TransCanada Corporation has agreed to delay exploratory drilling in a part of the St. Lawrence River that is critical to threatened beluga whales. The white whales are only ones that live in the river year-round and their numbers have dropped to 900. They are listed as threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act.
They come to the area near Cacouna, 440 kilometres northeast of Montreal, to feed and calve. TransCanada wants to build a marine terminal there so it can ship bitumen from the oil sands in the western province of Alberta.
Belugas ‘extremely sensitive’ to noise
“The problem here is that they (the belugas) are extremely sensitive to noise pollution,” says Charles Latimer, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. “Therefore any commercial activity in that area would significantly reduce their critical habitat. By reducing their critical habitat, you reduce their chances of survival.”
Greenpeace thinks the plan to build the marine terminal should be scrapped, as should the plan to build the pipeline. The argument is that projects would prompt an increase in the extraction of oil from the oilsands, a process which emits greenhouse gases. Latimer says that would make it even less likely that Canada would meet its commitments to reduce these emissions.
Permits lacking
The environmental groups had gone to court to halt the exploratory drilling for the terminal project while they tried to find out whether the necessary permits from the federal and provincial governments had been obtained. TransCanada says it has federal authorization, but only recently applied for permission from the government of the province of Quebec. So it has agreed to wait until it gets that permit.
Latimer says the federal government has gutted environmental laws and it is asking the governments and the company to respect the wishes of the people who don’t want the terminal. In April, about 300 people marched to protest the project, but Latimer says many more people in Canada and around the world are against it too.
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