West Coast Environmental Law
Research Foundation Workshop

SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver, Friday, June 14, 1996

No speaking notes available No notes from David Lane's speech are available. The following is a summary made at the workshop.

Summary

Many times we hear the saying that salmon stocks are like canaries in mines. This saying is apt, but instead of waiting while salmon stocks are being lost, we need to take proactive, preventative measures. In BC we have some of the last major salmon runs, but we have seen the loss of many. David Lane grew up in Burnaby and many of his old haunts are no longer around. The situation of Lower Mainland and south Island streams is critical.

The issues affecting salmon are complex. Major settlements around streams and rivers impact salmon, as do increases in sedimentation, increased water temperature, decreased flow, and constructions such as roads, bridges and culverts. Every bit of habitat is essential to the life cycle of salmon, but the paving over of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island alters natural runoff, and pollution remains a serious issue.

Sewage dumped in the Fraser is the single largest source of its pollution. In Vancouver, sewage and storm water combined goes raw into waterways. Currently there is only a sixty year plan and there is no plan to treat storm water. There are also multiple nonpoint sources of pollution affecting fish, including pesticides and fertilizers from agriculture. These impact at the stream level, in the Fraser Valley for example, but all these streams hit the big river. Furthermore, the estuary and marshes needed to acclimatize fish are dwindling. In the lower Fraser the loss has been 80%. These problems simultaneously affect salmon streams, but try to get a reporter to deal with sedimentation and temperature; they want to see bulldozers!

We live in a car culture and overall our public transit system is poor. Our reliance on the car means more roads and further impacts on fish. One major fear expressed by David Lane relates to projected growth. If we have twice as large a population and twice as many toxins, what will the outcome be? Will we limit growth? The environment can't cope with any more cumulative toxins.

A new way of thinking is required, involving multiple angles. At a federal level, proposed changes to the Fisheries Act are going in the wrong direction. We need a proactive approach to the federal legislation to assist prosecutions. While expensive and time consuming, prosecution is necessary. More than minimal fines that go into general revenue are needed, instead, the money paid should go into restoring habitat.

Provincially, riparian protection equivalent to the Forest Practices Code is needed. Revisions to the Water Act should provide a priority right to fish and any new licensees must think "fish first". At the municipal levels we need bylaws in place to deal with these issues as well.

While things look bleak, David Lane is optimistic about two trends: increasing public consciousness as a result of the crisis situation; and, a high level of community activism. There is a need to build on a long history of hard work. We won't get changes to the legal system unless there is activism to show that a supportive constituency is there. Legal tools are important but without people as our eyes and ears we are nowhere.

David Lane hopes that his current haunts will be around in twenty years and points to the need for a long term view, beyond crisis management. We need proactive, preventative laws.

Discussion

Question. How do you envision proactive laws?

Response. Mostly thinking of federal Fisheries Act. Even private prosecution involves dealing with the problem after the fact. There is a need to say "You can't do that," "not here," and for adequate technology that is closed loop.

Look at rehabilitation problems — it takes hundreds of million dollars of Forest Renewal money to deal with an old logging road built thirty years ago.