Baffin communities condemn seismic testing plan

NEWS: Nunavut June 28, 2011 – 11:31 am

"The current level of consultation with all affected communities is not enough"

JANE GEORGE <!–

ID: 22770 –> (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE "/> The waters of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, seen here, are full of marine life and migratory birds – the impact of seismic testing in this wildlife makes many of the Baffin communities nervous about a plan to carry out five seasons of seismic testing there. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE (IMAGE / RPS Energy "/> Here is a map of the Environmental Impact Statement submitted by RPS Energy, which shows that the company wants to conduct a five-year program of seismic testing, starting next month. (Image / RPS Energy

A proposal to start five years of seismic testing in the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, next month, outside the Nunavut territorial claims settlement has provoked the opposition of people in Clyde River and Pond Inlet The Alliance of fishing for Arctic, Baffin Fisheries Coalition and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, who say the program is poorly designed and promoted.

They have closed the quality of consultation and information offered by RPS Energy, an international consulting and management group based in Norway, which acts on behalf of the proponents.

They are also skeptical about the company's claims that the sound waves produced by seismic testing marine life will leave unharmed.

Your comments can be found in the letters and comments submitted to the National Energy Board, the federal agency that will decide whether to grant the authorization RPS Energy needs to move forward.

For all the seismic testing will take place outside the 12 nautical mile limit of Canada, the NEB – not the Review Board Nunavut Impact – comes to deciding whether to grant authorization RPS Energy.

RPS Energy seems to be doing work on behalf of private clients, likely oil and gas companies. In 2007 and 2008, the company did similar work in the same area.

At a meeting last month in the River Clyde, between representatives of the company and the community was not "clear and strong public opposition" to the project, according to documents ca/clf-nsi/rthnb/pblcrgstr/tgspgs2011nrthstrncnd/tgspgs2011nrthstrncnd-eng.html "title =" NEB website "> website NEB.

The May 26 meeting was not a "consultation", but rather a "this is going to happen," briefing, said Dr. Shari Shari Fox, a research scientist in the River Clyde.

"The company representative said the same," we are here to tell you what will happen, "he writes.

Moreover, the presentation slides were not prepared in Inuktitut, maps and diagrams can be read not made to scale.

"This misinformation can not be told to do a trial or decision. For example, it can not provide any information about potential impacts to marine mammals and the results of noise from air guns. This information is available online, but the representatives argued that such information was not known, available, or at least had no idea "he writes.

None of the 30 people at the meeting supported the project and 28 of them signed a petition that the project move forward.

The Qikiqtani Inuit Association, which gathered feedback from their communal lands and the Appeals Committee agrees to the "current level of consultation with all affected communities is not enough", in a letter to the NEB June 13 by the director of lands and resources, Robert St. Eloi.

The QIA says RPS Energy has not provided sufficient information on the impacts of seismic on marine life.

And there is a lack of mitigation measures and traditional knowledge is not enough in the statement of the company's environmental impact, the QIA said.

The QIA wants to see a large-scale regional assessment: "All stakeholders in the oil and gas must establish a process to educate the affected communities," writes St. Eloi.

The QIA wants to see public meetings to address the concerns of the community and complete a mitigation plan.

Until the end, the QIA will not see the approval of the NEB grants.

As RPS Energy, its 120-page EIS, submitted to the Energy Board in April, says that if the project proceeds, there will still be damage to the environment: to break the ice, cargo ships, cruise ships and other vessels research, waste materials, sediment, to the fall of atmospheric pollutants, the discharge of ballast.

And still live marine life in a noisy, full of "cracking and breaking of ice."

A "no-go" would set back the interest in the area, he says, because geologists do not have the necessary information to map the subsurface and assess their potential oil and gas.

That will affect the future of the subsurface exploration and drilling programs, which "in the elimination of potential future business, royalty, and sources of tax revenue and the data do not exist for knowledge and future research," says the EIS.

Starting this July, RPS Energy wants to send the MV Spirit Sanco, a private research vessel, scoring a series of air guns around. These sound waves are sent to a depth of six to 10 meters below the sea surface to the seabed.

Receivers spaced along the "streamers" of six to 10 miles long, towed by the boat, which records the sounds that bounce back.

For the kind of echoes that are returned, geologists can determine what lies beneath the ocean floor.

The survey will be completed this year in November, depending on location, weather conditions and availability of ships, the EIA said.

All interaction with marine mammals of any other denomination that is kept to a minimum, he says, "it is unlikely that any individual will be significantly affected by the program. "

The study must have passed 28 kilometers outside the National Wildlife Niginganiq near Clyde River.

While acknowledging "the lower hearing sensitivity of the whales," the company says the extra noise generated as a result of this seismic survey activities proposed will be minimal: they could get away, but it would "likely" to return after several hours.

Marine mammal observers will ensure that no whales or seals 500 meters from the sound source, they say.

As for fish, there could be some mortality "of eggs or larvae. "Although the rate of capture" may be affected, "seismic testing" will affect critical spawning or unique. "

Seabirds are as dispersion, the EIA said.

To scare seabirds away life, the plan is to ramp up the sound pulses gradually.

Fortunately, there are no lobsters out of Baffin Island. The RPS recognizes that adult American lobsters can experience the physiological effects of intense seismic sound pressure, he says.

"American Lobsters are not in the proposed seismic survey area and therefore will not be potentially affected by seismic operations. "

Despite claims of the company, the Alliance of Arctic fishing is "reduced catch rates in fishing for turbot immediately after the seismic survey."

The elimination of their networks outside the path of a seismic vessel test that requires "considerable effort and loss of fishing time," says his letter to the NEB.

The alliance, Baffin Fisheries Coalition and communities are already considering the need for compensation if the project goes ahead.

The government of Nunavut also got in, with comments on the project, saying that any development in and around Nunavut includes "consultation exemplary Nunavut."

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