Plans to empty salt caverns for gas storage hit a wall of Mi’kmaq grandmothers
Cheryl Maloney’s eyes filled with tears as she stood near the banks of the Stewiacke River in the middle of Nova Scotia. The news finally sank in. Behind her, about 100 people heaped plates with spaghetti and fried chicken; the crowd included his 11-year-old grandson, Drake Nevin, one of many children who had spent most of their childhood fighting alongside the Elders to protect this river system. He saw driftnet fishermen, white fishermen catching tarpon in these waters, reminiscing, and amber leaves floating on the water like confetti.
Two weeks earlier, Alton Gas, a subsidiary of Calgary-based AltaGas, had abandoned a project that would have pumped 10,000 cubic meters of brine into the mouth of this river every day for a decade, leaving behind underground caverns where the company planned to store natural gas. It had been seven years since Maloney and a handful of other Mi’kmaq grandmothers painted their first picket sign that read “Stop Alton Gas.”
There was a “delay” on the highway, where protesters handed out leaflets denouncing the project. There was a threat of civil suit, a court order against the protesters, arrests, court actions, decisions and appeals. Old people had died and babies had been born. Ultimately, the company tapped on it, posting a statement on its website lamenting that “the project has received mixed support, experienced challenges and delays.”
It was a momentous victory for an indigenous community at a time when protests over pipelines have resulted in clashes with police and controversial arrests of First Nations protesters and journalists. Unlike the Wet’suwet’en territory in northwestern BC, the local elected chief and band of the Sipekne’katik First Nation supported this struggle, as did many local non-indigenous residents. For Maloney, the broad support reflected “the true spirit of reconciliation.”
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The Stewiacke River meanders through forests, farmlands, and villages, including a Mi’kmaq community that is part of the Sipekne’katik nation. It eventually empties into the Shubenacadie River, which empties into the Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Twice a day, a nearly four-story-high surge of seawater, the highest tide in the world, pours into the rivers, causing both to change course.
Alton Gas hoped to make use of this mixing effect. The company planned to pump water from Shubenacadie some 12 km inland to remove up to 15 natural underground salt deposits, creating huge caverns to store natural gas. The resulting brine would be dumped into the Shubenacadie, whose already brackish waters push into the Stewiacke when the tide rises. The company said it would closely monitor salinity levels in the river to ensure they did not reach harmful levels, billing the project as a reliable way to provide affordable gasoline to Nova Scotians.
Maloney, a former national environmental coordinator for the Indigenous Women’s Association of Canada, was sitting behind the bar in her recreation room overlooking the river when her brother, Lefty Paul, first told her about it. She was dumbfounded. The estuary is home to the endangered Striped Bass. He worried that the project would contaminate the groundwater and river system that the Mi’kmaq had relied on for millennia.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this is not good,” says Maloney. “They were going to use our little province as a guinea pig.”
Maloney posted social media notices to help plan for the first day of resistance, and on a windy October morning in 2014, he arrived with a few others at the Alton site. “I’m crazy?” remember thinking. “Is someone going to show up? People are probably going to hate us.” But the Elders began to arrive, along with the driftnet fishermen, non-indigenous older men who opposed the project. About 100 people clambered up the steep shoulder of Highway 102 with signs painted red: “Stop Alton Gas” and “Protect Our Rivers” and “500,000 Excess Salt Dump Trucks.”
Maloney, who has a law degree, knew the next steps had to be strategic. She helped organize a group to fish for eels at the site—a Mi’kmaq treaty right affirmed in two Supreme Court decisions—elevating the issue from an environmental cause to a constitutional issue. At each barricade, he became more tactical.
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When Alton created a new island in the river by digging a channel, the members began fishing from there. When the company threatened to sue the band council for lost revenue due to Maloney’s efforts to stop the project, Maloney, a Sipekne’katik advisor at the time, resigned her position so she could continue the protest as a private member. from the band.
When Alton put up “No Trespassing” signs, the Mi’kmaq and their non-indigenous allies built a “van,” a place of trade protected by a centuries-old treaty.
The gang ultimately challenged the province’s 2016 decision to grant Alton industrial approval, arguing that the Mi’kmaq had not been properly consulted on matters that could affect their treaty rights. In March 2020, a Nova Scotia judge ruled in favor of the First Nation.
The site will be dismantled, but the garage will remain: it is now a sacred place of education, healing and gathering, and a reminder of the struggle of the grandmothers.
Back in the river park, the shadows of the pine trees grew tall and they ate the last bites of cake. Maloney returned with a dozen other grandmothers and well-wishers to her rec room, where it all began. They filled their cups with black tea, built a fire outside, and kept the party going.
This article appears in print in the February 2022 issue of Maclean’s magazine with the headline, “Brain on Pickle.” Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here.
Reference-www.macleans.ca