An excavator is immobilized on a pile of land at a Coastal GasLink shipyard near Kitimat, British Columbia.
The construction of a gas pipeline in northern and central British Columbia was temporarily halted for the company responsible for understanding why construction began in many places before the completion of the archaeological assessments. Coastal GasLink explains that an internal audit found that two areas of land east of Kitimat had been cleared prior to the archaeological assessments. The assessment is conditional upon obtaining permits from the British Columbia Oil and Gas Board. Coastal GasLink has therefore suspended all clearing activities in the area until an internal audit is completed and steps are taken to prevent this from happening again. In a statement, Coastal GasLink President David Pfeiffer “asked the team to conduct a thorough investigation of these incidents and to suspend clean-up work in the area until the investigation is complete and the recommendations are put into practice “.
The company says it has also informed the affected Aboriginal communities. The Coastal GasLink Pipeline inspired many protests after the Wet’suwet’en First Nation hereditary chiefs declared that the pipeline had no legitimacy without their consent. The company behind the project, for its part, has signed agreements with the 20 elected First Nations along the 670-kilometer route to LNG Canada’s export terminal on the coast at Kitimat. Wet’suwet’en council.
