All posts by Common Sense Canadian

Haisla First Nation Sign Deal with BC Government to Fast-Track LNG Plant in Kitimat

September 20, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gasfracking, LNG, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from CBC.ca on the deal recently signed by the Haisla First Nation of Kitimat with the BC Government to fast-track a proposed Liquified Natural Gas plant in the Douglas Channel near their community. The gas would largely come from “fracking” operations in northeast BC and would be converted to liquid in order to be shipped by tanker to new markets in Asia. (Sept. 14, 2012)

The B.C. government has signed an agreement with the Haisla Nation to help fast-track another major liquefied natural gas (LNG) port facility near Kitimat.

The deal allows the Haisla to either lease or buy 700 hectares of land on the west side of the Douglas Channel in the areas around Haisla Reserve #6 and to work independently with the industry to develop a LNG marine export terminal on the site.

“If we are able to do this, the Haisla people will benefit, as will all British Columbians and Canadians,” said Ellis Ross, the Chief Councillor of the Haisla Nation.

The agreement comes as the B.C. government moves to slash spending to make up for a $1-billion budget deficit brought on by plunging North American natural gas prices.

But in Asia, natural gas fetches four to five times more than it does on the North American market, and that’s why the government is aiming to have three LNG export operations up and running by 2020, according to the Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation Ida Chong.

“Currently British Columbia can only sell its natural gas on the North American market where there is ample supply and the commodity price is low, but by opening up new Asian markets where there is greater demand, British Columbian natural gas producers will be able to get up to four times the value,” said Chong.

The terminals would allow the province to export natural gas to emerging Asian markets, particularly Japan, China, South Korea, and India. Already two terminals have received export licences from the National Energy Board – Kitimat LNG and BC LNG Douglas Channel.

Spectra Energy and BG Group also announced plans Monday to build a LNG pipeline across northern B.C.

Read original story and watch video of the announcement: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/09/14/bc-natural-gas-haisla.html

Cash-Strapped Translink Cutting Back on Expansion Plans

September 20, 2012Urban & TransportTransportation and Urban PlanningCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Georgia Straight on Translink’s recent announcement that it will be paring down its plans for expanded service in order to cut costs in the face of a budget deficit. (Sept. 17, 2012)

TransLink is putting off some planned expansion projects over the next three years, including 306,000 hours of increased bus service, after falling short of projected revenues.

But through $98 million in annual efficiencies identified by TransLink over the next three years, the transit authority is planning to proceed with some expansions, such as the region’s contribution to the Evergreen Line project, and an increase of 109,000 in annual hours of transit service.

“There’s 306,000 hours of service that is not going to be introduced over the next three years. It’s needed service, we just can’t deliver it,” Robert Paddon, TransLink’s executive vice-president of strategic planning and public affairs, said at a news conference today (September 17) on the authority’s draft 2013 Base Plan.

Some of the planned projects that will not proceed include expanded SeaBus service on Sundays and holidays outside of the summer months. While B-line service on King George Boulevard will go ahead under the draft plan, the service won’t extend to White Rock Centre as originally anticipated.

In addition to the efficiencies, TransLink will also draw on its reserve fund to maintain existing services and allow some of its planned improvement projects to go ahead.

Some of the other projects that will proceed over the next three years include upgrades to Expo Line stations such as Commercial-Broadway, Metrotown, New Westminster and Joyce-Collingwood. Rapid bus service will be launched on Highway 1 over the Port Mann Bridge between Langley and New Westminster, however a 10-minute frequency along the route will only be offered during peak hours. Buses will run every 30 minutes during off-peak hours.

The 2013 draft plan is contingent on the mayors’ council on regional transportation voting in favour of a two-year $30-million property tax hike. The mayors have previously voted against the increase.

TransLink officials said the transit authority’s budget has been challenged by factors including lower than expected fuel-tax revenues, and lower than anticipated fare and toll revenues.

BC Liberals Cancel Fall Legislature Sitting

September 20, 2012Canada, Politics, Western CanadaPoliticsCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from The Canadian Press reporting that the BC Lberal Government has decided not to hold a Fall Legislature Session. (Sept. 14, 2012)

VICTORIA – Liberal House Leader Mike de Jong says the government isn’t planning to recall the legislature this fall.

De Jong says the Liberals will spend the fall meeting with constituents and ensuring British Columbians get to know Premier Christy Clark’s new cabinet ministers.

Last week, Clark shuffled her cabinet after several veteran ministers, including Kevin Falcon, George Abbott and Blair Lekstrom, announced they wouldn’t be running in the May election.

Opposition New Democrat finance critic Bruce Ralston isn’t surprised the Liberals aren’t recalling the legislature this fall, but says it’s a mistake.

He says the Liberals have the opportunity in the fall to introduce new legislation and hold themselves accountable for their policies in the weeks prior to the election.

The legislature will resume sitting in February with a throne speech and the introduction of the budget.

Fracking Wastewater Used in Ohio Full of Radium

September 20, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbonsfracking, Health and Environment, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Columbus Dispatch on the discovery of radiation in water trucked from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania to Ohio for hydraulic fracturing operations. (Sept. 3, 2012)

Millions of barrels of wastewater trucked into Ohio from shale-gas wells in Pennsylvania might be highly radioactive, according to a government study.

Radium in one sample of Marcellus shale wastewater, also called brine, that Pennsylvania officials collected in 2009 was 3,609 times more radioactive than a federal safety limit for drinking water. It was 300 times higher than a Nuclear Regulatory Commission limit for industrial discharges to water.

The December 2011 study, compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey, also found that the median levels of radium in brine from Marcellus shale wells was more than three times higher than brine collected from conventional oil and gas wells.

“These are very, very high concentrations of radium compared to other oil and gas brines,” said Mark Engle, a U.S. Geological Survey research geologist and co-author of the report.

State law bans radioactive shale-well sand and sludge from Ohio landfills. However, brine can be sent down any of Ohio’s 171 active disposal wells regardless of how much radium it contains. Michael Snee, the Ohio Department of Health’s radiation-protection chief, said that’s the safest place for brine.“Injection wells are almost the perfect solution for that disposal issue,” Snee said.

However, environmental advocates say the Geological Survey’s report intensifies their fears of surface spills and leaks to groundwater.

“It’s an alarm bell in the night that we better get serious about testing the material in the Utica shale right here in Ohio,” said Jack Shaner, an Ohio Environmental Council lobbyist.

Shaner and others said the study shows that state officials should look at what’s bubbling out of Ohio’s shale wells.

Radiation is yet another wrinkle in the ongoing debate over “fracking,” a process that sends millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals down wells to shatter shale and free trapped oil and gas. Thousands of Marcellus shale wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania. Of the 12.2 million barrels of brine injected into Ohio disposal wells last year, 53 percent came from Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Audio: Damien Gillis Discusses ‘Fractured Land’ Doc on SFU Radio

September 19, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Hydropower, Oil&GasAudio, fracking, Oil and gas, Site C DamCommon Sense Canadian

Damien Gillis discusses the forthcoming film Fractured Land with SFU Radio’s David Swanson, along with a recent journey across northern BC to document a number of interconnected industrial projects. The film, which Gillis has been co-directing for the past year and a half with Vancouver-based filmmaker Fiona Rayher, is the story of the industrialization of northern BC told through the eyes of a young indigenous law student, Caleb Behn. It examines everything from controversial hyrdraulic fracturing for natural gas, mining and the proposed Site C Dam – all in Caleb’s traditional territory – as well as plans to pipe gas across BC and convert it to liquid to ship it to new Asian markets through the port town of Kitimat. (8 min – broadcast Sept. 17)

Watch for an upcoming “crowd-funding” campaign to generate grassroots support for Fractured Land.

Top 10 Reasons to Save Howe Sound’s McNab Creek from a Gravel Mine

September 17, 2012Mining, Species At RiskCommon Sense Canadian

The following comes from the Future of Howe Sound Society – with introduction by Rafe Mair.

In beautiful Howe Sound on the Sunshine Coast we have the beginning of yet another environmental travesty, where there has been no public consultation and which has had virtually no coverage in the mainstream media. If permitted to go ahead, Burnco Rock Products will build an aggregate mine in the midst of the McNab Creek Valley – home to wild salmon populations and many other species at risk – producing yet another environmental catastrophe, thanks to a federal government that couldn’t care less about our world renowned outdoors and ignored by a provincial government so in thrall to the feds that they dare not utter a dissenting peep on any of these environmental catastrophes that are bent on destroying what we all hold so dear.

Why should we care?

Here, from the Future of Howe Sound Society fighting to protect the McNab Creek Valley, are ten very good reasons:

1. Why would anyone develop a gravel mine in Vancouver’s ocean playground, an area of outstanding natural beauty? This is where an ever growing city comes to sail, dive, kayak, fish, camp and hike. Tourists flock from all over the world to see “SuperNatural, British Columbia”, how would a gravel pit look in the tourism advertising?

2. Howe Sound is only now showing encouraging signs of environmental recovery after decades of industrial misuse. Should we now allow a reindustrialization of the area?

3. How can we consider developing a massive 77 hectare pit which will excavate the entire McNab estuary from one side of the valley to the other, completely eliminating one of only three river estuaries in Howe Sound, without developing an integrated, long term land and water use plan for the whole of Howe Sound?

4. The size of the gravel pit will limit access to the foreshore for wildlife such as elk, deer and bears who currently frequent the area to forage for food.

5. The excavation of the river estuary will dramatically change the movement of water through the valley and have a significant negative impact on the freshwater habitat.

6. The proposed mine developer, Burnco, filed a judicial review application against DFO in BC Supreme Court to ‘strong arm’ the DFO to allow them to proceed to an environmental review. The DFO have since agreed to that review with serious concerns as “the project presents a high risk to Salmon and Salmon habitat”.

7. In addition to the destruction to fish habitat, Burnco’s own consultants believe the mine site could be home to 21 species at risk including a population of Roosevelt Elk re-introduced to McNab Creek in 2001 by the BC Ministry of the Environment.

8. The noise from the gravel crushing facility and loading of barges will be significant. It will have a negative impact on the enjoyment of the area by boaters, kayakers, fishermen, tourists and other in Howe Sound. The mine developer has stated at meetings that if the demand is there, they want to run the mining and crushing facilities 24/7, 365 days a year.

9. Noise and light pollution will have significant negative impacts on the land and aquatic animals in the area. Noise and vibration pollution have been found to negatively impact the ability of marine mammals to communicate, navigate, find food and it is believed increasingly to impact their fertility.

10. The mine will have an impact on the economic potential of the Howe Sound area. There is considerable potential in Howe Sound to continue to grow the tourism industry with significant economic multipliers that would accrue to the local economy. A mine is not going to add to the beauty of the area.

How can you help?

Howe Sound needs to be protected for the enjoyment of both current and future generations so we are asking you to be an ambassador for Howe Sound in telling the government that you support the recovery of Howe Sound.

Please take action and sign our petition because, as Dr. Murray Newman, Past Director of the Vancouver Aquarium so aptly put it:

“If Howe Sound were in any other part of the world, it would be a great national park.”

BC Liberals Shift Pain of Falling Gas Revenues Onto Public Sector Workers

September 15, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Politics, Western Canadafracking, Oil and gas, PoliticsCommon Sense Canadian

Read this editorial from Vancouver Sun columnist Craig McInnes commenting on the BC Liberal response to budgetary drain of plummeting natural gas prices, unveiled by new Energy Minister Mike De Jong this week. (Sept. 13, 2012)

The biggest issue, however, is that the budget is suffering from gas pains, or more precisely, the foul effect of the continuing decline in the price of natural gas. The low price means the province is looking at a $1.1-billion decline in the revenue it expected from natural gas over this year and the next two.

The decline this year has blown a $241-million hole in this year’s budget that de Jong says will now be “managed” by lining up the usual suspects. There will be a clampdown on travel and other so-called discretionary spending; a freeze on management salaries in government, crown corporations, colleges, universities and health authorities and a hiring freeze in government.

In all, fairly routine measures taken by governments with underperforming revenues. In other circumstances, the final announcement — that the bargaining mandate for negotiations with public servants is being given another look — might be considered just as routine, but not in an election year with an unpopular government in a desperate search for a winning issue against a party that is naturally aligned with unions.

On the day when members of the B.C. Government and Service Employees union were finalizing a ban on overtime as an escalation of their job action, de Jong said in his best tough-love manner, that while the government wants to show how much it values public servants, it can’t do it in the form of a big raise.

The government had been offering 3.5 per cent over two years but took that offer off the table when the BCGEU held its first job actions.

The union, which hasn’t had an increase in more than three years, was asking for 3.5 per cent in one year with cost of living adjustment in the second.

The premier has already put the union’s demands in the context of positioning the Liberals for the provincial election in May.

“A lot of middle-class families are struggling to make ends meet,” Clark said on a video released in June.

“And I want to be sure that the wages and benefits for unionized government employees aren’t out of step with people in the private sector.”

De Jong continued in that vein, arguing that one of the things he hopes differentiates the Liberals and the NDP is their willingness to make the tough decisions needed to keep the province’s finances on track.

Teck Resources Admits to Knowingly Polluting Columbia River for a Century

September 15, 2012MiningMiningCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from The Vancouver Sun on the recent admission by Teck Resources that effluent from its Trail, BC, smelter has been polluting US waters downstream in the Columbia River for 100 years, with the company’s knowledge. (Sept. 11, 2012)

Teck Resources has admitted that mining waste and effluent from its Trail smelter polluted the Columbia River across the U.S.-Canada border in Washington State for 100 years.

Its subsidiary, Teck Metals Ltd., agreed to these facts as part of a civil lawsuit with U.S. plaintiffs, which include American first nations and the State of Washington, over damages from the pollution that was discharged from 1896 to 1995.

The Teck Metals agreement released Monday acknowledges some portion of the effluent and slag from its Trail operations in southeastern B.C. were transported and present in the Upper Columbia River in the U.S., and that some hazardous substances were released into the environment in the U.S.

The company said this is expected to allow the court to find that Teck is potentially liable for damages.

However, Teck says the statement of facts doesn’t concede the pollution caused any harm.

“We haven’t agreed to the amount of injury that’s potentially the result of that (pollution release) — certainly not the risk to human health and the environment,” said Dave Godlewski, vice-president of environment and public affairs for U.S. subsidiary Teck American.

That’s being determined by ongoing studies that could be complete by 2015. Teck reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2006 to fund $20 million in environmental impact studies.

Results of a 2001 preliminary EPA study showed that contamination was present in sediment above the Grand Coulee Dam.

US Boom in Oil Production Threatens Market for Canadian Tar Sands

September 15, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Tar SandsAlberta Tar Sands, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from The Globe and Mail on a boom in US domestic oil production that threatens to shake the economic foundation of Canada’s Tar Sands. (Sept. 11, 2012)

A torrent of oil pumped from new wells across the U.S. is setting in motion a decade of dramatic change that promises to wean the country off OPEC, and threatens the growth of energy imports from Canada.

The U.S. is now staring at an energy future awash with its own crude, with far-reaching consequences for Canada’s oil sands, the U.S. economy and global geopolitics. This massive shift has been sparked by changing political sentiment and technological advances that have allowed crude to be tapped in new places – from North Dakota to Oklahoma, Colorado, Michigan, and even Florida.

The United States, according to new data released Monday by Bentek, a U.S. energy analysis firm, will see its oil production rise nearly five million barrels a day, or 74 per cent, in the next decade.

In that time, reliance on countries outside Canada will largely disappear. The U.S. today imports 45 per cent of its petroleum, half from OPEC countries. But by 2022, Bentek projects, only a million barrels per day will be delivered to U.S. shores by tanker – down from 6.7 million in 2011 and just 5 per cent of total demand – and at least some of those won’t come from OPEC, but from countries like Mexico and Brazil.

The coming change, according to Bentek, is startling: By 2016, the U.S. will surpass its 1970 oil production peak of 9.6 million barrels a day; by 2022, it will have leapt to 11.6 million barrels a day.

For Canada, the news is both good and grim: Canadian crude, flowing by pipeline, will continue to be a substantial source of U.S. energy. But growth in Canadian exports south of the border could face a wall in 2018, when the combination of U.S. oil output and pipeline constraints raise the possibility for new “Canadian production to get pushed out,” said Jodi Quinnell, one of the Bentek report authors. “What comes in to the U.S. will slow and basically remain flat from 2018 to 2025.”

That projection suggests the coming half-decade will see Canada, and its fast-growing oil sands, struggle against the tide of U.S. oil. It also substantially raises the stakes for a country in the midst of two contentious applications to carry Canadian crude to the British Columbia coast for export to Pacific markets. It should “cause us to, even more than we are today, realize the importance of creating additional channels to the world,” said Wayne Chodzicki, the Calgary-based global head of oil and gas for consulting firm KPMG.

Youth More Likely to Oppose Enbridge Pipeline: New Survey

September 15, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from The Prince George Citizen on a new survey that suggests younger generations are significantly more likely to oppose the proposed Enbridge pipeline than other British Columbians. (Sept. 10, 2012)

Young British Columbians are significantly more likely to oppose the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline than the rest of the population, according to a survey by Abacus Data.

According to data from a survey conducted last month, just one per cent of millennials — which Abacus defines as people born between 1980 and 2000 — strongly support the plan by Calgary-based Enbridge to build a heavy oil pipeline from Alberta’s oilsands to Kitimat. An additional seven per cent from the demographic somewhat support the plan.

Among respondents of all ages in B.C., eight per cent of people strongly support the $6 billion project and 20 per cent somewhat support it.

“[Millennials] were much more likely to strongly oppose the pipeline: almost half, 46 per cent said they strongly opposed and less than one per cent said they strongly supported the pipeline, indicating a trend among millennials, and particularly those living in British Columbia, away from support for the pipeline,” Abacus social media co-ordinator Jamie Morrison wrote on the company’s website.

The trend wasn’t limited only to B.C. Abacus found just six per cent of millennials nationwide strongly support the pipeline, compared with 11 per cent of the overall population. Addtionally, 14 per cent of Canadian millennials somewhat supported the megaproject, compared with 22 per cent of the rest of the survey sample.

The Common Sense Canadian

Critical discussion of key issues shaping our economy and environment.