Category Archives: WATER

Northern first nations join forces to fight Hydro over new transmission line

Mining, WATER,
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From the Vancouver Sun – May 9, 2011

by Gordon Hamilton

VANCOUVER – Two B.C. first nations say they’ll join forces to fight a
major power line slated to run through their lands and are warning of
blockades unless BC Hydro changes its negotiating stance.

The move
by the Gitanyow and Lax Kw’alaams first nations comes after the
$404-million Northwest Transmission power line received environmental
approval from the federal government Friday, putting it one step closer
to construction.

They vowed they will not accept Hydro’s one-time cash offer, referring to it as “beads” in exchange for land.

The 344-kilometre line heading north from Terrace is expected to open
up the province’s northwest to mineral exploration and mining, creating
new wealth in the region.

Its route passes through the
territories of at least seven first nations. Four have yet to sign
impact benefit agreements with Hydro.

About one-third of the line
would go through territory belonging to the Gitanyow and Lax Kw’alaams,
who say Hydro has been inflexible in negotiations about their
participation and compensation.

“Based on what we have been
offered and the frustration we are feeling, we have withdrawn from the
process,” Lax Kw’alaams councillor Bob Moraes said Sunday. “We have
talked with the Gitanyow and they are prepared to join forces with us.

“We
are prepared to show BC Hydro that we are now negotiating as a
coalition and we are looking at forming a larger coalition with other
bands that have not negotiated an agreement yet.”

He said the first nation has told Hydro it will never accept ‘beads” from Hydro in exchange for rights to work on the land.

The
287-kilovolt line is to run from an existing substation at Skeena near
Terrace north to a new substation at Bob Quinn Lake near the Iskut
River.

BC Hydro describes the line as a major extension of
the provincial power grid, supplying electricity to support industrial
developments in the area, providing secure interconnection points for
clean generation projects, and enabling communities now relying on
diesel generation to connect to the grid.

It has won the support
of various industry groups, including the mining sector, which describe
it as the start of a new era for mineral exploration and development of
the area.

Glen Williams, chief negotiator for the Gitanyow first
nation, said in an interview Sunday that the first nation was close to
signing until Hydro signed a deal with the neighbouring Nisga’a that
includes lands disputed between the two first nations. The Nisga’a deal
provides Hydro with a less-costly route, he said.

“They gave our
neighbours, the Nisga’a over 60 kilometres of direct award [contracts
for clearing and road-building] smack in the middle of Gitanyow
territory,” Williams said. “It’s a huge problem for Gitanyow.”

He accused Hydro of resurrecting a territorial dispute between the two first nations.

“People
are quite angry and bitter that BC Hydro used the Gitanyow as a
bargaining chip to get as preferred route through Nisga’a territory,” he
said. “They have created a serious problem.

“It could delay the
project; it could jeopardize the whole project. It might even create
some conflict on the ground,” he said, referring to blockades.

One hundred and four kilometres of the line is over Gitanyow territory.

The
first 28 kilometres of the line is over Lax Kw’alaams territory, said
Moraes, who also warned that the Lax Kw’alaams could blockade any
attempt to begin construction if no impact agreement is reached.

The
issue for Lax Kw’alaams is different than for Gitanyow. While the
council is concerned about infringement on aboriginal title and impacts
on fish and wildlife, its primary desire is to take part in long-term
economic opportunities after the transmission line is built.

Lax
Kw’alaams has developed a strong business presence in the Northwest and
the first nation is seeking economic opportunities that go beyond what
administrator Wayne Drury termed Hydro’s “cookie-cutter” approach to
negotiations.

Hydro is offering a one-time cash settlement plus
participation in existing training programs for contractors and workers
for work during the construction phase.

Drury said it’s basically the same deal for the whole line and doesn’t address the different aspirations of each community.

“Resolution of the first nation issues will be critical to the project moving forward – and BC Hydro does not get it,” he said.

Drury
said Lax Kw’alaams businesses generate $100 million a year in revenues
and noted their chief councillor is on a trade trip to China that began
with meetings in Hong Kong with financial services giant Credit Suisse.

Lax Kw’alaams could easily partner with other companies to build the
actual line, not just clear bush, he said. Yet Hydro is treating them as
if they are not capable of participating in the economic benefits
associated with the transmission line.

Nobody from BC Hydro was available for comment on Sunday.

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Alexandra Morton and friends at Fulford Hall on Mother’s Day

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From The Gulf Islands Driftwood – May 5, 2011

by David Denning

Special to the Driftwood

Alexandra Morton has been making a lot of headlines recently, and hopefully also, some headway.

Her message is simple: protect wild salmon stocks in British Columbia that are under threat from many problems, including the scourge of
diseases and parasites that have accompanied salmon farming in coastal
B.C.

On Sunday, May 8, Morton and two high-profile friends
of common-sense environmental action, Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis, will
speak at Fulford Hall. The multi-media program called Salt Spring,
Salmon and Sanity begins at 7 p.m.

Morton has literally walked and paddled the
length of Vancouver Island to make politicians and citizens more aware
of our threatened wild salmon. She’s taken the provincial government to
court to challenge its management of salmon farming — and won. She’s
challenged every one of the current MP candidates in B.C. to get behind
land-based salmon farming that controls fish diseases, supports jobs for
both wild salmon fishers and land-based fish farmers, and is the only
sustainable approach to salmon farming. Candidates in all but one of the
four major parties are committed to her approach. You can probably
guess which party said “no.”

Mair is a well-known radio commentator, blogger,
political and environmental activist. A former Socred MLA in the 1980s,
Mair, who held several cabinet posts, including Minister of Environment,
is well-qualified to advocate for careful management of natural
resources in B.C. for the benefit of people, not big business. Mair has
spearheaded the challenge to private hydro development on public streams
and rivers.

Gillis is at the leading edge of communications
about B.C. environmental issues. Using video and the web, Gillis
provides valuable insights into multiple issues, including the Enron
Pipeline, which, by creating a coastal flow of giant oil tankers,
ultimately threatens the entire coast of B.C., including Salt Spring
Island.

Mair and Gillis have teamed up with their environmental reporting website, theCanadian.org.

This presentation by Morton, Mair and Gillis will
follow the federal election by only one week. No doubt the speakers
will provide us with a clearer view of the new currents we will face as
we swim upstream to protect wild salmon, our rivers, our coastal shores
and marine wildlife, and our democracy.

Tickets for the event are $15 at Salt Spring Books. Funds raised will support the work of Morton for wild salmon conservation.

The event is sponsored by the Salt Spring Island Conservancy.

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Not a Good Night for BC’s Environment

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , ,
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It was not, over all, a great night for environmentalists in BC with the very notable exception of the election of Elizabeth May as the first Green Party MP in our history. She will find that she has taken on the responsibility of being one of BC’s main spokespeople on environmental matters and The Common Sense Canadian looks forward to working with May and, of course, those other MPs who feel as we do about the environment and related issues. I make no apologies for not calling the election correctly – if I did that I would spend half my lifetime apologizing!
      
As the old saying has it, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. So it is with us who have taken environmental issues on as a lifetime issue. It’s not that we don’t see, understand and have passion for other issues – rather that we see the environment as being urgent. If we get it wrong over the next few years – and the BC government and the Harper government have got it wrong – then the damage is forever. You simply cannot restore wild salmon runs or erase the damage of a catastrophic oil spill. On the economic side of the environment issue, if you lose your public power to private interests as we seem determined to do, it’s gone forever.
 
It must be stressed that we are not opposed to change where it is demonstrated to be in the public interest. We’re not Luddites out to destroy the “cotton ‘gin’” although any study of that time makes one very understanding of those who saw their livelihoods vanish to an unmanned factory that used to employ them. But – and this must be stressed – the environmental destroyers with their fish farms and private river monstrosities are not destroying jobs that exist – they are pleading the employment they bring as justification for their schemes. After short term construction jobs are over, the only jobs are as caretakers.
 
It’s not as if these huge companies bring us something we can’t do for ourselves – quite the opposite. Our wild salmon have sustained communities for generations and, in the case of First Nations, for eons. These fish farm companies use our resources to make fortunes for foreign shareholders.
Consider this: Fish farmers tell us that they can’t go to self contained methods because it’s too expensive.
 
Why is it too expensive?
 
Because they don’t have to pay for their farm now because we the people and the environment bear all the expense.
 
This is the same with private power companies – not only do they not make a sou for our province, not only do they not make power we can make ourselves for much cheaper, not only do they destroy our rivers, they do it at our expense. We pay their overhead!
 
This it is with bringing Tar Sands in pipelines across our province then down our coastline in tankers – we pay their overhead by taking all the risk!
 
The point I’m forcing is that it isn’t just a “green” issue but an economic one. We British Columbians pay all the overhead of fish farms, private power projects, pipelines and tanker traffic! And there’s nothing in it for us!

But don’t let me deceive you. If we were making bundles out of these deals I would oppose them with every effort I could summon. I would do so because it’s plain wrong. These fish, rivers, ecologies are like trust funds. They don’t belong to us.
 
Speaking for Damien and myself, The Common Sense Canadian, far from being set back by a Tory government, are challenged – and we love challenges. We see a number of MPs in a position to fight and well motivated for the battle ahead.

People vote in elections for many things. It is our challenge to see that when we have the next provincial election, saving our fish, our rivers, our public power, our wilderness and our coastline are front and centre issues.
 
 
 
 

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Rosebud landowner launches $33M lawsuit against Encana, government over methane in drinking water

Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons
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From the The Calgary Herald – April 27, 2011

by Kelly Cryderman

CALGARY — A southern Alberta landowner who has long claimed coal bed
methane drilling polluted her well has launched a lawsuit demanding more
than $10 million each from Encana, the Alberta government and the
province’s energy regulator.

Jessica Ernst, 54, is one of
the province’s most outspoken critics of drilling methods such as
fracking — where water, chemicals and sand are blasted deep underground
to break up coal formations and release natural gas.

In a
statement of claim filed at the courthouse in Drumheller, Alta., she
states the failure of Alberta’s Environment Department and the Energy
Resources Conservation Board to investigate her case and enforce
regulations “served as a government coverup of environmental
contamination caused by the oil and gas industry.”

Ernst
claims that a decade ago Encana “began a risky and experimental drilling
program for shallow coal bed methane at dozens of wells in the area
around Rosebud,” a small hamlet northeast of Calgary.

Ernst,
an environmental consultant for the oil and gas industry who lives near
the hamlet, alleges the natural gas giant released a large amount of
contaminants into underground freshwater supplies.

“As a
result, Ms. Ernst’s water is now so contaminated with methane and other
chemicals that it can be lit on fire,” said the legal statement.

None of Ernst’s claims have been proven in court.

In
2008, an Alberta Research Council report concluded the methane found in
the wells in the area was naturally occurring, a phenomenon that exists
in parts of Alberta where underground water supplies come from coal
seams. The report stated that “energy development projects in the areas
most likely have not adversely affected the complainant water wells.”

On
Tuesday, Encana spokesman Alan Boras said the company had just become
aware of the Ernst lawsuit and “as a result we would have to review it
before we made any comment — if we did at all, because it’s before the
courts.”

Alberta Environment spokesman Trevor Gemmell also declined to comment, saying the matter is before the courts.

At the ERCB, spokesman Bob Curran said in an email the board has not been served with a statement of claim.

Ernst
will hold a news conference in Calgary Wednesday, and said in a news
release she will bring her story to the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development in New York next week.

Fracking, or
hydraulic fracturing, is a method used by drillers to extract
unconventional natural gas resources being tapped as conventional
supplies run low.

Ernst is seeking damages of at least
$11.7 million from Encana, $10.7 million from Alberta Environment and
$10.75 million from the ERCB.

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Minority Govt. & Strategic Voting to Save BC

Canada, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , , ,
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Two related matters today.

First, Prime Minister Harper is making a big fuss about needing a majority government. So are the Central Canadian media. I ask, what’s the matter with a minority government?

Think what the Harper government did without a majority and ask yourself what’s so good about a majority 5 year dictatorship? Why don’t the media examine what is right about a minority government.

In fact there is one extremely good thing – the government is forced to consult with other leaders both on the budget and general legislation. On the budget, the Minister of Finance can’t walk into the Chamber and say “like it or lump it – after the usual fandango and ritual speeches we, the government, are going to cram it up your…surely I need go no further.” How is that bad?

It’s the same thing with legislation and policy – there must be consultation.

It’s said that a minority government must always kiss the backside of the opposition – that is palpable nonsense. In reality minority parties while able to vote down the government rarely do. They usually are out of serious money for campaigning and don’t want an election where the government can, as here, bleat that they couldn’t get their legislation through – legislation that would end the nation’s woes and bring happiness to all.

The media claims that all the House of Commons does is bicker. But surely to God that’s what they’re supposed to do. It’s a passionate place because there blood is spilled figuratively rather than literally.

In my opinion a minority government, while far from perfect, is the best of possible results – especially for British Columbia, which needs political clout.

Let’s look at what BC needs.

Of course we have the needs of the rest of the country – health, jobs, better social policy and so on – but every party wants this, with none of them likely any better than the other.

We have a province that has growing concerns about the environment and giveaways that are features of both Victoria and Ottawa.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) are in bed with the fish farmers as memoranda leaked to the Cohen Commission clearly show. The Tories clearly support foreign corporations slaughtering our salmon in the interests of shareholders in Norway.

The Harper government supports the debasing of our environment so that large companies can make power we don’t need, that BC Hydro cannot use but is committed by contract to take and lose money on – all to the profit once more of foreign shareholders. In fact the federal government has helped fund Plutonic Power, which is General Electric in drag.

The Harper government supports the Enbridge pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat and also supports huge oil tankers taking this sludge down our coast – arguably the most treacherous coastline in the world.

What can we do about this? What can we do to ensure that if Harper forms another government we in BC will be able to rely upon a strongly built opposition to see that parliament hears our concerns?

The issue before us is a stark one: do we support the party of our usual choice and the toady they have as their candidate or do we vote strategically so as to ensure our province has clout in Ottawa?

Strategic voting means supporting the best opposition candidate and vote for him/her even though in better times you wouldn’t.

We British Columbians have three areas of concern which, if badly dealt with, will kill off our wild fisheries, bankrupt our public Hydro corporation and ensure that oil spills on land and sea will damage our province beyond repair.

The Conservative government would allow, indeed encourage these catastrophes. These environmental outrages are not the bleeding heart sort supported by flower children in days of yore – in fact they are at the very core of our way of life.

If we do not commit ourselves to fighting for the province, who will? I personally look at my nine grandchildren and my great granddaughter and conclude that this destruction can’t happen on my watch – at least not without me giving everything I have to the fight.

Let’s all join as British Columbians to send a message to Ottawa that will at least be heard in the House of Commons.

If we do that, we’re in with a chance.

If we don’t, thank God we won’t be still alive when future generations of British Columbians will look back at us with the scorn we so justly earned  

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Pennsylvania blowout fuels fracking fears

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons,
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From UPI.com – April 22, 2011

PITTSBURGH, April 22 (UPI) — A blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas
well has fueled increased concerns about the already controversial
practice of hydraulic fracking.

The well, owned by Chesapeake Energy Corp., experienced an equipment
failure Tuesday, sending chemical-laced water over the drilling site in
Bradford County, Pa. and into nearby waterways, including Towanda Creek,
which feeds into the Susquehanna River.

“There have been no injuries and there continues to be no danger to
the public,” Brian Grove, senior director for corporate development at
Chesapeake, said in a statement.

The company stopped all operations in the state and said Thursday that it had successfully sealed the leaking gas well.

The accident comes one year after an explosion sunk the Deepwater
Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in 11 deaths and the
worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, and at a time when hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” is coming under increased scrutiny from state
and federal officials.

The technique, used to release vast reserves of natural gas buried
underground, involves massive amounts of water, sand and chemicals
injected at high pressures to fracture rock and release the stored gas.

A report released by Democratic members of Congress last week said
that more than 650 of the chemicals used in fracking were carcinogens.

In the fracking process, anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of the water
injected into the well returns to the surface carrying drilling
chemicals, high levels of salts and sometimes naturally occurring
radioactive material. The state of Pennsylvania has allowed drillers to
discharge much of the waste through sewage treatment plants into
rivers, The New York Times reports.

An investigation by the Times found that more than 1.3 billion
gallons of wastewater was produced by Pennsylvania wells over the past
three years. But treatment plants to which the wastewater was sent
weren’t equipped to remove many of the toxic materials contained in the
drilling waste.

Environmental group American Rivers has called on Congress to push
for the restoration of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to
regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act, removed
in a 2005 energy bill referred to as the “Halliburton loophole.”

“In case last year’s BP oil spill wasn’t enough of a wake-up call,
now we have another disaster, this time in Pennsylvania. The American
people have had it with the industry’s false assurances,” said Andrew
Fahlund, senior vice president for conservation at American Rivers.

Pennsylvania’s massive Marcellus Shale reserve is believed to hold
enough gas to supply the country’s energy needs for heat and
electricity, at current consumption rates, for more than 15 years. Some
3,300 Marcellus gas-well permits were issued to drilling companies last
year, compared to 117 in 2007.

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Excellent letter in Courier-Islander: Province has ‘cut the power’ to BC Hydro

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada,
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From the Campbell River Courier-Islander – April 20, 2011

by Marv Everett

Re: BC Energy & Mines Minister Rich Coleman story – “This One Has To Be Done” published in the April 15 edition of the Campbell River Courier-Islander.

Now there’s a profundity! Merely a month on the job and Hon. Rich Coleman is qualified to singlehandedly determine the engineering, safety, and financial merits of BC Hydro projects. Does he think that Hydro would be proposing the project if it didn’t need to be done? Some sort of a “make work” project perhaps? In your article Mr. Coleman goes on to say “…But we also need to minimize costs and take care about the burden we’re placing on families…you also have to figure out how you can bring your costs in and cash-flow it through so that your rates will be kept down…” To ensure that Mr. Coleman’s prerequisites can be met, he has struck a panel of “senior officials” to examine Hydro’s financial performance, its operating and capital requirements, the reliability of its forecasting systems, administrative expenses, procurement processes, cost containment strategies, and opportunities for savings.

As a retired BC Hydro manager with 36 years service I feel both compelled and qualified to comment. The underlying implication of Mr. Coleman’s comments and actions is that BC Hydro is inept and that somehow by the end of June his panel of “senior officials” is going to identify the various errors of Hydro’s ways and get them on track towards providing low cost, reliable, clean hydroelectric energy for the citizens and industry of British Columbia.

Whoa!! Reality check!! The facts of the matter are that BC Hydro through the watchful eye of the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) and the incredible foresight of the W.A.C. Bennett government has been providing the lowest cost, reliable, green, 100% renewable electrical energy in North America to the citizens and industry of B.C for the past 50 years. And, just as importantly, they would still be doing so if the provincial government (yes, the same Liberal government that Mr. Coleman is and has been a Minister for) had not decided to use (or more accurately abuse) BC Hydro as an enormous “cash cow” and steal hundreds of millions of dollars from them per year in “dividend payments” to the “shareholder” (the government on behalf of British Columbians). The fact is that the government saw Hydro’s large cash flows and capital and operational program funds as huge cash reserves that they could “better use” to fund other government programs for which funding would otherwise have to be reduced or taxes would otherwise have to be increased. Our “diligent” premier and his cabinet simply didn’t care that their “rob Peter to pay Paul” actions would require Hydro to cut and/or seriously curtail their requisite system operations and capital programs.

In fact, to add insult to injury, the Liberal government under Premier Campbell forced BC Hydro to take on billions of dollars in additional debt in the form of long term (30 — 40 year) “use or pay” contracts with private run-of-river and wind power developers. Furthermore, the contracted energy costs are two to three times higher than current electrical energy value.

So, back to Mr. Coleman’s quandary. What will his panel of experts determine? What can we do to ensure that the citizens and industry of British Columbia are getting the best bang for their energy dollar? How can we be sure that Hydro and its villainous team of engineers and technicians isn’t out to screw us? Well, I would like to humbly suggest the following solutions:

Get your grubby government hands out of BC Hydro’s pockets. For the past 50 years the citizens and industry of British Columbia have enjoyed “real” dividends from BC Hydro in the form of the lowest cost, clean, reliable electrical energy in North America (possibly the world). This didn’t happen by accident and it certainly isn’t indicative of a poorly run energy corporation.

Let BC Hydro work to its mandate and let BCUC do its job of overseeing Hydro’s operations.

Make the government the “fall guy” rather than BC Hydro and explain why Hydro is in the mess it’s in. The government created the mess so they should at least have the intestinal fortitude and integrity to admit it.

Unfortunately we are all going to have to pay to get ourselves out of this mess but at least we should know the real cause so that future generations don’t repeat this sham.

M.J. (Marv) Everett, Retired,

Campbell River

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Vancouver Sun: Abandon goal of hydro self-sufficiency

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From the Vancouver Sun – April 19, 2011

by Harvey Enchin

Self-sufficiency sounds like a good idea. Dependent on no outside aid
or trade for survival, the self-sufficient nation would be completely
autonomous and free to do whatever it is autonomous nations are supposed
to do.

Another word to describe self-sufficiency is autarky.
There have been few but notable examples of autarky throughout history.
Nazi Germany was one. Others include Afghanistan under the Taliban,
Burma under Ne Win, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Spain under Franco,
Italy under Mussolini, Romania under Ceausescu and, of course, North
Korea, which has developed an ideology of isolation called Juche.
Self-sufficiency and repressive, autocratic failed states seem to go
hand in hand.

British Columbia is not a failed state yet but the
decree that B.C. become self-sufficient in electricity by 2016 will
impose an unprecedented burden on ratepayers and cause incalculable
damage to the economy all for no discernible purpose.

Studies done
after the policy first surfaced in 2005 in a BC Hydro service plan
(later confirmed in the 2007 Energy Plan) warned that electricity rates
would have to increase by 7.5 per cent annually for a decade, raising
the power bill for a customer paying $715 a year to $1,618. It will
likely be a lot higher than that. On March 1, BC Hydro asked the B.C.
Utilities Commission for an interim rate increase of 9.73 per cent to
take effect May 1 but scaled it back to 8.23 per cent after the
government ordered a review of the 32-per-cent rate hike over three
years that the utility was seeking.

Rate increases spun as the
price for domestic energy security might sell with the public. But the
energy plan goes well beyond energy security. It requires that BC Hydro
in its calculations of the amount of electricity required for
self-sufficiency assume a worst-case scenario of the most adverse water
conditions in the historical record. As well, it must achieve a 3,000
GWh surplus by 2020. Will the public still be willing to pay much, much
more for electricity when the objective is no longer just
self-sufficiency but rather generation of surplus power presumably
destined for export?

The argument for self-sufficiency is based on
the misguided notion B.C. must address the issue that in recent years
it has been a net importer of power. However, the cause of this reversal
has less to do with B.C.’s capacity to generate electricity than it
does with the decline in demand from customers in the United States.
Indeed, revenue from the sale of electricity and natural gas dropped 50
per cent in fiscal 2010 as the U.S. dollar weakened and the recession
continued to dampen the American economy. B.C. didn’t import more, it
exported less. Net imports is a relative and not necessarily negative
term.

Consider tomatoes. In a typical year, Canada imports roughly
the same volume of tomatoes as it exports. Why? Because it makes
economic sense. It costs too much to produce tomatoes profitably in
Canada through the winter months so they are imported from Mexico and
California. During the rest of year, Canada exports tomatoes to the U.S.

It
is the same with electricity. Demand for power goes up in winter for
heat and lighting and B.C. often imports power to meet that demand. In
summer, demand drops in B.C. but spikes in the U.S. southwest thanks to
air conditioning, allowing B.C. to export at a profit.

In fact,
demand varies by time of day as well as by season and Powerex, a BC
Hydro subsidiary, is charged with keeping an eye on the spot market 24/7
and handling cross-border trading, including negotiating contracts to
deliver power to U.S. utilities. The activities of Powerex have
generated hundreds of millions of dollars for the B.C. government and
kept rates lower than they would otherwise have been.

The
self-sufficiency objective throws a wrench into the symbiotic trading
relationship. Firstly, the government has instructed BC Hydro to buy
only renewable energy from independent power producers. The prices being
negotiated range from $76.20 to $133.80 per megawatt-hour. Meanwhile,
the spot price for mid-Columbian electricity in recent days has ranged
from $8.73 US to $30.92 (off-peak and peak respectively).

Barring
dramatic changes in market prices, Powerex will be trying to peddle
B.C. power at more than double the going rate, or take a loss on every
sale.

The market imbalance is purely hypothetical, of course,
because no one would trade with B.C. if the province makes good on its
threat to build a barrier of self-sufficiency. Trading is a two-way
street that benefits both parties. The U.S. would look to alternatives
to trade with B.C. in the absence of reciprocity.

BC Hydro
customers have already seen electricity bills skyrocket since 2008, when
the utility decided to penalize families by introducing a stepped rate
that charges users above a certain threshold 40 per cent more per kWh.

The
pointless goal of self-sufficiency will drive rates much higher,
diverting consumer spending from goods and services that fuel economic
growth to artificially overpriced power. Companies will also see their
electricity bills soar at the same time as consumers cut back on
purchases and may seek more business-friendly places to set up shop. Job
losses, lower tax revenue and weaker economic growth will follow.

Self-sufficiency is the philosophy of failure. The B.C. government should abandon this destructive path.

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New York Times: Fracking Chemicals Were Injected Into Wells, Report Says

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons,
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From the New York Times – April 16, 2011

by Ian Urbina

WASHINGTON — Oil and gas companies injected hundreds of millions of
gallons of hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals into wells in more than
13 states from 2005 to 2009, according to an investigation by
Congressional Democrats.

 The chemicals were used by companies during a drilling process known as
hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, which involves the high-pressure
injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives into rock
formations deep underground. The process, which is being used to tap
into large reserves of natural gas around the country, opens fissures in the rock to stimulate the release of oil and gas.

Hydrofracking has attracted increased scrutiny from lawmakers and
environmentalists in part because of fears that the chemicals used
during the process can contaminate underground sources of drinking
water.

“Questions about the safety of hydraulic fracturing persist, which are
compounded by the secrecy surrounding the chemicals used in hydraulic
fracturing fluids,” said the report, which was written by
Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Diana DeGette of Colorado.

The report, released late Saturday, also faulted companies for at times
“injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot
identify.”

The inquiry over hydrofracking, which was initiated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee
when Mr. Waxman led it last year, also found that 14 of the nation’s
most active hydraulic fracturing companies used 866 million gallons of
hydraulic fracturing products — not including water. More than 650 of
these products contained chemicals that are known or possible human
carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or are listed
as hazardous air pollutants, the report said.

A request for comment from the American Petroleum Institute about the report received no reply.

Matt Armstrong, an energy attorney from Bracewell & Giuliani that
represents several companies involved in natural gas drilling, faulted
the methodology of the congressional report released Saturday and an
earlier report by the same lawmakers.

“This report uses the same sleight of hand deployed in the last report
on diesel use — it compiles overall product volumes, not the volumes of
the hazardous chemicals contained within those products,” he said.
“This generates big numbers but provides no context for the use of these
chemicals over the many thousands of frac jobs that were conducted
within the timeframe of the report.”

Some ingredients mixed into the hydraulic fracturing fluids were common
and generally harmless, like salt and citric acid. Others were
unexpected, like instant coffee and walnut hulls, the report said. Many
ingredients were “extremely toxic,” including benzene, a known human
carcinogen, and lead.

Companies injected large amounts of other hazardous chemicals, including
11.4 million gallons of fluids containing at least one of the toxic or
carcinogenic B.T.E.X. chemicals — benzene, toluene, xylene and
ethylbenzene. The companies used the highest volume of fluids containing
one or more carcinogens in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.

The report comes two and a half months after an initial report by the
same three lawmakers that found that 32.2 millions of gallons of fluids
containing diesel, considered an especially hazardous pollutant because
it contains benzene, were injected into the ground during hydrofracking
by a dozen companies from 2005 to 2009, in possible violation of the
drinking water act.

A 2010 report by Environmental Working Group,
a research and advocacy organization, found that benzene levels in
other hydrofracking ingredients were as much as 93 times higher than
those found in diesel.

The use of these chemicals has been a source of concern to regulators
and environmentalists who worry that some of them could find their way
out of a well bore — because of above-ground spills, underground
failures of well casing or migration through layers of rock — and into
nearby sources of drinking water.

These contaminants also remain in the fluid that returns to the surface after a well is hydrofracked. A recent investigation
by The New York Times found high levels of contaminants, including
benzene and radioactive materials, in wastewater that is being sent to
treatment plants not designed to fully treat the waste before it is
discharged into rivers. At one plant in Pennsylvania, documents from the Environmental Protection Agency
revealed levels of benzene roughly 28 times the federal drinking water
standard in wastewater as it was discharged, after treatment, into the
Allegheny River in May 2008.

The E.P.A.
is conducting a national study on the drinking water risks associated
with hydrofracking, but assessing these risks has been made more
difficult by companies’ unwillingness to publicly disclose which
chemicals and in what concentrations they are used, according to
internal e-mails and draft notes of the study plan.

Some companies are moving toward more disclosure, and the industry will
soon start a public database of these chemicals. But the Congressional
report said that reporting to this database is strictly voluntary, that
disclosure will not include the chemical identity of products labeled as
proprietary, and that there is no way to determine if companies are
accurately reporting information for all wells. In Pennsylvania, the
lack of disclosure of drilling ingredients has also incited a heated
debate among E.P.A. lawyers about the threat and legality of treatment
plants accepting the wastewater and discharging it into rivers.       

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New Cartoon: The Unforeseen Consequenses of Natural Gas Fracking

Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Water and Hydrocarbons, ,
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Check out the latest from our cartoonist Gerry Hummel. Hydraulic Fracturing, or “fracking” – a relatively new method for extracting natural gas – involves shooting a mixture of highly pressurized water, sand, and unknown chemicals deep underground in order to crack open shale formations to release gas. The value of the resource in BC has been pegged at $750 Billion – and while we’re going gangbusters to develop our local industry, concentrated in northeast BC, other jurisdictions throughout the US and Canada are putting the brakes on fracking until we have a better grasp of its ecological and geological consequences, and how to better manage the enormous volumes of water currently being used in the process.

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