Nova Scotia judge sides with Mi’kmaq band on gas-storage project appeal
Posted Jan 30, 2017 02:32:55 PM.
Last Updated Jan 30, 2017 05:18:11 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HALIFAX – A Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge has quashed the province’s rejection of an appeal by a Mi’kmaq band related to the Alton natural gas storage project.
The Indian Brook band argues Alton Natural Gas Storage’s plan to flush out salt to create storage caverns near Stewiacke poses an environmental risk to the nearby Shubenacadie River.
In a written decision released today, Justice Suzanne Hood ruled the band was denied procedural fairness when the province refused the band’s request to review and respond to reports on the project by the Nova Scotia Office of Aboriginal Affairs and the Environment Department.
Specifically, Hood says the band was repeatedly denied access to a 30-page interim report written by provincial environment project leader Glen Warner and submitted to Environment Minister Margaret Miller on the same date she denied the band’s appeal in April 2016.
Hood says the matter has been sent back to Miller to allow the band an opportunity to review Warner’s report and material from the Office of Aboriginal Affairs “on which Warner relied.”
The judge also ruled she doesn’t have the authority to grant a stay of the province’s industrial approval of the project, and concluded that it was unnecessary for her to deal with the issue of the province’s duty to consult.
