Thanks, Justin. Trans Mountain Pipeline Destroyed Salmon Habitat.

We're getting steamrollered by Trudeau and his Liberal thugs but the truth still gets out. From the Canadian Press.  And a guy named Mike Pearson is blowing the whistle.

Work on a Trans Mountain pipeline crossing in a British Columbia stream has destroyed salmon habitat, raising concerns about the Crown corporation’s ability to build infrastructure through waterways if the expansion project proceeds, a scientist says. 

Mike Pearson says the “amateur hour” work on the Stewart Creek crossing in Chilliwack will reduce food sources for coho and chum salmon and limit their ability to hide from predators. The fish are part of the diet of endangered southern resident killer whales. 

“There was no consideration given whatsoever to the habitat, which is just not acceptable,” said Pearson, a biologist with 30 years’ experience.

Trans Mountain Corp. filed documents with the National Energy Board showing its plans to cover exposed pipe in the Fraser Valley creek. It wrote that it would place concrete mats in the channel, extending about eight metres upstream and nine metres downstream of the exposed line, and cover it with small stones. 

Pearson said the work was completed in August to September of last year. He visited the site in December and took photos that he says show most of the stones have been swept away by currents, leaving the concrete blocks exposed. 

“The work has degraded habitat in several ways,” he wrote in an assessment filed with the energy board by intervener Yarrow Ecovillage. 

The smooth, hard concrete provides no hiding places for salmon, supports very few of the aquatic invertebrates they feed on, inhibits plant growth and prevents fish from burying their eggs, the document says. 

Pearson believes it’s not an isolated incident. An assessment he did of a pipeline creek crossing on Sumas Mountain in 2015 for Pipe Up Network, an anti-pipeline group, concluded the site was physically unstable and reconstructed with materials inappropriate to restoring habitat. 

A stream-keeper has also raised concerns about excavation at Trans Mountain’s terminal in Burnaby. John Preissl has filed several complaints with the energy board alleging the work has caused sediment to fall into two salmon-bearing creeks.

Only this morning I listened to a report on CBC radio about the feds launching a campaign against single-use plastics.  The Liberals were starting by releasing scientific studies on the problem. That made me wonder why the Trudeau government still hasn't released the science about the pipeline and the risk of environmental catastrophe from a bitumen leak in BC coastal waters. Trudeau has been saying for years that his government has "done the science." Environment Canada, the Royal Society and other experts say no, the science hasn't been done. Nobody has answered the hard questions, especially not the Dauphin and his cabinet. If they're not lying and, despite all evidence to the contrary, they have done the science, it's safe to assume there's an important reason for making sure it never sees the light of day.