All posts by Common Sense Canadian

B.C.’s shellfish industry can’t aid oil spill recovery

Climate Change, Farmland and Food Security, Food, , ,
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Story by Claire Ogilvie in The Province.

“West Coast oyster farmers are fielding calls from farmers on the Gulf of Mexico as the work begins to replace the shellfish breeding beds damaged by the massive oil spill.

“But while shellfish farmers in the Pacific Northwest are anxious to help, they say they have little to offer.

“Climate change has wreaked havoc on seed oyster hatcheries on the west coast, leaving no extra capacity to send to the Gulf shellfish farmers who are looking at totally rebuilding their stock following the explosion April 20 of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig.”

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Probe launched into university’s research funding

Farmland and Food Security, Food, Urban & Transport, ,
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Article in The Province. “The president of Kwantlen Polytechnic University has launched a review of the school’s decision to accept a $50,000 research fee from the Century Group at the same time the school was promoting the controversial Southlands project it was researching.” Read article

Story in The Common Sense Canadian: University Gets Caught Lobbying for Developer – Now Wants to Investigate Itself

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Kwantlen University in hot water over alleged Southlands development conflict of interest

Urban & Transport,
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Article by Kent Spencer in The Province. “Kwantlen University officials say it never occurred to them to tell a Delta council committee that at the same time they were publicly praising a controversial plan to develop Southlands, they were also being paid $50,000 to ‘research’ the plan — by the group that wants to develop the farmlands.” Read article

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Gravel Battle in the Fraser River

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Extensive article by Tyee Bridge in BC Business.

Excerpt: “Gravel extraction in the Chilliwack area of the river has been going on by private aggregate companies for decades. Since 2004 the operations have increased in size and number, ostensibly to protect $6-billion worth of homes, businesses and public infrastructure in the Fraser Valley from a New Orleans-style flood – like the granddaddy Fraser flood of 1894 or the one that devastated the region in 1948. While private companies are still mining the gravel, their operations are now approved and conducted under the auspices of Emergency Management B.C. (EMBC), part of the provincial Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. But a growing number of biologists, local First Nations and river hydraulics experts – as well as sport fishermen like Kwak – question the official story of flood protection and worry that the program is really a means of subsidizing a local resource industry. By framing gravel mining as an “emergency” public safety work, say critics, the government is quashing public input and ecological review – and using up limited flood-protection funds.”

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