Governments accused of ‘sitting on their hands’ since incident
Frustrated by government delays an Edmonton-based Sierra Club Canada employee is taking Syncrude Canada to court over the deaths of about 500 ducks in a toxic tailings pond last April.
“We’re taking legal action to ensure that these oily deaths of 500 ducks in northern Alberta don’t become the status quo in the tarsands” says Jeh Custer who’s being supported by his employer as well as environmental groups Ecojustice and Forest Ethics. Ecojustice filed the private prosecution in provincial court January 7 on Custer’s behalf.
Custer is alleging the company violated the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act and says a government investigation into the incident is taking too long. “If we can bring forward a prosecution in a number of months on a shoestring budget why are the feds and the province sitting still and basically sitting on their hands after more than eight months?” he says. “The situation is representative of the general lack of enforcement when it comes to the tarsands.”
