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the prAiries regional wrap-up 'Water's for fighting' souri River, which the province fears could bring invasive species into Lake Winnipeg. Judge Rosemary Collyer of the United States District Court A for the District of Columbia, in a March 5 decision, ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior to put the project on hold pending further environmental impact studies. The decision stems from Manitoba's 2002 lawsuit against the U.S. secretary of the Department of the Interior and officials from the Bureau of Reclamation. "The court is acutely aware that Reclamation and North Dakota have built miles of pipeline and that the citizens of the area want the project completed," wrote Collyer in Manitoba v. Sala- zar. "These facts do not excuse Reclamation's failure to follow the law. This case demonstrates the U.S. judge recently ruled in favour of the province of Manitoba in an ongoing battle over a controversial North Dakota plan to divert water from a reservoir on the Mis- adage that it is better to do something right the first time. Rec- lamation has wasted years by cutting corners and looking for short cuts. It has yet to do what [the National Environmental Policy Act] demands: take a 'hard look' at the environmental consequences of the project." The court action alleged a 2001 environmental assessment and separate "finding of no significant impact" filed for the Northwest Area Water Supply Project violated the NEPA. The province argued that the bureau did not adequately consider the "risks and consequences of transferring foreign biota from the Missouri River Basin to the Hudson Bay Basin," according to the decision. The bureau has argued that it did not have to look into the Read Manitoba v. Salazar online at https://ecf. dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_ public_doc?2002cv2057-175 potential for the transfer of invasive species. It said the law did not call for the consideration of environmental impacts on other countries, and that any such transfer was unlikely. It also said that environ- mental safeguards built into the project would help prevent any such problem. But Collyer ruled an existing injunction on the project will continue until the bureau finishes additional environmental impact studies. "The consequences of the release of foreign biota should a breach occur — or even from the normal five per cent leakage to be expected from any pipeline — might be catastrophic and should inform Reclamation's course of action," wrote the judge. "It may be that the risk of a breach is low given the pipeline's construction, but that is not an excuse for Reclamation to refuse entirely to analyze the consequences. When the degree of potential harm could be great, i.e., catastrophic, the degree of analysis and mitigation should also be great." Winnipeg's Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP environ- mental lawyer John Stefaniuk says the battle between Manitoba and North Dakota is a harbinger of things to come. It's believed that climate change will make certain parts of North America more arid, placing a much higher value on water resources, he notes. "Water is going to be a bigger and bigger issue, which is going to place increased demands and emphasis on these pro- jects which may have cross-border impacts," says Stefaniuk. A process exists under the Boundary Waters Treaty Act through the International Joint Commission to deal with such disputes, but there are deficiencies in that framework, suggests Stefaniuk. That means governments will increasingly be forced to go to battle in foreign courts to protect their water interests, he says. "Mark Twain, I believe, said whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting," says Stefaniuk. "That certainly holds true, and as the scarcity of water increases, the likelihood of fights increases." — RT 10 M AY 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com ntitled-4 1 2/10/10 10:02:59 AM