Proposed Canadian gas pipeline questioned

IN COURT: Native group cites North Slope in seeking a delay.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A Native group is asking the Federal Court of Canada to temporarily halt an environmental review of a $6 billion natural gas pipeline, which it says could affect their traditional way of life.

The Dene Tha are a First Nations tribe whose traditional territory is spread across seven reserves in Alberta, British Columbia and the southern end of the Northwest Territories. They say the federal government has left them out of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline consultation process.

The pipeline would cross traditional lands of the 2,500-member Dene Tha nation.

It is a proposed 760-mile natural gas pipeline through the Mackenzie Valley of Canada’s Northwest Territories to connect a dozen potential northern onshore gas fields with North American markets by 2010. It would link with an existing pipeline in Alberta.

AP