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The fate of a 900-kilometre natural gas pipeline in northern British Columbia is in limbo after its environmental assessment certificate expired on Nov. 25.
The province must decide whether to greenlight the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline by either making its decade-old certificate permanent or sending the entire project back to the drawing board for a new environmental assessment.
The PRGT pipeline will carry natural gas from northeastern B.C. to Ksi Lisims for export overseas. The Nisga’a Nation and Western LNG bought the pipeline from TC Energy in March 2024 but it has faced sustained opposition from the Gitanyow Heredity Chiefs, Kispiox Band and environmental groups who say the environmental assessment permit is outdated and inaccurate.
PRGT Ltd. is arguing it has already made a “substantial start” on construction of the pipeline before the certificate expired and should, therefore, be allowed to proceed. Construction began in late August and was met with protests and blockades from Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs and activists, who were aiming in part to avoid the “substantial start” claim, which carries legal weight.
The province must now make a decision by March 2025 with two possible outcomes, Matt Hulse, staff lawyer at Ecojustice, told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview.
If B.C. Minister of Environment and Parks Tamara Davidson decides PRGT has already made a “substantial start” on the pipeline construction work, the old environmental assessment certificate will become permanent and give PRGT the ability to continue construction whenever it pleases and on whatever timeline it sees fit, Hulse said.
Alternatively, the minister could decide there wasn’t enough work completed by Nov. 25 — the certificate’s expiration date — and then, PRGT has to get a new environmental assessment, he explained. The Gitanyow Heredity Chiefs’ position is that the proponent “very clearly has not met the threshold required to demonstrate a substantial start,” according to Gavin Smith, lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law and counsel for Gitanyow.
This wouldn’t kill the pipeline, but it would slow things down.
The proponent would have to apply for a new certificate under the 2018 Environmental Assessment Act, “which is more rigourous than the 2002 version, which is what the project was assessed under originally,” Hulse said.
It could take two to three years and cost millions of dollars to reassess the project and all its impacts and cumulative effects, he added. Hulse is representing a coalition of community groups and Kispiox Band in a judicial review of the project filed in late August.
If the provincial government decides in favour of PRGT, Gitanyow said in a news release it is prepared to challenge the decision in provincial court.
PRGT’s application said more than 42 kilometres of the initial pipeline right-of-way was cleared between Aug. 24 and Nov. 12. The pipeline’s total length will be up to 900 kilometres, so clearing 42 kilometres “is a really tiny amount of work,” Hulse said.
The application also said 47 kilometres of access roads have been upgraded or maintained “which sounds like a lot, but there’s 850 kilometres of road that they might have to upgrade along the project, so there's a lot to still go,” Hulse said. Only work that occurred up until Nov. 25 can be considered as part of the substantial start application. The application argues PRGT Ltd. invested 12 years of significant time, effort and resources to physically develop the project, including about $70 million invested in construction activities in 2024. The construction cost for the entire project was estimated at $5 billion in 2014. Western LNG does not have an updated cost estimate.
"PRGT is not planning to advance construction activities during the winter months due to the weather’s impact on field conditions,” said Rebecca Scott, senior manager of communications for Western LNG, in an emailed statement to Canada’s National Observer. Scott added that on-site monitoring and management actions will continue over the winter.
If the province denies the substantial start application, any construction work done after Nov. 25 would be illegal.
Environment Minister Davidson also has the option to delegate decision-making to the head bureaucrat at the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, Hulse and Smith noted.
For most projects, Hulse said, it is fine to put the decision in a bureaucrat’s hands, but this is a complicated situation. The pipeline will cross the width of B.C. and is premised on information and an assessment that's 10 years old and does not reflect the current perspectives of Indigenous communities or other people along the route, let alone other factors like the escalating impacts of climate change, for example, he said.
In his view, this “is a political decision as much as anything else,” and “the decision-maker should be the one who is publicly accountable, which is the minister,” not bureaucrats.
Although rejecting the substantial start application wouldn't kill the project, it would set it back and create implications for Nisga’a Nation, which owns the project, he added.
“The government wants to maintain good relationships with Indigenous communities. Obviously, this is just one along the pipeline route, but they own the pipeline, so that's another … political decision that I think it should be left to the minister to make,” Hulse said.
In an emailed statement, EAO spokesperson Sarah Plank said the EAO is inspecting the project site this month, examining all project-related documentation and consulting with First Nations.
Determining whether the project has been substantially started will take some time and the EAO will provide the decision-maker with a report on its findings in spring 2025, said Plank’s statement said
Canada’s National Observer did not receive comment from Davidson’s office. Plank said PRGT has “demobilized construction activities at this time.”
Smith thinks the decision will be an important precedent, establishing the acceptable standard for companies looking to lock-in projects by seeking a “substantial start.”
Companies regularly try to use this strategy to lock in environmental assessment approval for the long term on a project that they aren't yet ready to build, with PRGT as the most obvious example, Smith said.
Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs celebrated the expiry of the environmental assessment certificate as “the first step towards the end of PRGT,” Chief Glen Williams said in a press release published Nov. 25.
“This out-of-date and risky project does not meet the current needs of Gitanyow and others, mainly a healthy climate and thriving environment for future generations," his statement said.
The Gitanyow will continue to resist PRGT on the ground with new cabins, a new Indigenous Protected Area, and on-going monitoring conducted by Wilp members and the Lax’yip Guardians, Chief Deborah Good’s statement reads.
— With files from Matteo Cimellaro
Natasha Bulowski / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
Comments
While this project is locked into bureaucratic limbo an effort should be made to double down on research into the effects of increasing levels of renewable power in its export markets.
That info will no doubt affect proponent's support for BC LNG projects. BC needs to consider the long term implications for First Nations who bought into LNG. Not approving this project now will ultimately save all investor's bacon as China quickly boosts its exports of cheap solar, wind and battery products to the very same markets in SE Asia.
Ditto Australia's ambitious plans for massive solar output delivered to the same markets via undersea HVDC cables. Singapore has already signed a contract for the latter.
Canadian LNG is expensive and was outcompeted by much cheaper US Gulf LNG even before BC LNG projects even hit the drawing board, let alone received billions in public money in the absence of unbiased long term economic projections and independent research into world trends in renewables.
Writing them down now will be politically unpopular. But throwing money into a deep hole for another decade and have First Nations go bankrupt when LNG becomes a set of stranded assets before the multi-billion dollar plants are even broken in would be tragic, and due only to short sighted proponents who succumbed to deeply prejudiced hype from the fossil fuel sector.
The BC government could offer FNs involved in LNG renewable projects at scale as an alternative. Geothermal power has a small footprint, and they could be located near existing transmission corridors to minimize any new impact from new infrastructure.
But if the hereditaey chiefs say no to any development on pristine land, then the government needs to listen. There is still lots than can be done near cities and port facilities to generate clean electricity and develop new green industries.