Eden Valley has taken its fight to block a planned sour gas pipeline from being built just outside its boundary to federal court.
The Stoney Nakoda Nation has asked a federal judge to review a decision by the federal government to disallow its bylaw banning a sour gas pipeline near Eden Valley. Now the provincial government wants to have its say on the case.
Last year, the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) approved a Suncor plan to build 11 sour gas wells and 56 km of pipelines from the Sullivan Creek area, west of Longview, south into the MD of Ranchlands. The proposed route for the pipeline would take it within 400 metres of Eden Valley.
Band council passed a bylaw in 2009 banning a sour gas pipeline within 1.5 km of its boundaries, but the Minister of Indian Affairs struck it down in fall 2010.
As a result, the band launched a judicial review of the move in federal court in December.
Doug Rae, lawyer for the Stoney Nakoda Nation, said the question put before the court is whether or not the minister was able to disallow the bylaw.
He said the band believes the bylaw should be permitted.
“As the band’s representatives have already mentioned, the band considers (the bylaw) permissible under section 81 of the Indian Act,” said Rae.
Section 81 of the Indian Act outlines areas where First Nations have authority to pass bylaws.
However, Genevieve Guibert, department of Indian and Northern Affairs spokesperson, said the band does not have the jurisdiction to pass a bylaw regulating activities outside the reserve’s boundaries.
“Each bylaw is reviewed on a case-by-case basis and the disallowance of a bylaw is exercised in exceptional circumstances where a bylaw exceeds legal and or jurisdictional authority,” said Guibert.
She declined to comment on the judicial review because the matter is currently in litigation in front of the courts.
Since December, Suncor was permitted to participate in the judicial review and the Alberta government is now asking for the same status as an intervener. The court has not decided whether it will allow the Province’s request.
Suncor spokesperson Kelli Stevens said the company sought intervener status in the case because it felt it had information regarding the project that would be valuable to the court.
“We did think it was a prudent thing to do given our current stake in the area,” she said.
Stevens also declined to comment further because the matter is in front of the courts.
She said the company has not started work on the pipeline.
The band’s intention with the bylaw was to put Eden Valley on the same level as an urban centre such as a town or village under the ERCB’s rules.
Under ERCB rules, urban centers must have a minimum setback of 1.5 kilometres from a sour gas pipeline, while areas designated as an unrestricted country development only require half-kilometre set back. At its closest point, the pipeline will be located within 320 metres of the reserve’s boundary and will be about 500 metres from the closest dwelling.
The judicial review is not the only ongoing court case regarding the pipeline.
In the fall the Alberta Court of Appeals gave opponents to the pipeline, including the Stoney Nakoda First Nation and a number of affected area ranchers, permission to appeal the ERCB’s approval of the pipeline.
An appeal has since been launched and the hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 14 in the Alberta Court of Appeal in Calgary.
