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Riverkeeper Announces
Intention to Leave the River Study Process
(Moncton, January 28, 2003) - Sentinelles Petitcodiac Riverkeeper,
the region's lead environmental organisation dedicated to restoring
the Petitcodiac River, has decided to abandon the Environmental
Impact Assessment process aimed at studying various options to
rescue the endangered Petitcodiac River, should the provincial
and federal governments not commit now to taking action to help
the river once this two and a half year $3 million study is completed
in 2005.
"We
have been consistent about our position ever since the promise
to undertake this EIA was made by the Province nearly four years
ago", says the organisation's Riverkeeper and Executive
Director Daniel LeBlanc, "and we have no intention of investing
ourselves blindly into this or any other process if we can't
even have a commitment from the governments that an actual project
is going to take place once this is all over in 2005".
The Riverkeeper
decision comes at a time when the million-dollar river study
is about to begin, two full years behind schedule. "2005
is a long way ahead", argues LeBlanc, "and without
any assurance that things are going to be different this time
around, the risks for the river and its species are too high
for us to bank on this new study".
LeBlanc
notes that in the past 34 years, members from his organisation
have taken part in over 20 different pubic consultation exercises
aimed at providing their input to solve the causeway issue, all
to no avail. "Since the Louis J. Robichaud Government in
the 1960's, over 130 reports and studies have been conducted
on the Petitcodiac River, making this one of the most studied
river systems in Canada" says LeBlanc.
"Governments
tend to forget how much time and effort is required from the
public to take part in these consultations, adds LeBlanc, and
it is often assumed that everyone in the community will just
give freely of their time to help consultants and civil servants
undertake their studies. Hundreds of volunteers in this community
have dedicated thousands of hours of their personal time in the
past decades to help successive governments and consultant firms
conduct their studies on the Petitcodiac, and we feel it is inexcusable
to ask more from the public now without a genuine commitment
that action will indeed be taken once this research is completed,"
cautions LeBlanc. "The sad reality is that I have met very
few people in this region who believe that this new study is
going to be any different", says LeBlanc.
Despite
growing local support in favour of restoring the river, and despite
the fact that the Petitcodiac was designated Canada's Second
Most Endangered River in 2002, the Riverkeeper believes that
many decision-makers, especially in Fredericton, still do not
understand how critical the state of the Petitcodiac has become.
To attempt to change these views, the organisation has decided
to dispatch this week an educational kit to every New Brunswick
MLA and provincial department involved in one way or another
with the Petitcodiac River.
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INFORMATION:
Daniel LeBlanc, Petitcodiac Riverkeeper
(506) 388-5337 - www.petitcodiac.org
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