Coalbed Methane Drilling Didn’t Belong in the Sacred Headwaters

The nature of Shell’s proposed gas drilling project and its desired location were simply unacceptable. Community members and their supporters worldwide drew a line in the sand and fearlessly said ‘no’ to Shell and to gas drilling. And they won. Here are just a few reasons why:

Sacred Headwaters: A social and ecological cornerstone

• The Sacred Headwaters is a critical habitat for numerous threatened species, including grizzly bears, wild salmon and caribou
• The Sacred Headwaters is where three of Canada's greatest wild salmon rivers, the Skeena, Nass and Stikine, all begin their journeys to the Pacific Ocean
• The Tahltan First Nations people have hunted and trapped in the Sacred Headwaters for millennia
• For environmental, social and economic reasons, the Tahltan First Nations strongly opposed Shell's proposed project in the Sacred Headwaters

Why coalbed methane drilling was too risky for the region:

• Coalbed methane projects require a lot of roads and pipelines; this is particularly hard on large mammals such as grizzly bears. They need large contiguous tracts of wilderness for security cover
• Coalbed methane wastewater is usually high in salts and often contains heavy metals, like cadmium and mercury, making it toxic and difficult to dispose of.
• Coalbed methane projects deplete large amounts of water from local ground aquifers
• Coalbed methane projects' runoff and erosion due to land clearing and road building increase sediment in streams. This has serious implications for local ecosystems and species, such as wild salmon
• Coalbed methane developments do not result in significant local employment after their construction phase