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Monday
December 19,
2011
Salmon News
Iona Waste Discharge Scrutinized
ISAv and
fish farms not the only threat to wild salmon stocks – add sewage to the
list
Released by Fraser Riverkeeper/Voice file photo
 he
Commission on Environmental Co-operation announced today that it
will investigate allegations regarding Metro Vancouver's Iona sewage
treatment facility, at the request of environmental groups across
North America , who were asking that body to investigate Canada's
failure to enforce environmental laws against Metro Vancouver's
sewage treatment authority.
The Commission, set up under the North American Free Trade
Agreement, has authority to investigate wherever a member nation is
failing to live up to its own environmental laws. Fraser Riverkeeper
and the David Suzuki Foundation, working with Waterkeeper Alliance
groups throughout North America, filed a complaint with the
Commission in April, 2010, based on Canada's failure to enforce the
Fisheries Act against the Iona Sewage Treatment Facility in the
Fraser River.
Fraser Riverkeepers Executive Director
Lauren Hornor at Peg Leg river cleanup in 2010.
"The Iona facility continues to this day to fail its toxicity
tests," said Doug Chapman, Fraser Riverkeeper. "That means that the
discharge from the plant kills fish: the very Fraser River sockeye
stocks whose alarmingly low numbers are currently the subject of the
Cohen Commission hearings in Vancouver."
Fraser Riverkeeper Doug Chapman is a former environmental prosecutor
for the Province of Ontario, who had earlier pressed charges against
the Iona plant and the governments that failed to enforce
environmental standards. The criminal proceedings were subsequently
taken over and stayed by the federal government, on the grounds that
it was "not in the public interest" to enforce the law against this
chronic offender.
"The Iona facility provides only primary treatment of sewage," said
John Werring, a biologist with the David Suzuki Foundation. "That
means it's screened and settled, but still essentially raw sewage.
It robs the receiving water of oxygen, causing the fish to
suffocate." Werring provided evidence for the criminal proceedings,
explaining how the Iona plant had discharged "substances deleterious
to fish" into the Strait of Georgia, contrary to the Fisheries Act.
After the federal government had stayed the charges against Iona,
effectively allowing it to continue to break the law, Fraser
Riverkeeper prepared the complaint to the CEC as a measure of last
resort. "If we are not permitted to enforce Canadian law in Canadian
courtrooms, our only recourse is to look to the promises made to our
trading partners when NAFTA was signed," said Chapman. "Canada
promised to enforce its environmental standards and helped create
the Commission on Environmental Co-operation to oversee that promise
on behalf of all partners. The Commission's decision to investigate
our complaint gives us some hope that Canada will be forced to act
to protect the Fraser River and its precious salmon." Canada has 30
days to respond to the Commission.
For more information about the work Fraser Riverkeeper is doing
visit their website at:
www.fraserriverkeeper.ca
Fraser Riverkeeper,
303-207 West Hastings St.Vancouver British Columbia V6B 1H7
Canada
© Copyright (c) 2011 The Valley Voice
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