla each applied in mid-October for judicial reviews in their bids to quash last month’s decision by federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin to give the green light to Ksi Lisims. The respondents are Ms. Dabrusin and Ksi Lisims.
“The project would cause extensive and severe impacts on Metlakatla’s rights for decades,” said lawyers representing the Metlakatla.
“Lax Kw’alaams expressed deep concern to both British Columbia and the minister that the purported economic benefits from the project lacked a reliable empirical basis,” said lawyers representing the Lax Kw’alaams.
