Water is essential for all life. BC’s water is under pressure from increasing demands while global warming means that its supply will be less certain. We must act now to protect our rivers, streams and groundwater, and to balance competing demands for this precious and limited resource. The BC government is considering how to modernize our Water Act: let them know what’s needed to manage our water in a smarter way. Your voice will count!
- To sign the OurWater petition to protect British Columbia’s water resources through Water Act modernization, click here.
What would you do if a gas well next to your house spilled lethal hydrogen sulfide into the air? Call West Coast for legal advice and support! A grant from West Coast’s Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund will help folks in the Peace River region who live near the site of last November’s dangerous leak of “sour gas” from an Encana well call for a public inquiry into how future leaks can be prevented.
- Read about this and other communities in BC being empowered to protect the environment through recent grants from West Coast here.
- Read here for our blog post about the recipient of the EDRF grant, PEST, a community group fighting to prevent future sour gas leaks.
In the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and Enbridge’s pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, check out this short Tankers documentary made by First Nations youth in northern BC. In 2008, West Coast coordinated a youth conference in Prince Rupert, where eighteen Aboriginal youth created a series of powerful short documentary videos that speak to their vision for a better world, as it relates to tanker traffic and the environment more generally.
West Coast recently released a new sustainability tool for local governments, developers, and planners: the Topsoil Law and Policy and Topsoil Technical Primer Set. Conserving, improving or adding 'topsoil' to a site is a way to achieve water conservation. The primer set reveals how an absorbent topsoil layer is a fundamental building block for achieving water sustainability in green infrastructure initiatives at the local level. Once a community has made the decision to protect or restore an absorbent landscape, the Topsoil Primer Set provides guidance on how to make this happen.
- Take a look at the primers here.
West Coast is delighted to welcome Jeanette Ageson to our team as our new Communications and Donor Relations Officer. Jeanette takes over the helm from Anna Beard, who is leaving to travel Central and South America before moving back to her homeland of New Zealand. Bon voyage Anna, we bid you a fond farewell, and welcome Jeanette!
- To read Jeanette's full bio, click here
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