By Bryan Eneas

Oil spill ‘disastrous’ according to Chief Bobby Cameron

Jul 25, 2016 | 1:57 PM

The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations is calling for First Nation representation within the emergency panel set up by Husky to address the oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River.

At a press conference held on the shores of the North Saskatchewan River, Grand Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations said that they are pushing for fair representation in communications.

“We’re trying to get a local representative on the command center. Currently we don’t have a First Nation representative at the command center. I’m being told it is going to happen though,” Cameron said.

He added amidst clean-up efforts, it is important to give First Nations a fair representation and voice during discussions moving forward.

“We’re calling for our own environmental assessment because historically industry has tried to minimize these types of impacts,” Cameron said. “To have a devastating crisis such as the Husky oil spill, it’s going to have a negative impact in (the traditional) life. We’re talking about our Mushums and Kookums who used to berry pick these lands being affected.”

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“We say this to Husky oil and other industry sectors out there: if you want true partnership and true dialogue (with First Nation) you have to have our elders advisory council to speak and to help or assist anyway we can,” he added.

The Prince Albert Grand Council is also heavily involved with the recovery efforts. Grand Chief Ron Michel said that he is concerned about the water shut off Prince Albert is currently under.

“We have at least a third of the population (in Prince Albert) is First Nation. Most of them are from our area, and that’s going to be a priority for us, how we’re going to supply water for our members,” Michel said. “Also not to forget that some First Nations along the river, who use the river quite a bit in terms of fishing, hunting, and trapping. If (the oil) ever gets to the animals, that’s going to be a big burden for our First Nations.”

According to Michel, he wasn’t aware of a pipeline running in the Saskatchewan River.

“We want to find out who built that pipeline, who gave the permissions for that pipeline…We need some answers,” he said. “We need an audience with Husky energy, we need an audience with the leadership in Regina… it’s something that can’t be taken lightly by us.”

Michel said that he has never seen an oil spill like this in his lifetime. He said the extent of the damage to First Nation communities isn’t known yet.

“Our environmental people are looking into it right now, they’re going to the communities to test the water so we’re keeping a good profile on our communities. As soon as we detect it we want to find out how big of the spill is within the area so we can shut off the water systems,” Michel said. “We want to be part of the clean-up, we have a tremendous amount of labour force husky could use to help cleanup.”

The Prince Albert Grand Council is working on a program to bring potable water to communities who may be affected. According to Michel, the plan is to have trucks leaving from the Senator Allen Bird Memorial center loaded with water. At time of publication, details were still being ironed out by the Prince Albert Grand Council for the water plan to be put in place.

“We’re not ever going to leave Saskatchewan, we’re here to stay. These kinds of things that are happening shouldn’t be happening — a broken pipeline on the river,” Michel said.

On July 21, roughly 200,000 to 250,000 litres of heavy oil mixed with diluent escaped from a Husky Energy pipeline east of Lloydminster near the Highway 21 bridge.

Bryan.Eneas@jpbg.ca

On twitter: @Bryan Eneas