HALIFAX -- Lawyers for the Northern Pulp mill in northern Nova Scotia are seeking an injunction that would prevent fishermen from blocking survey boats hired to examine a route for a new effluent pipeline.
About 80 people gathered outside Nova Scotia Supreme Court on Tuesday to protest the proposed pipeline.
They carried signs that said, "No pipe in the Strait" and chanted "All I want for Christmas is no pipe."
Four members of a pipefitters union came to the protest to support Northern Pulp, carrying signs that read, "Support Northern Pulp Effluent Cleanup."
Kathy Cloutier, a spokeswoman for Northern Pulp's parent company, Paper Excellence Canada, confirmed the mill is seeking an interim injunction to prevent blockades of the survey work in the Northumberland Strait.
A group of fishermen has stated they would block any survey boats from entering the Strait.
The plan to put treated effluent from its Abercrombie, N.S., mill into the strait has raised the ire of the fishermen, the P.E.I. government and even Hollywood actor Ellen Page, who is from Halifax.
The wider Gulf of St. Lawrence fisheries region is home to lobster and crab fisheries that brought in over $1.2 billion worth of catch in 2016.
The Nova Scotia government has committed to stopping the flow of effluent to the heavily polluted Boat Harbour lagoon by Jan. 31, 2020.
