Northern British Columbia Regional Case

The Northern British Columbia (BC) Regional Case is geographically focused in the northern two-thirds of BC, within the service area of both the Northern Health Authority and the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC). Local economies in northern BC have historically been characterized by an array of resource extraction, processing, and related infrastructure development and transport activities which include oil and gas, forestry, mining, agriculture, hydroelectric projects, fisheries, and an array of renewable energy projects. In turn, community and environmental health and wellbeing have been directly impacted by resource development in complex ways. Within this context, the UNBC Cumulative Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) and the NH Office of Health and Resource Development (OHRD) endeavour to work across multiple sectors, jurisdictions, and communities to better understand and address the social and environmental determinants of health in northern BC. The northern BC case is comprised of the CIRC, OHRD and a wide variety of other researchers and partners working to address the health impacts of resource development in this region.

Regional Case Updates

Since mid-2020 we have moved to a new cross-ECHO format of sharing Regional Case updates - please see the latest updates for the Northern BC Regional Case on the following Padlet links, or for cross-ECHO updates via our “Updates” page.

Spring 2021 Padlet Update

Winter 2020 Padlet Update

Summer 2020

The past winter and spring season has continued to bring much change for the regional case. The Northern Health (NH) Office of Health and Resource Development (OHRD) has had additional personnel shifts. Melissa Aalhus will be leaving her Interim Regional Office Manager position July 30th as she has been accepted to medical school and will be starting with the UNBC cohort in September. OHRD plans to have a replacement in training by mid-July. Sally Western has been hired to the position of Technical Advisor and will soon step into the position of ECHO regional case coordinator, replacing Katrina Koehn. As well, Dr. Chris Buse, will be stepping away from his position as Regional Case Co-Lead, focusing his ECHO-related work on further development of the ECHO-Screen.

It has been an exceptionally busy time. With the Covid-19 pandemic, the OHRD has been helping respond to risks associated with industrial camps in northern BC. As a result, OHRD set aside many other Environmental Assessment (EA) participation and policy-focused efforts for March through May. 

OHRD is currently regaining momentum around EA commenting participation. OHRD recently hosted an ECHO workshop around updating the Standard Comments for EAs document. The office uses this as a foundation for our own comments submitted in EA processes, as well as a reference point and guidance for both regulators and proponents in BC.  The office looks forward to receiving the feedback of ECHO members, so please follow the link and have a read through!

Spring 2020

This past winter/fall season has brought many changes for our regional case. With Barb Oke from Northern Health’s (NH) Office of Health and Resource Development (OHRD) on a temporary leave, Melissa Aalhus has stepped in to the role of Interim OHRD Regional Manager and Regional Case Co-Lead. To fill Melissa’s position, Katrina Koehn has joined the team as an OHRD Technical Advisor and Regional Case Coordinator. Dr. Sandra Allison has left her position with Northern Health, with Dr. Raina Fumerton filling as Interim Chief Medical Health Officer and ECHO Co-Chair. Shayna Dolan has also moved on from her position as the Regional Case Research Assistant.  Many thanks to those internal and external to the ECHO network who have been helping us make these transitions as smooth as possible!

Dr. Chris Buse, Regional Case Co-Lead, has been expanding and refining work on the BC Enviro Screen Pilot Project. This has included collaborating with other regional cases to build capacity across the network for conducting pilot Enviro Screens. Chris also hosted a meeting with an interdisciplinary team from NH to discuss how to refine the BC Enviro Screen indicators to ensure this tool can be optimized for decision-making within the region. Our regional case hosted our 2nd Learning and Impact Workshop in December 2019 to share some of the learnings about integrative indicators we have developed through the BC Enviro Screen.

The OHRD has been working towards finalizing knowledge translation materials that we have developed to communicate the health impacts of resource development and related assessment methods. We presented on these materials alongside Chris at the 2nd Learning and Impact Workshop mentioned above, and at the Knowledge and Research Exchange on Health and Resource Development (KaRE) Network quarterly meeting in November 2019. We aim to have these materials posted up on ECHO source soon.

The OHRD has been working support various Environmental Assessments and associated legal Conditions for multiple natural gas, coal, landfill, and hydro projects across the NH region. We have also been reviewing provincial policy documents and had the opportunity to attend an Indigenous Gender-Based Analysis Plus (IGBA+) workshop hosted by the Minister’s Advisor Council on Indigenous Women. We are working alongside folks from the FNHA/SFU regional case to learn more about how GBA+ and IGBA+ can be meaningfully incorporated into the Environmental Assessment Process. NH has been involved in reviewing the recently updated Prince George Air Quality Emissions and Modelling report expected to be released later this spring. We have also been collaborating with Dr. Lisa Ronald, who is a CIHR Post-Doctoral Fellow supporting NH projects focused on air-quality related health impact assessment and surveillance.

September 2019

This spring, the Northern BC regional case hosted their first Learning and Impact Workshop on materials and processes for communicating with community and agency decision makers.  The team is continuing to advance their work on developing knowledge translation materials. CIRC hosted a series of presentations in the Northern Rockies, Peace River, and Bulkley Nechako regions in June to report on the findings from a three-year research project to provide new, integrative tools and processes that measure environmental, community, and health values to take action on the cumulative impacts of resource development across northern BC.

Northern Health is very excited to welcome Raina Fumerton back from maternity leave! We have been busy engaging with LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink on health services planning and social and environmental health management processes as the projects begin early construction activities. We have also been supporting Environmental Assessments for several mining and oil and gas projects and associated management plans. This spring, Barb Oke and Iridia Medical co-presented at the Minerals North conference in Chetwynd on leading practices for health services delivery in mining camps. Northern Health also presented as part of the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health Seminar Series on impacts of resource development to social determinants of health; the webinar recording is available here https://bit.ly/30huod5. An accompanying blog post is available at: https://bit.ly/2NhWamm.

The BC Centre for Disease Control organized a Practical Wildfire Smoke Preparedness Workshop in Prince George on May 28th. There was a successful turnout from a number of agencies and organizations, including Northern Health and the FNHA. The BCCDC has updated their public facing wildfire smoke web page and developed a series of fact sheets regarding wildfire smoke and health. See http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/prevention-public-health/wildfire-smoke. The BC Lung Association has released their 2019 State of the Air Report which features information regarding volatile organic compounds, low cost air quality sensors and citizen science, wildfire smoke, and air quality trends across the province. Work continues for air quality roundtables throughout the north (Bulkley Valley Lakes District, Quesnel, and Prince George) and new work is happening with the Valemount Clean Air Task Force to address higher levels of particulate matter in their community during the winter.

April 2019

This past December, Northern Health’s Office of Health and Resource Development (OHRD) and Margot Parkes presented at the 2018 Spruce Beetle Summit in Prince George and hosted a panel discussion on implications for human health. In February, UNBC hosted a live-stream session in Prince George of the BC Lung Association’s Air Quality and Health Forum “Wildfire Smoke: A Growing Threat to Air Quality and Public Health” (presentations are available for download here).

Chris Buse gave a presentation titled “Cumulative Health Impacts: Beyond Toxicological Risk” at the annual conference of the New Brunswick Children’s Environmental Health Collaborative on February 3. The presentation was delivered as part of a workshop co-facilitated by Chris Buse and partners from the NB regional case team.

UNBC and the OHRD recently released a report exploring indicators for monitoring social determinants of health impacts of resource extraction and development, which can be found on the OHRD webpage. This work identifies over 500 indicators, examples of existing data sources and associated knowledge gaps, and provides guidance and recommendations for improving monitoring processes. The OHRD continues to support healthy public policy, including commenting on the Fort St. John Land & Resource Management Plan update and new draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy. We’ve also been working on reviewing EAs and associated management plans, including ongoing engagement with LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink Pipeline as the projects begin early construction, as well as preparing messaging for the next wildfire season. The OHRD will be presenting at an upcoming National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health webinar (April 18 from 12pm-1pm PDT) on our work on the social impacts of resource development. Learn more and register here

Save the date! The Northern BC Regional Case will be hosting an online Learning and Impact Workshop on May 6th between 10am-12pm PDT.

December 2018

The Northern BC case continues to focus their work on the topic of ‘taking notice for action’ and has developed a research ethics protocol to engage intersectoral initiatives addressing the community and health impacts of resource development. This work will seek to profile existing initiatives and conduct in-depth key informant interviews to better understand the contexts, mechanisms and outcomes of intersectoral action across northern BC.

CIRC delivered a presentation and workshop in Smithers in September 2018 as part of an ongoing project to develop new tools for assessing the cumulative impacts of resource development. Additional workshops for this project will take place in Spring 2019 in the Peace River Region, Fort Nelson, and Vanderhoof. In addition, CIRC is launching a new research project on the gendered impacts of the pre-operational “buzz” phase of resource development, focusing on the activity surrounding LNG Canada in Kitimat.

Northern Health (NH) continues to support the Government of BC’s Environmental Assessment (EA) revitalization process. The province recently released an Intentions Paper outlining intended changes and introduced a revised Environmental Assessment Act (Bill 51) in the Legislature on November 5th for first reading. The news release can be viewed here: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2018ENV0080-002122. We are also in the process of applying for funding from Health Canada to conduct a Climate Change and Health Capacity, Vulnerability and Adaptability Assessment for the NH region in collaboration with various partners. The Health and Resource Development Office (HRDO) continues to be busy supporting various EAs and associated condition requirements, and has been continuing to engage with LNG Canada and the Coastal GasLink Pipeline as the projects prepare to move ahead with construction. HRDO will also be hosting an Interagency Meeting this month and is hoping to get a head start on smoke messaging for next summer.

July 2018 

CIRC convened a community workshop on the traditional territory of Saik’uz First Nation in Vanderhoof, BC on April 26, 2018 as part of an ongoing project focused on developing new tools and processes to assess and monitor the positive and negative impacts of resource development across northern BC. This workshop created space for people living and working in Vanderhoof and the surrounding area to share their perspectives and experiences related to past and ongoing resource development. More information about the “New Tools” project, and the Vanderhoof workshop, can
be found on the CIRC website.

Chris Buse, CIRC Project Lead, was awarded a CIHR Fellowship supported by the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Environmental Assessment Re-search and UNBC. This project will explore how to incorporate health imperatives and the determinants of health into provincial and federal environmental assessments. Marieka Sax, CIRC Operations Lead, was awarded a SSHRC Innovation Development Grant. This project will examine the gendered impacts of the speculative phase of resource development in two case study sites: a proposed tungsten and molybdenum mine in Stanley, NB and a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Kitimat, BC.

Recent months have been busy for the Office of Health and Resource Development (OHRD) with a number of projects preparing for summer construction. Additionally, we have been supporting numerous provincial and federal regulation/policy reviews and initiatives such as BC EA Revitalization, the Rural Development Strategy, spill response up- dates, and regulations to support the proposed federal Impact Assessment Act. We are also pleased to have released a guidance document to address the opioid crisis and provide guidance around harm reduction approaches in industrial camps (available on the OHRD webpage). On June 4-5, Northern Health collaborated with the Prince George Air Improvement Roundtable (PGAIR) to host a second North Central BC Clean Air Forum in Prince George. We were ex- cited learn from health experts from the BC Centre for Disease Control and Mariposa County, California and to see so many engaged community members and technical experts attend this event. 

March 2018

On January 18-19, 2018, the UNBC Cumulative Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC),with support from the ECHO Network and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), convened the 2018 CIRC Forum: Cumulative impacts policy and practice in northern BC.This event brought together over 100 people interested in the cumulative impacts of resource development and climate change throughout northern BC. In a public keynote address on January 18, Megan Leslie, President & CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada, discussed cumulative impacts in the context of wildlife and habitat conservation. Throughout the day on January 19, sessions focused on a variety of topics, including cumulative effects assessment frameworks, Indigenous land use planning, watershed governance, impacts to health and wellbeing, and wildfires. We were also lucky enough to host a youth delegation, who facilitated an interactive discussion that challenged participants to reflect on how they could enable more meaningful youth participation in their ongoing work. Session recordings are available for viewing here.

We are also pleased to announce the release of reports from the Health Impacts of Resource Extraction and Development (HIRED) Project, a research collaboration between UNBC and Northern Health. This includes a Phase 1 Report (“Towards a better understanding of health in relation to mining and oil & gas extraction: A scoping review”) and a Knowledge Synthesis Bibliography. In addition, Northern Health and the BC Observatory for Population and Public Health recently released a report, “The social determinants of health impacts of resource extraction and development: A summary of impacts and promising practices for assessment and monitoring”. All 3 reports are available on the Office of Health and Resource Development website.

December 2017

Throughout the fall, the UNBC Cumulative Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop session with members of the Nechako Watershed Roundtable Core Committee. This workshop focused on discussing land-use planning that promotes the long-term health of ecosystems and communities and, importantly, involves communities in planning and decision-making processes. We also facilitated a community workshop in Fort Nelson, in which we presented a suite of publicly available information into a “regional profile” displaying socioeconomic, health and environmental indicators for the Northern Rockies Region. In addition to getting feedback on the usefulness of this tool, and the ways in which it complements ongoing processes in the Northern Rockies, workshop attendees shared stories in relation to the connections between environment, community, health and resource development.

In September, members of the CIRC team attended and presented at the RAIL Commons conference in Olds, Alberta, before travelling on to tour the Battle River Watershed with members of the BRWA-ECHO contingent. CIRC, with the support of ECHO and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), is in the process of planning a policy-oriented symposium in Prince George on January 18-19, 2018. This event will provide an opportunity to convene conversations with people and organizations interested in and actively working on issues related to the myriad impacts of resource development throughout northern BC.

Northern Health and the First Nations Health Authority held a series of community engagement sessions in Fall 2015 exploring health and community impacts in relation to resource extraction and development, and recently released a report summarizing our findings (available at: http://www.fnha.ca/Documents/FNHA-Northern-First-Nations-Caucus-Overview-Fall-2015-Full-Report.pdf). The feedback from participants was overwhelmingly rich and insightful, and the report highlights a number of challenges, opportunities and best practices that exist in this area.

September 2017

Northern Health (NH) continues to work at the project level, and is participating in the Environmental Assessment reviews of LNG, mining and pipeline projects. Recently, NH facilitated an inter-agency meeting for the north and released a Communicable Disease Guide for Industrial Camps. We expect to release additional documents soon that focus on the social and health impacts of resource development. NH, the Cumulative Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) and other partners are participating in a Knowledge and Research Exchange group for northern BC. NH now has dedicated staff for an outdoor air quality program, and is working on a guidance document that will provide strategic direction and a collation of relevant air quality information. The program coordinator is also responding to complaints and inquiries and engaging with airshed management groups, regulatory agencies as well as experts across the province. Outdoor air quality risks in the north vary and recently NH has been busy responding to poor air quality conditions as a result of wildfires in the Interior region. Over the last few months, CIRC has had the chance to convene community workshops in the Nechako and Peace River Regions. In order to facilitate an interactive and arts-based workshop with grade 8 students, we developed an “integrated values mapping” tool to elicit and spatially locate various environment, community and health values that are important to youth living in the Nechako Region. CIRC facilitated “data-driven storytelling” workshops in five different communities in the Peace River Region in June 2017. As part of this process, CIRC staff compiled a suite of publicly available information into a “regional profile” displaying socioeconomic, health and environmental indicators for the Peace River Region. In combination with the regional profile, the data-driven storytelling process was designed to integrate narrative and lived experience with quantitative data to better tell a story of regional change.