Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in light of its study on railway safety today.
I'm here today representing Kitselas First Nation, with whom I have worked for five years in the capacity of director of lands and resources. Kitselas Nation is located in the northwest of B.C. Amidst a territory of 1.8 million hectares that stretches 200 kilometres along the Skeena River and out to the Pacific north coast, there are seven reserves with two primary communities. These communities are located near Terrace, British Columbia.
Kitselas has had a long, troublesome history with the railroad. In many ways, the rail serves as a modern embodiment of colonialism to the people of the canyon, known as the Gitselasu, who were once the toll-keepers of the Skeena River. After having cut through their lands, the infrastructure that alienated Kitselas from their economy remains to this day, bifurcating reserves, communities and the territory. Today, Kitselas is impacted further by Canada's largest infrastructure projects, including the LNG Canada export facility and the Coastal GasLink pipeline. Over 25 industrial projects affect the territory and subsequently our community members.
In 2019, as a result of concerns heard from our leadership and the community, we commissioned Dr. Janis Shandro, a community health and safety specialist with a global portfolio, to assess the health and safety risks associated with this unprecedented level of industry. In her technical report to our nation, she identified the need to better understand community health and safety risks associated with rail. At the time of her assessment, rail traffic was reported by local emergency services professionals to be growing considerably. Her direct observation while undertaking this work indicated that as many as three trains per hour can pass through our communities. Based on proposed industrial projects in the region, the observed growth in traffic will only increase, with the primary cargo being dangerous goods.
Industrial development in the region has had other side effects as well. Through Kitselas' participation in quarterly round tables for LNG Canada, it has been consistently noted with evidence that the capacity of the emergency services in the Terrace and Kitimat area is insufficient to meet the current needs. The implication of this fact in the event of a rail disaster is significant. We have lobbied across all facets of provincial government for improvements in this essential service area to no avail.
Based on recommendations from Dr. Shandro's 2019 report, Kitselas commissioned another investigation, again pulling on global expertise. In this case, we commissioned Dr. Franco Oboni and his team at Riskope, a leading risk assessment consulting firm, who have assessed rail-related and other risk hazards for clients around the world. His scope was to undertake an independent rail and road transportation risk assessment.
The objective of this investigation was to determine, using available information and data, if there were indeed risks to human populations that should be of concern. The scope of the investigation included three segments of track from the northern border of Kitselas territory through to Prince Rupert and Kitimat; two corresponding segments of highway, Highway 16 and Highway 37; and the local road network within one kilometre maximum of the rail line. The investigation also looked into potential interactions between rail and road traffic, as it was identified that there are significant stretches of infrastructure alignment in which the rail line is adjacent to Highway 16. The proximity of highways and railroad will likely generate further aggravation.
The study concluded that harm to people is already on the verge of international societal risk acceptability thresholds if both railroad and highway accidents are considered. This finding was made with publicly available information only. Riskope's study identified that, depending on the traffic structure, accidents and mortality rates could increase significantly. I will repeat that, at this time, based only on the information we could obtain, we were at the brink of acceptable risk thresholds. More projects are coming. These facts should foster enhanced attention, preventative mitigative measures and safety programs all along the highway and the rail line.
The study undertaken by Kitselas provides several recommendations, which we have prepared in a supplemental brief for this committee. The recommendations are not complex, actually; they're very practical. It's plain to see that they're needed to safeguard our communities.
In conclusion, I want to highlight how important health and safety is to Kitselas. We've independently been commissioning these investigations at the nation's own cost, as our federal and provincial regulatory bodies have failed to do so. I sincerely hope my testimony today does more than just provide another record of where Kitselas has formally registered concern over rail safety. We need to address these recommendations from global risk professionals, and we need to do so now. People's lives depend on it.