Environmental Law Alert Blog

Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:

  • proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
  • stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
  • emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.

If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

Last Tuesday (October 8th), the Province paper had an important story – Environment ministry continues to shield Water Act violators – about the Ministry of Environment’s refusal to identify companies

Recently the BC Water and Waste Association (BCWWA) posted a video of a short talk that West Coast Staff Lawyer, Deborah Carlson, gave last June to their Climate Change Committee.  The talk, which is intended to be a firs

The Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released the first of 4 reports that make up its 5th Assessment Report.  This first report documents t

The Yinka Dene Alliance (YDA), a group of First Nations whose territories cover 25 percent of Enbridge’s propose

Many people seem surprised when I mention the possibility that greenhouse gas emitting companies may one day be held liable for the damages caused by climate change.  And yet, there is no other context in which businesses could cause

BC’s archaic mining laws have a real cost for BC communities, their environment and their economies.

CBC is reporting that Prime Minister Harper has sent a letter to U.S. President Obama offering to commit to greenhouse gas regulations in return for the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. 

I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to have your drinking water, and your entire community, contaminated with jet fuel; particularly when, like the folks impacted by the Lemon Creek jet fuel spill in the Slocan Valley, you live in an otherwise pristine area.  The only thing that would make it worse would be feeling shut out of the clea

This week, the latest chapter in Canada’s David and Goliath struggle between citizens and Big Oil unfolded as a BC non-profit organization, Forest Ethics Advocacy,

UPDATE August 22, 2013: We’re pleased to report a small victory in the case of the missing Skeena! The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has agreed to extend public comment and participant funding deadlines after West Coast Environmental Law and the T.