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______________________________________________________________________________Stewart McKelveyDoing Business in Atlantic CanadaEnvironmental legislation also identifies a wide range of activities for which ministerial or departmentalapprovals are necessary. Such activities include the use of large quantities of ground water, certainemissions into the environment, rock quarries and crushing, mining operations, alteration of wetlands andwatercourses, removal of material from beaches, power plants and wind farms, just by way of example.Additional Environmental LegislationThe provinces have also passed many other pieces of legislation which deal with narrower environmentalissues. For example, all four Atlantic Provinces have passed specific legislation dealing with the intraprovincialtransportation of dangerous goods. These acts complement, and generally adopt, the safetystandards, packaging and labelling requirements set out in the federal Transportation of DangerousGoods Act, 1992 which applies to the inter-provincial transportation of dangerous goods. Other examplesof related environmental legislation passed by some or all of the Atlantic Provinces include the following:• Oil and gas legislation, which regulates activities relating to the exploration and exploitation ofpetroleum and natural gas, and which imposes measures aimed at preventing spills or leakagesof such substances into the environment;• Pesticides control legislation, which regulates the use, storage and handling of pesticides;• Emergency measures legislation, which provides for the coordination of emergency operationswhere a disaster occurs that may affect the environment or human health, safety or welfare;• Endangered species legislation, which attempts to prevent any provincial species from becomingextinct as a consequence of human activities;• Wildlife conservation legislation, which seeks to maintain the diversity of provincial speciesthrough forest management and the regulation of hunting and fishing;• Legislation protecting wetlands and watercourses and restricting activity in mandated bufferzones around wetlands and watercourses;• Legislation requiring that waste be source-separated into compostables, recyclables and wastematerials; and• Delegated authority to municipalities to enact by-laws pertaining to diverse matters relating to theenvironment such as the use of pesticides, effluent quality for discharge into municipal sewers,topsoil removal and grade alteration, development adjacent to environmentally sensitive areassuch as watercourses and wetlands, and prohibition of nuisances from smoke, dust, odours andthe like.Page 76