Something Fishy About BC's Proposed Water Act

If you want to know what someone really values, don't look at what they say, look at what they do. Take, for instance, how the B.C. government plans to handle the competing needs of fish and the oil and gas industry under the new Water Sustainability Act.

If you look at what the government says in its 120-page legislative proposal, you'll notice an emphasis on the need to protect fish. But when you examine how the proposed amendments mesh with the existing law, it becomes clear that fish needs will still come second to those of the oil and gas industry. While industry will likely continue to have access to pretty much all the water it wants, fish will have no real legal protection for their water needs.

Clean Water Act: Industry Influence, Political Environment Dangerously 'Different' 40 Years After Passage, Warn Advocates

Waterfront property didn't offer the same draw in the early 1970s as it does today. Smelly and unsightly waterways -- a flaming Cuyahoga River and a dying Lake Ontario, for example -- repulsed Americans and repressed adjacent home values.

But also very different four decades ago: the climate on Capitol Hill.