The Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative on Thursday denied recommending that all 13 bands in Nova Scotia get behind the Alton Gas plan to release brine into the Shubenacadie River.
“The Assembly does not support the Alton Gas project,” the Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative (KMK) said in a news release.
Videos circulating on social media claimed that the rights initiative (KMK or Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn Negotiation Office) had requested that the 13 Nova Scotia bands sign a document in support of the project, said the KMK, which takes direction from the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs.
Alton Gas, a subsidiary of AltaGas, plans to draw nearly 10,000 cubic metres of water daily from the Shubenacadie River estuary near Fort Ellis in Colchester County and push it through a 12-kilometre underground pipeline to the cavern site off Brentwood Road, near Alton. The water will then be pumped underground to flush out salt to create two giant gas-storage caverns. The residual brine would be pumped back to the estuary for release into the river system, a gradual discharge of 1.3 million cubic metres of salt over a two- to three-year period.
Sipekne’katik band members, who primarily reside in the community of Indian Brook near the Alton brining site, say the influx of salt will pollute the river and kill fish and marine habitat.
The mission statement of the KMK office is to address historic and contemporary inbalances in the relationship between Mi’kmaq and non-Mi’kmaq people in the province and to secure a basis for an improved quality of Mi’kmaq life. The KMK will do the necessary research and develop consensus positions on issues and create public and community awareness of constitutionally protected Mi’kmaq rights.
Still, members of the Sipekne’katik and Millbrook bands have abandoned the KMK process and have independently taken the lead in consultation with Alton Gas.
“The Assembly respected and supported the decision of these communities, and directed KMK to keep consultation going so that they could also see that environmental concerns are being addressed, on behalf of all the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq communities,” KMK said in its release.
The KMK said that despite the defection of the Sipekne’katik and Millbrook bands, they ought to work with the Assembly and the KMK to develop written submissions to Canada and Nova Scotia respecting the Alton Gas project in order to protect inherent Mi’kmaq and treaty rights, including Aboriginal title.”
One of the constitutional rights ascribed to the Mi’kmaq is the right to consultation from government and industry when a project is planned. Provincial Environment Minister Margaret Miller on Monday upheld a January 2016 industrial approval of the brining operation that the Sipekne’katik band had appealed all the way to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.
“Consultations with Sipekne’katik on this industrial approval have been sufficient,” Miller said.
“The terms and conditions in the approval are sufficient to protect the environment.”
Miller said she added clarity to the approval, requiring the company to meet all relevant provincial, federal and municipal laws, including any future amendments to them, and to develop a plan to ensure good communication between the company and the band.
Dorene Bernard, a staunch opponent of the project who lives in Indian Brook, said this week that despite what Miller said, “there has not been consultation or community engagement on Alton Gas with Sipekne’katik Chief Mike Sack and council since May 24, 2017, when Treaty rights holders voted No on a potential Impact Benefit Agreement.”
The Alton offers in that agreement included collaboration with Mi’kmaq organizations on environmental monitoring and a cultural study of the river, band jobs on Alton construction and the environmental protection team, a new and visible Sipekne’katik gateway at Exit 10 on Highway 102, funding for a striped bass aquaculture project and help to fund energy efficient upgrades at band buildings.
“It took two years for her (Miller) to say that there was adequate consultation on a 2016 permit but there hasn’t been consultations to date,” Bernard said.
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