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By Deb Steel
Windspeaker.com Reporter
PORT ALBERNI, B.C.
Free, prior and informed consent took a back seat when the Port Alberni Port Authority provided permits to a charcoal producing plant in the unceded territory of Tseshaht First Nation without consultation, said Chief Councillor Cynthia Dick.
Then, the Port Authority heaped insult upon injury through its actions after complaints began to surface that the plant, Cantimber, may be making residents of the Alberni Valley sick.
That’s when Tseshaht formed a working group of area stakeholders to get to the bottom of the complaints. Tseshaht called together nearby Hupacasath First Nation, Island Health, First Nations Health Authority, the City of Port Alberni, the air quality council and Port Alberni Port Authority (PAPA).
“We tried to provide input on what studies needed to be done,” said Dick.
“We initiated the working group because we felt there was very little communication being done, and we really want to start working on the communications, start working on the transparency and accountability for the decision that had already been made.”
But Tseshaht’s comments and concerns weren’t taken into consideration, Dick told Windspeaker.com.
Instead, PAPA operated “unilaterally” by contracting Golder and Associates and setting the parameters of the studies of the Cantimber operations; studies that do not meet the requirements of Tseshaht First Nation, reads a press release.
And the produced 21 recommendations from the studies are also inadequate, according to Dick.
“We find that there’s still information that just isn’t there, or the studies didn’t look at. And had they taken our comments and concerns into consideration previously, we would have been able to get that information rather than, you know, having to go back and do more studies,” said Dick.
One of the big questions that remains for Tseshaht regards the liquid discharge that flows from the plant into the waters of the Alberni Inlet. Tseshaht wonders what, if any, impact that discharge has on marine life, including a very lucrative salmon fishery that provides both culturally and commercially to nation members to the tune of three- to four million dollars in most years.
“We’ve been given different information all along,” Dick said, “and at the last working group meeting we recognized that ‘yeah, there’s still information lacking. We don’t know how much water is being discharged. We don’t know the exact temperature. We don’t know the exact cooling process.’
“And these are really important questions that need to be answered, because if they are going into the water, and potentially harming the fisheries… That’s one of the first questions we asked when the Golder and Associates studies came back.” But Cantimber and the Port Authority still weren’t able to answer that question, Dick said.
Now the nation is calling for a joint oversight committee to guide the decision making of Port Alberni Port Authority and for the Cantimber project. Dick believes the committee could make up the same members as the original working group.
Dick believes that by working together, the committee would take into consideration all of the perspectives each group has to offer.
Through the June 9 press statement, Tseshaht declares it “strongly opposes any activity, operation and/or issuance of any license and/or permit by the Port Alberni Port Authority (PAPA) until all issues identified by Tseshaht have been fully addressed and all duties of the Honour of the Crown for consultation and accommodation requirements have been met by the Government of Canada.”
This declaration includes the issues around the Cantimber operation and the implementation of 21 recommendations, but is not limited to that industry.
Dick said the Cantimber situation has “opened our eyes” to the fact that the nation needs an agreement or framework in place with PAPA—and other entities like the City of Port Alberni—that guides the process of free, prior and informed consent “so that we are not always driven by crisis management.”
The Port Alberni Port Authority was formed in 1999 under the Canada Marine Act, a continuation of the Harbour Commission’s Act of 1964. PAPA is mandated jurisdiction of the Alberni Inlet from the Somass River to Tzartus Island.
Asked if this situation was a matter of two competing authorities bumping heads —Aboriginal title of unceded territory vs. the delegated authority of the federal government to PAPA— Dick said “I think, to an extent, you can look at it that way. And I think that’s the kind of thinking that people need to set aside and say, ‘Yes, we are going to work together,’ because we know that by working together in a shared decision-making framework that we can make even better decisions.”
“I’m not saying I have the answer for what it looks like right now,” said Dick. “I think it’s really important that we are having this conversation and that we continue to breathe life into Section 35 of Canada’s Constitution, and really figure out a process to have in place, so that we are not constantly, every time a new project comes up, back to the table as an afterthought, but actually a part of the decision-making process.”
By working together in a shared decision-making framework “we can make even better decisions. You’re pulling on knowledge from all different areas and making informed decisions that are best for the community and the environment,” she said.
Dick said it’s also about relationship building, so people feel the responsibility and the accountability for not only making agreements, but putting meaning behind the agreements so that everyone’s going to follow it.
“You can have the best agreement in place and if nobody’s accountable to it, what good is it? And I think it’s setting out a clear process so that we can hold them accountable or hold each other accountable to say, ‘This is the process. This is what we agreed to. And this is what we are going to follow.”
Currently, there is no memorandum of understanding or protocol agreement between Tseshaht and the Port Authority, though PAPA has presented a draft protocol agreement to Tseshaht for consideration, Dick said.
Tseshaht did lobby PAPA, however, for a permanent First Nations seat on its board of directors. PAPA said that if Tseshaht wanted a seat on that board, Tseshaht would have to go through the nomination process, Dick explained. A permanent seat at the table would be a federal decision. Dick said NDP MLA Scott Fraser and NDP MP Gord Johns, who represent the Alberni area provincially and federally respectively, are in agreement with the suggestion.
Tseshaht waits now to hear back from PAPA on its letter outlining Tseshaht concerns about the Cantimber operation.
As for accommodation for the plant’s presence in Tseshaht territory, Dick said that if Tseshaht decides the project gets the green light to operate then it “would be reasonable to ask for employment opportunities.” However, she’s quick to say that accommodation would be a discussion put to the nation’s members.
“The first important step is to make sure that this project is one that should move ahead,” she said.
Dick confirmed that Tseshaht had recently struck a land claims panel that is answerable to the membership, and will be researching its assertion of Aboriginal rights and title, which could also mean a Tsilhqot’in-type challenge, should the Tseshaht members direct that.
It was in June 2015, that PAPA happily announced the establishment of Cantimber Biotech within its terminal facilities. Cantimber takes wood waste left behind from logging operations and transforms it into a variety of products, utilizing a “retort pyrolysis technology to produce clean and high quality charcoal.”
It uses a “fluidized based steam activation chamber to produce granular and powder pure physical method wood activated carbon, that can be further refined into pharmaceutical grade, food plant grade and chemical engineering grade raw material.”
There is an upcoming phase two and three, which will expand the capacity of activated carbon raw material, as well as the production of higher grades of activated carbon.
By Spring of 2016, complaints were rolling in that emissions from Cantimber may be causing illness, including bloody noses and persistent coughs. This caused the company to shut down operations for testing of air quality.
Port Authority CEO Zoran Knezevic then said that a third-party would be commissioned to study Cantimber’s operations and emissions. That study was release in December 2016.
Windspeaker did try to reach out to the Port Authority, but those able to speak to the issue were either out of cell range or otherwise occupied. But in a statement last Friday to The Peak, a local Port Alberni radio station, Knezevic said the fluid discharge from Cantimber is city water that cools the product, and is released as hot water into the inlet. A process to cool the water before it enters the marine environment will be implemented.
He said PAPA has been working with Tseshaht and other community groups over the three-year process on the biocoal project and will continue to work with the group to ensure the 21 recommendations from the Golder Report are complete before CanTimber is allowed to re-start.