This op-ed was published in the Hill Times on April 29, 2026

Can Canada’s Species-at-risk Act protect endangered wildlife on federal land? A pending Federal Court of Appeal ruling might hold the answer.

There’s a beautiful, wild, south-facing hillside, close to the Ottawa River, not too far upstream from Parliament Hill. It is densely forested with mature stands of deciduous and coniferous trees and partly surrounded by five named wetlands that drain through Perch Creek and Perch Lake into the Ottawa River. 

In summer the forest is full of birdsong. Many migrating songbirds pass through the area. Rare songbirds nest in the woods on the hillside. You might hear a Wood Thrush singing, or Whip-poor-wills, or Canada Warblers, or Golden-winged Warblers, all of which are listed as threatened under the Species at Risk Act. The old trees provide ideal roosting habitat for three species of endangered bats, the Little Brown Bat, Northern Myotis and Tri-coloured Bat.

The iconic Canada Warbler is one of several endangered species living in the area proposed for the Near Surface Disposal Facility, Photo, Emmett Hume, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canada_Warbler_on_Bough.jpg

After a summer rainfall, little streams and rivulets flow down the hillside into the wetlands at its base. These wetlands and nearby Perch Lake provide abundant food for birds and bats and for many small mammals, which in turn attract larger mammals. They also support many aquatic animals such as fish, frogs, waterfowl and turtles, including endangered Blanding’s Turtles. 

The hillside forest is vibrant and green, blanketed with mosses and lichens and full of diverse species of trees including endangered Black Ash. The sandy warm soil on the southwest-facing slope supports three active Black Bear dens. A deer yard provides an ideal winter feeding ground for endangered Eastern Wolves that have dens nearby. 

This rich web of diverse animal and plant life is unique and rare. It likely evolved here because of the hill’s southern exposure, abundant water and extensive riparian zones where land and water meet. Lack of human interference was key. Humans have not been permitted to wander here for 80 years because it is located on the Chalk River Laboratories property, a fenced off, no-go zone since the first nuclear reactor was built there in 1945.

Incredibly, this is the very spot Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) has chosen to build its controversial, giant, above-ground nuclear waste dump called the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF). CNL chose the site mainly to reduce hauling costs for one million tons of radioactive waste it plans to put in the dump. After clearcutting the forest, they would blast the hillside with explosives to flatten it, turning 37 hectares of forest into half a million tons of rock rubble.

CNL is owned by a multinational private-sector consortium that operates Canada’s federal nuclear laboratory under a $1.2 billion per year contract with the Government of Canada.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) granted CNL a permit to destroy endangered species and their residences in order to build the NSDF. According to the Species at Risk Act, such permits should only be granted if the applicant considered all reasonable alternatives and adopted the best solution to reduce impacts on endangered species. 

The ECCC permit decision was successfully challenged in Federal Court by Kebaowek First Nation and allies who believe that ECCC did not receive complete information about how the site was chosen and made errors in granting the permit. CNL appealed the lower court decision and the appeal hearing was held on November 12, 2025 in Ottawa.  A ruling from the Federal Court of Appeal is expected soon; it will determine whether the permit gets sent back for redetermination by ECCC or not. The fate of a unique and irreplaceable wildlife habitat hangs in the balance.

Lynn Jones is a member of Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area. She is based in Ottawa