Proposed Activities for Mines Act Permitting Exemption
In November 2011, an amendment to the Mines Act was passed to enable cabinet to establish class exemptions for permits. Currently, permits are required for all mine-related activities including some small-scale mineral exploration activities that are low-risk and cause little-to-no health, safety or environmental concerns. While inspectors are able to grant individual exemptions, each application must be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This process is time-consuming and takes away from reviewing and inspecting mine-related activities that do pose some potential for health, safety or environmental risk. Click here to view the full bulletin.

Oil Firms Issue Guidelines for Quakes Caused by Fracking
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has issued a new set of guidelines for dealing with earthquakes caused by fracking, a controversial technique for extracting natural gas from shale. With fracking, operators inject a combination of water, sand and chemicals into the ground under high pressure to break the rock and free the gas trapped inside. The industry group's voluntary operating practices are being posted nearly three months after a study by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission found fracking caused a spate of minor earthquakes in northeastern B.C. between 2009 and 2011. The guidelines encourage CAPP members to assess the potential for quakes by making use of existing data and communicating with nearby operators. View the CBC article.

BC to Host First LNG International Conference
British Columbia will host Canada’s first international conference focused on liquefied natural gas (LNG). The details were announced [recently] by Minister Rich Coleman. The conference, Fuelling the Future: Global Opportunities for LNG in BC, will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre on February 25 and 26, 2013. The Province of British Columbia and natural gas LNG proponents will join First Nations leaders, local governments, learning institutions, global investors, and domestic and international consumers to discuss the status of BC’s LNG industry. Multiple panel discussions are planned, with topics focusing on global market developments, regulatory best practices and skills development for future labour needs. Read the full government news release.

A Warning for Plaintiffs in
Environmental Management Act Cost Recovery Actions
The B.C. Supreme Court recently considered the scope of its jurisdiction to hear claims for cost recovery under the Environmental Management Act, S.B.C. 2003, c. 53 [EMA]. In Terrim Properties Ltd. v. Soprop Holdings Ltd., 2012 BCSC 985, the Court found that it did not have jurisdiction to consider a cost recovery action in circumstances where the plaintiff had conducted certain remediation but no "determination" had been made by the "director" under the EMA that that property was a "contaminated site". Section 47(7) of the EMA requires that, before a court can hear a cost recovery action under s. 47, a site must have been "determined or considered under section 44". This requirement can be satisfied by a determination that a site is a contaminated site or by certain other actions by the director which will result in a site being "considered to be" a contaminated site: the appointment of an allocation panel; a determination that a person is a minor contributor; entry into a voluntary remediation agreement; issuance of an approval in principle; or issuance of a certificate of compliance (s. 44(5)). View the full article by by Kimberley Fenwick and Richard E. Bereti with Harper Grey LLP and published on the BCEIA website.

FortisBC Ready to Harness Tolko's Heat
The Tolko plant in Kelowna has been blowing off steam for decades. Wasted heat environmentalists would say. But that could soon change. Tolko, FortisBC and the City of Kelowna are teaming up to harness that wasted heat. "It's actually quite a nice system where you take waste heat, capture it and convert that heat into a water source," says FortisBC spokesman, Neal Pobran. "You just pipe that water underground and bring it in through the buildings, convert the water back into forced air and heat it throughout the building." Read it on Global News.

Federal Fisheries Officials Stalling on Talks to Protect Water
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has no formal plans to consult with stakeholders on new regulations or partnerships to prevent industrial pollution in the wake of a major changes to environmental protection laws adopted last summer, says newly-released internal correspondence obtained by Postmedia News. Despite pledging to develop new regulations and partnerships to protect Canadian waterways when it implemented the changes to Canada’s Fisheries Act and other legislation, the department is unable to provide any timelines or details of its progress, nearly six months later. View article on Global.