N.B. conservation group urges faster action to protect water and shorelines

A New Brunswick environmental group says the provincial government is falling short on protecting water resources.

A 10-year strategy came out five years ago and fewer than half of the planned actions have even begun, said Beverly Gingras, executive director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.

"I really hope by the end of 2028, we're not sitting there going, 'What actually did we accomplish? Did we just check boxes? Or did we make sure that the water in New Brunswick is managed successfully and sustainably?'"

The goals of the plan are to protect drinking water and ecosystems, improve understanding about water and work co-operatively on management.

The Conservation Council was one of several environmental groups and other parties that collaborated to create the strategy, but according to Gingras, not much collaboration has happened since then.

"They made a commitment to putting more Indigenous perspective into the water strategy and they certainly have not done that," she said.

On top of the many actions that remain undone, some others appear to have been watered down, she said, including plans to conserve coastal areas and do more research on blue-green algae.

Instead of aiming to regulate coastal conservation, they're now "looking at options," she said. 

Warning signs about blue-green algae are being put up near waterways, but she doesn't know how much more research has actually been done. 

There also appears to be a lack of consideration for some major threats to water, said Gingras.

Climate change is heating up the water, she said. That can affect fish habitat and degrade water quality, for example, by promoting the growth of blue-green algae and increasing the prevalence of wildfires.

A number of known pollutants also seem to be going unchecked, said Gingras.

"They've actually ignored some of their own resources that they've developed, which clearly state that there are other types of stresses in the environment including pharmaceuticals ... personal care products, things like that."

The Conservation Council and 19 watershed associations have long been pushing for classification and protection of watersheds.