The Council of Canadians Kamloops chapter marked World Rivers Day in late-September by collecting a jar of water from the South Thompson River.
Today, they delivered that jar to Kamloops — Thompson — Cariboo Conservative Member of Parliament Cathy McLeod to highlight to her that the river needs to be better protected through enhanced federal safeguards.
The South Thompson River is the southern branch of the Thompson River, the largest tributary of the Fraser River. It originates at the outlet of Little Shuswap Lake and flows approximately 60 kilometres southwest to Kamloops where it joins the North Thompson River to form the main stem of the Thompson River.
The proposed 890,000 barrel per day Trans Mountain pipeline threatens the South Thompson River.
In May 2014, Kamloops This Week reported, “Western Canadian Spill Services and Kinder Morgan crews staged a mock spill scenario on the South Thompson River at Pioneer Park. A containment boom was deployed in the river from the park boat launch, as it would in the event of a real pipeline leak into the South Thompson.”
While the South Thompson River is one of the 62 rivers listed in the Navigation Protection Act, the tributaries that feed into (such as Peterson Creek) are not. We believe that more stringent protections must be enacted that would put water sustainability, water justice, water as a public trust and a human right above the interests of Big Oil.
To find out more about our “SOS: Send a message in a bottle to your Member of Parliament!” action alert, please click here.
It’s part of our Every Lake, Every River campaign that says the protections that were cut by the Harper government must not only be fully and immediately restored by the Trudeau government, they must also be enhanced.
McLeod should play a role in this in that she sat as a Conservative MP when the water protections were cut in 2012.
To sign our Every Lake, Every River petition, please click here.
#EveryLakeEveryRiver