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Proposed new BC salmon farms net strong public opposition

February 12, 2015Oceans, Salmon Farming and AquaculturefeaturedAlexandra Morton

Proposed new BC salmon farms net strong public opposition — Public meeting in Port McNeill, BC re: Greig’s proposed salmon farms (Twyla Roscovich)

On February 10, 2015, Grieg Seafood held an open house in Port McNeill on two new salmon farm applications it is proposing – a requirement of the application process to the Province of BC.

It was a small room in a Port McNeill hotel. Huge pictures of salmon farms formed a center column blocking a clear view across the room. It was designed so people would shuffle around the edges of the room in small groups to be met by industry reps with name tags that provided only first names. One representative from DFO and one from the Province of BC were present.

The event had been scheduled during a “dangerous cargo” ferry run, making it inconvenient for working people from the nearby island community of Sointula to attend. So they pooled resources and paid fuel for the 48-passenger vessel Naiad to pick them up. One hundred and twenty people showed up to this open house, about 15% of the entire community of Sointula, as well as people from Alert Bay, Port Hardy and Port McNeill. Local people concerned about impact on their livelihoods.

Bait and switch

If approved, these two salmon farm applications in Clio Channel in the Broughton Archipelago will threaten the BC coast with several dangerous precedents. First, the sites are less than the 3 km apart, the minimum distance set by the Province of BC. Second, these locations are currently approved for shellfish aquaculture. If shellfish sites can be easily upgraded into fin fish aquaculture and farms placed closer together – the floodgates open.

This is how the salmon farming industry runs into the same brick wall over and over again. Increasing the number of farmed salmon in a region breeds catastrophic viral and sea louse epidemics that eat into corporate profits, driving the industry to expand again and causing the same problems all over. No learning curve here! The stakes are high.

Public gets fired up

As the room became unbearably hot, people became angry at the lack of any opportunity to raise their concerns. Then local resident and filmmaker Twyla Roscovich picked up a cowbell, got people’s attention, and asked how many people did not want more salmon farms. While a Grieg employee tried to dissuade Ms. Roscovich, the room broke out into an uproar as a sea of hands shot up and a loud chorus cried out, “No more fish farms!”

Shrimp fishermen who where going to lose their most productive shrimping grounds, local fishing lodges, whale watching companies, local First Nations and also a First Nations woman, Tamara Campbell from Boston Bar up the Fraser River – all who need wild salmon – stepped up together, many standing on chairs to be heard above the chatter. They wanted to know why they should accept this threat to their livelihoods and wild salmon for nothing in return. Campbell made the point that while coastal nations might decide to partner with the industry, Fraser Nations are ignored. Their salmon are running through the effluent of the over 100 salmon farms on the BC coast. They need wild salmon for their health and need to be consulted.

Local decisions have big ripple effect

The Tlowitsis Nation of Campbell River, represented by hereditary chief John Smith, has agreed to allow these two new farms. But the impact of salmon farms is cumulative and far-reaching, beyond local areas. A salmon farm produces the same amount of fecal matter as a city of 200,000 people* and during a peak disease event can produce 65 billion infectious viral particles per hour.^ A particle can travel 10km in 6 hours on the turbulent coast of BC. This means wild salmon migrating between Vancouver Island and the BC mainland are swimming through a soup of industrial fecal and infectious farm waste.

Cohen’s recommendations ignored

The atmosphere was highly charged, voices trembled with emotion and inexperience with public speaking. Some industry reps insisted on speaking loudly, drowning out the local people trying to be heard. It was childish and rude and surprised many who thought this meeting was provided to hear their concerns. When asked, the rep from DFO could not name what criteria he uses to determine if an area is too sensitive to allow a salmon farm. It was surprising, this was a concern that was thoroughly investigated by Justice Cohen three years ago.

Norwegian corporations control BC waters

Map of BC salmon farms and migratory routes — Map of BC salmon farms and wild salmon migratory routes

There are already 27 salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago near Sointula and Port McNeill. They are all run by companies with head offices in Norway. Most are in the territory of First Nations that have asked them to vacate, but the farmers refuse. Not one person outside the industry stuck up for the industry at this meeting. There was no sense that salmon farms had done the local communities any good. While the head offices are in Norway and Campbell River, it is Port McNeill, Alert Bay and Sointula that end up with the poop end of the deal!

The Province of BC is the landlord of the salmon farming industry. The Ministry of Forestry, Lands and Natural Resources grants the licences of occupation for each salmon farm. These licences can be rescinded, with no compensation owed to the companies, if they are not in the public interest.

A federal licence is also required for each farm, but while these licences costs $800,000 back home in Norway, the Harper government is handing them out to the industry for free! There has to be some interesting background there. Why would government override its citizens to allow a high-risk foreign industry to operate for free?

Far more jobs, economic benefit from tourism

As people rode the ferry home to Sointula they wondered out loud how the premier could think it was good for them to lose yet another high-production fishing ground to this industry. Why couldn’t BC see the value of their $1.6 billion eco-tourism industry – several times as big as fish farming – fishing revenue and thriving communities?

To have enormous foreign-owned feedlots that siphon off profits to shareholders and offer only a few low-paying local jobs – while they threaten much higher paying revenue from fishing and tourism – is simply not very bright.

In this era of terrifying global fisheries collapse, threatening the death of our oceans, why would the BC government fling its arms open to embrace an industry with a trail of disease epidemics and the collapse of wild salmon worldwide? Why don’t our tax-supported governments work to protect the resilience and value of local economies where profits flow back into the community?

Changing our laws to suit fish farmers

Expansion is not the only item on this industry’s wish list. They lobbying to change the laws of Canada:

A stand alone Aquaculture Act, is under review by the Canadian Senate to allow these companies ownership of salmon in the ocean
Removal of Section 36 of the Fisheries Act is going ahead to permit unfettered use of chemicals that kill fish in their losing drug war with sea lice
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is seeking authority to kill wild fish to protect farmed salmon from pathogens (Proposed Aquaculture Regulations).

Here’s a better idea – with zero losers:

Government could support innovative aquaculture development that grows its own food and reuses its waste. This would provide jobs and actually contribute to feeding the world. At the same time, government could use the cutting edge genomic profiling science, which is under development in BC, that reads the immune system of salmon, giving managers the information they need to remove the most critical impacts on wild salmon and release populations to achieve greater production.

We could have both aquaculture and wild salmon. So you must ask, why would our governments be so hellbent on a dirty, despised and out-dated industry like Atlantic salmon farming?

Watch Twyla Roscovich video of Port McNeill meeting

* http://www.puresalmon.org/waste_contamination.html

^ Dr. Kyle Garver, DFO virologist Cohen Commission testimony

Norway’s fjords flooded with escaped, diseased farmed fish

February 8, 2015Oceans, Salmon Farming and AquaculturefeaturedAlexandra Morton

Norway's fjords flooded with escaped, diseased farmed fish — An escaped steelhead caught near Bergen, Norway, showing serious symptoms of disease

On January 10, 2015 a hurricane of wind and snow hit the coast of Norway. They called it extreme weather Nina. When the winds finally calmed, the first sport fishermen to venture out on the fjords near Bergen got a big surprise. Shoals of farmed fish were visible from the surface. NRK, the national news, reported the fjords of Western Norway were boiling with farmed rainbow trout on the run.

“Blacklisted” trout threaten Norwegian wild salmon

Rainbow trout, called steelhead when they live in saltwater, are a “blacklisted” species in Norway because they are not native. Rainbow trout have been shipped all over the world from North America, destined to become farm fish.

BC’s wild steelhead are one of the most beloved salmon in British Columbia. People spend thousands of dollars to come here for the chance to fish steelhead, but the misshapen, blotchy-coloured, obese creatures swimming towards wild salmon rivers in Norway were not at all welcomed by fishermen.

At first, the papers reported that just one farm had spilled its captives into the fjords. Then it was farmed Atlantic salmon and steelhead from four farms. Initial estimates of tens of thousands of escapees escalated to a potential 1.5 million and Norway had just announced a zero-escape farm salmon policy.

Fishermen respond as salmon farmers do nothing

Norwegian sport fishermen responded immediately with nets and fishing rods to try to get rid of the invaders. They could see many were ready to spawn and were determined to remove them before they could dig into the river gravel where precious wild Atlantic salmon eggs were incubating. As they caught hundreds per day, they were angry that the salmon farmers did not show up to help. Fisherman Regine Emilie Mathiesen told the media:

[quote]This is such a big environmental threat, that we do not dare to leave. [/quote]

Local volunteers work to clean up escaped steelhead (Photo: Magne Turøy/Bergen Savisen)

Facebook lit up with horrific images of the “flabby,” swollen farmed steelhead, little swimming nightmares with open sores, missing tails and internal organs hemorraging blood. The fishermen caught thousands, but not a single wild fish. They worried all the farm fish blundering around had caused the wild fish to flee.

While the Directorate of Fisheries suggested the escaped fish would stay near the farms, they did not. Fishermen found the steelhead spreading into the surrounding network of fjords and channels. The fish farming companies offered a reward – $8/fish.

Escaped fish were “very sick” with disease: Biologist

And then an extraordinary thing happened. The Askøy Hunter & Fisherman’s Association decided to find out for themselves why these escaped steelhead looked so sick. They sent seven to Dr. Are Nylund of the University of Bergen. Nylund is a leading salmon disease scientist. It was Nylund and his team who tracked the ISA virus from Norway into Chile where it eventually caused $2 billion in damages.

This research brought swift attack on his lab and credibility. However he emerged uncowed and took the fish from the fishermen and tested them.

“All of the fish that I have analyzed were very sick,” reported Nylund to the Norwegian newspaper BA Bergensavisen.

One of the steelhead tested positive for pancreas disease (PD), a highly contagious viral disease, causing epidemic losses to the salmon farming industry. Chile petitioned the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to make this virus reportable so they could refuse Atlantic salmon eggs from infected sources to try to protect their country. The virus is reportable in Norway, but no one seemed aware these steelhead might be infected.

Norwegian govt misses the point

While the Norwegian government was slow to respond to the massive escape they were very quick to respond to this testing, asking people use “official” labs, not independent labs. “It takes an expert to confirm and make such a diagnosis,” as if Nylund was not. A government spokesperson pointed out that just because evidence of PD was found it did not mean the fish was sick. She failed to capture the concern. No one cared if the farm fish was sick – what they cared about was whether it could infect the fragile wild salmon populations. There are only about 500,000 wild Atlantic salmon left in Norway, less than ½ the fish found in a single farm.

Industry denies infection

The controversy rages on. The owner of the escaped steelhead denied they were infected. The Norwegian Seafood Federation said the gruesome-looking fish were not intended for human consumption. However, others suggested the fish had been medicated in December to delouse them, which suggests they were not scheduled to be destroyed. Fisheries suggested they should not be eaten, because they could still contain the drug.

Accusations flew back and forth as to who was responsible for the chains that should have held the farm in place, but did not. The Minister of Fisheries flew into Bergen for an emergency meeting, proclaiming that Norway needed more salmon farms, but she never reached out to the volunteers working to clean up the mess made by the industry. The Askøy Hunter & Fisherman’s Association wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who is from the area of the escape, asking for help.

Door opening to land-based farms?

On January 29, a Norwegian politician made a remarkable suggestion. Deputy Leader Ola Borten Moe of the Center Party suggested it is time for Norway waive the high cost of salmon farm licencing for any salmon farm established on land. He suggested this would protect Norway’s environment, stimulate innovation, solve the industry’s escalating disease and lice problems and increase job opportunities across the country.

Norway is the birth place of the salmon farming industry. When a Norwegian politician suggests it is time to move the industry into closed tanks, perhaps it really is time. BC First Nations, scientists, environmentalists, fishermen have been saying the same thing for a long time. No one wants farmed salmon to push wild salmon off our coasts, and our plates.

BC and Norway: mirror images

The irony of this situation is inescapable. We are mirror images – British Columbians work to protect wild Pacific salmon from infected farmed Atlantic salmon, while Norwegians work to protect wild Atlantic salmon from infected North American fish. The catastrophic biological ineptitude of international commerce has to upgrade into something much smarter.

[quote] This is an environmental catastrophe that only escalates, I feel that those who govern this country are stealing nature from the youth. We can not keep on like this anymore! -Regine Emilie Mathisen [/quote]

On February 5, the Norwegian government passed a new order, a compulsory plan to capture escaped farmed salmon in the rivers and to identify who lost the fish and make them pay. Government funds will be allocated to enforcement. While the fishermen remain skeptical, the swift action by Norway to discontent with this industry stands in stark contrast with the Harper and Clark governments which have ignored the calls of thousands of British Columbians to get this industry away from our wild salmon.

See videos and news tories on this ongoing saga on Alexandra Morton’s facebook page.

Federal Court denies BC Hydro’s request to hurry up Site C challenge

February 5, 2015Hydropower, WATERfeaturedDamien Gillis

Peace Valley ranchers Ken and Arlene Boon are plaintiffs in several Site C Dam challenges (Damien Gillis)

A federal court judge has denied BC Hydro’s motion to rush a legal challenge against the crown corporation’s planned Site C Dam project. Hydro sought to expedite the hearing in May in order to keep to its planned construction start this summer – after receiving its provincial and federal environmental certificates late in 2014 – but that’s now up in the air.

According to a media advisory from the plaintiff, the Peace Valley Landowners’ Association (PVLA), the hearing will likely be scheduled for sometime this summer, depending on the court’s availability. Hydro argued that such a delay would cost the utility money, but the judge gave more weight to the plaintiff’s need for time to prepare its case.

Need, financial case for Site C challenged

The case is being brought by lawyer and ex-TD Bank Comptroller Rob Botterell on behalf of many of the landowners in the Peace Valley whose farms would be flooded or disrupted by the dam. Their challenge is built partly on the fact that the Liberal Government excluded the public’s independent energy watchdog, the BC Utilities Commission, from reviewing the project. The regulator was built precisely for this purpose: to examine proposed energy projects and plans based on their need and value to taxpayers and ratepayers.

This step, along with the provincial government’s decision to ignore the strong misgivings of the Joint Review Panel surrounding the need and financial case for the project constitute excessive political interference in the plaintiff’s view. Noted Botterell in a media advisory on the eve of the project’s approval last year:

[quote]Public infrastructure decisions of the size and scope of Site C…require the most thorough public scrutiny. It is simply unacceptable to make such decisions behind closed doors, release limited explanatory information, and conduct public policy by news conference sound bite. For the largest public infrastructure decision in provincial history we deserve better: open, transparent, and unfettered review of Site C’s economics by the independent and expert BC Utilities Commission.[/quote]

Government ignored its own rules

The PVLA’s case is also anchored in the fact that the provincial government violated the very rules that it laid out in the terms of reference for the Site C review. According to the PVLA:

[quote]The Ministers relied upon a referral package from the Environmental Assessment Office that declared several key Panel recommendations to be beyond the scope of the Panel’s mandate. The PVLA Petition is based on a thorough review of the documents which set the scope of the Panel’s mandate, and which reveal that the Panel was not only permitted but was expressly required to assess the very economic impacts of the Project that were the subject of the recommendations the Ministers failed to consider. (emphasis added)[/quote]

They argue the government was not permitted to simply set aside the panel’s concerns about project need and cost – which has already increased by nearly a billion dollars from the time of the hearings to the approval announcement, now weighing in at $9 Billion – by far the most expensive capital project in BC history.

Four challenges heard together

In the federal court’s recent ruling on the case, it also decreed that three other plaintiffs bringing similar cases – two Alberta First Nations and BC’s Treaty 8 First Nations – present their arguments at the same summer hearing, alongside the PVLA.

Meanwhile, two more legal challenges in BC provincial court have a joint preliminary hearing on February 25. Following that, the PVLA’s provincial judicial review petition will begin being heard on April 20, with a similar petition by BC’s Treaty 8 First Nations yet to be scheduled.

The PVLA has already raised close to $100,000 for its legal challenges of Site C Dam.

Mount Polley investigation: Whitewash follows tailings flood – culprits let off the hook

February 1, 2015Metals and Minerals, MiningfeaturedDamien Gillis

Aerial image after Mount Polley mine tailings spill (Cariboo Regional District)

The recently concluded “independent” investigation into the Mount Polley tailings pond rupture essentially exonerates the various culprits in what was likely the worst environmental catastrophe in BC history. The report can only be seen as a whitewashing of the world record 25 million cubic metres of mine tailings and other debris swept into Hazeltine Creek and the formerly pristine Quesnel Lake this past August.

Designing disaster

While the government-appointed panel behind the investigation acknowledges a design flaw in the containment facility, it downplays any real human negligence by attributing it to misinterpretation of the geology below the breached dam wall:

[quote]The design did not take into account the complexity of the sub-glacial and pre-glacial geological environment associated with the perimeter embankment foundation[/quote]

Yet the report curiously maintains such a design flaw can occur without human error in the design process or subsequent construction, finding:

[quote]…no evidence that the failure was due to human intervention or overtopping of the perimeter embankments…In regard to regulatory oversight, the Panel found that inspections of the tailings storage facility would not have prevented failure. [/quote]

Thus both the builders and the regulators are magically let off the hook.

Alternate report alleges cover-up

Suzuki: Canada at risk for more Mount Polley-type disasters — Hazeltine Creek after tailings dam breach (Chris Blake)

Quite to the contrary, another report, by the BC Tapwater Alliance last December, marshals credible evidence to lay blame at the feet of the BC Liberal Government, mine owner Imperial Metals and the engineer of record, Knight Piesold. It concludes, “the Mount Polley mine tailings storage catastrophe could have been, and should have been, preventable,” equating subsequent denials of culpability to a “cover-up”.

And that should stand to reason. The mere notion of “design” implies human agency. Someone had to conduct the geological studies, interpret the data, and incorporate that into the engineering of the facility; just as human regulators were responsible for overseeing this process and verifying its implementation and evolving risks over the lifetime of the project. How one can attribute flaws to the design process but not to the people, companies and governments behind it is simply baffling.

What the panel’s report left out

The panel’s report also ignores some of the key political and regulatory plot points in the Mount Polley tragedy.

For instance, the half million dollars in campaign contributions and big-time fundraising support the Liberal government received from mine owner Murray Edwards and his companies, including Mount Polley Mining and Imperial Metals. In the aftermath of the disaster, Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett threatened a fine of – wait for it – one million dollars! Not a peep on this clear conflict of interest.

Then there were the numerous warnings from the outset that the type of design used for the dam was a bad fit for a wet climate (p.ES-6).

Or the fact that Engineer of Record Knight Piesold acknowledged Imperial “failed to comply with some of its duties/responsibilities over the [tailings storage facility] during the ‘Care and Maintenance’ years, the three and half year period when the Mount Polley mine was temporarily shut down from October 2001 to March 2005,” as the BC Tapwater Alliance report notes. This also could have helped weaken the containment structure.

Or how about the dangerous ramping up of production at Mount Polley to boost profits as Imperial sought to build another mine (with similar tailings pond design concerns) in northwest BC, Red Chris. This, of course, was sanctioned by the government, even though it meant overloading the containment facility with more tailings and water than it was designed to hold.

Or the numerous annual reports Imperial neglected to file with the ministry (p. ES-4), in contravention of the terms of its permits.

Mount Polley disaster- More misinformation than facts — The wide of a Mount Polley whistleblower, Lawna Bourassa displays cloudy water vollected near her Quesnel Lake home (Damien Gillis)

Or cut-backs in mine inspections and the transfer of this process away from independent ministry officials to contractors hired by the company – a clear conflict of interest. A 2012 study by the UVic Environmental Law Centre warned, “This ramshackle enforcement regime is not good enough for an industry that can create environmental and financial catastrophes.” Ignored.

Or the critical “deficiency” unearthed by ministry officials during a 2008 geotechnical inspection of the dam.

Or the mysterious departure of Knight Piesold from the project in 2011, amid warnings from independent consultant Brian Olding that dam was in danger of collapse.

Or the multiple, internal warnings from employees, like foreman-turned-whistleblower Gerald MacBurney and truck operator Larry Chambers. All ignored.

Or Imperial Metals’ lack of environmental disaster insurance and sufficient plans and resources to clean up the spill.

I could go on…But you won’t learn any of the above issues from the “independent” panel’s report.

Sure, there are vague calls to “improve professional practice” and “strengthen current regulatory operations”, but they lack teeth and fail to capture the gravity of the situation.

Nothing learned

Beyond the absence of justice for this ongoing travesty – which continues to pollute Hazeltine Creek and the former natural marvel called Quesnel Lake – the panel’s effort represents a failure to learn anything meaningful that would prevent governments and industry from making the same mistakes in the future.

Then again, none of this comes as a surprise. Ever since the wee hours of BC day this past August, when the levee broke, there’s been as much spin, obfuscation and excuse-making gushing out of Mount Polley as toxic mine tailings. If the public accepts this whitewash, then we risk another Mount Polley – perhaps up at Imperial’s latest venture, Red Chris Mine, which could pollute the Sacred Headwaters of three major salmon rivers.

It’s hard to know where to go from here – the whole thing is such a mess – but we can start by rejecting this report and demanding real answers and justice for an entirely preventable disaster.

Transition away from fossil fuels needs to take care of workers

January 29, 2015Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, RenewablesfeaturedCommon Sense Canadian

Transition away from fossil fuels needs to take care of workers — Gas workers in BC’s Horn River Basin (Photo: Damien Gillis)

By Karen Cooling, Marc Lee and Shannon Daub

The steady stream of bad news from Alberta’s oilpatch is a potent reminder of the boom-and-bust nature of being a resource-commodity exporter. It’s a story deeply understood in resource communities, as decisions made halfway around the world dictate whether you will have a job tomorrow.

The outlook for fossil fuel-exporting industries is likely to get worse if governments negotiate a new global deal to limit carbon emissions this year. On the heels of a climate deal with China, U.S. President Barack Obama stated in his State of the Union address that:

[quote]No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change.[/quote]

Leaving it in the ground

It is now recognized that anywhere from two-thirds to four-fifths of proven fossil fuel reserves worldwide must be left in the ground to avert catastrophe. Canadian politicians live in denial of these facts, pushing instead for more bitumen, coal and LNG exports.

But what does all this mean for people whose livelihoods rely on these industries? We talked with resource workers around B.C. who have experienced boom-and-bust cycles first-hand — especially in forestry. What we uncovered is a very unhappy legacy. One concern is that climate action could mean the loss of well-paying jobs and a repeat of this tragic pattern.

A “just transition”

As we plan for a transition to a zero-carbon economy, we will need to ensure a “just transition” for oil and gas workers, who should not have to pay the price of doing the right thing on climate change.

In past resource busts, families have faced extreme financial and emotional instability due to job losses. There are also ripple effects throughout the economy, as reduced spending forces the closure of small businesses and service providers, municipal government budgets collapse and the residential housing market becomes glutted with “stranded assets.”

Stable management of fossil-fuel industries over a two-or three-decade wind-down period with a just transition plan can get us off the resource roller-coaster and better serve workers, communities and the economy.

How to build a sustainable future

Much work will be required to build the zero-emission economy we need but we should embrace that. Building new, green infrastructure for the future includes investments in district energy systems, localized food systems, regional rapid transit, efficient buildings and “zero waste” management of materials — all of which can be a major economic benefit in rural and resource communities.

We also need to stop lumping in all resource sectors together. While fossil-fuel industries are at the heart of the climate problem, there can and should be a bright future for renewable resources like forestry. With strong stewardship and enhanced value-added, forestry in B.C. could support an additional 20,000 good permanent jobs — far more than will arise from any LNG development. This means reversing direction on forestry policies that have gutted the industry and its connection to supporting communities.

forestry vs. oil and gas jobs — Graphic by Norm Farrell

A “Green Social Contract”

A coherent, managed approach would also allow for planned transitions for workers that include income supports, skills training and apprenticeships. This means investing in skills that are transferable from carbon-intensive to green industries. Proactive planning and collaboration across government, industry and unions is critical for ensuring a just transition.

This new “green social contract” will require a reallocation of financial resources. We recommend creating a just transition fund out of resource royalties or carbon tax revenues. The fund could enhance income security for workers, support early retirement initiatives for some and help people through retraining and job search processes.

Rather than trying to cultivate the next boom (think LNG), our aspirations should be to develop a high-quality, full-employment strategy that supports workers, families and communities to transition beyond fossil fuels.

Karen Cooling is a former representative with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union. Marc Lee and Shannon Daub are with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. This piece draws on a new study, Just Transition: Creating a Green Social Contract for BC’s Resource Workers.

Canada sued the most over trade deals, environmental protections

January 28, 2015EconomicsfeaturedDr. David Suzuki

With FIPA, NAFTA, Canada has traded away environmental rights — Prime Minister Stephen Harper with then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao upon FIPA signing in 2012

In 1997, Canada restricted import and transfer of the gasoline additive MMT because it was a suspected neurotoxin that had already been banned in Europe. Ethyl Corp., the U.S. multinational that supplied the chemical, sued the government for $350 million under the North American Free Trade Agreement and won! Canada was forced to repeal the ban, apologize to the company and pay an out-of-court settlement of US$13 million.

Designed to protect corporations

The free trade agreement between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico was never designed to raise labour and environmental standards to the highest level. In fact, NAFTA and other trade agreements Canada has signed — including the recent Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China — often take labour standards to the lowest denominator while increasing environmental risk. The agreements are more about facilitating corporate flexibility and profit than creating good working conditions and protecting the air, water, land and diverse ecosystems that keep us alive and healthy.

Canada’s environment appears to be taking the brunt of NAFTA-enabled corporate attacks. And when NAFTA environmental-protection provisions do kick in, the government often rejects them.

Quebec sued for fracking moratorium

According to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, more than 70 per cent of NAFTA claims since 2005 have been against Canada, with nine active cases totalling $6 billion outstanding. These challenge “a wide range of government measures that allegedly interfere with the expected profitability of foreign investments,” including the Quebec government’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Quebec imposed the moratorium in 2011 pending an environmental review of the controversial gas-and-oil drilling practice. A U.S. company headquartered in Calgary, Lone Pine Resources Inc., is suing the federal government under NAFTA for $250 million. A preliminary assessment by Quebec’s Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement found fracking would have “major impacts,” including air and water pollution, acrid odours and increased traffic and noise. Fracking can also cause seismic activity.

Canada sued the most

According to the CCPA, Canada has been sued more often than any other developed nation through investor-state dispute settlement mechanisms in trade agreements. Under NAFTA:

[quote]Canada has already lost or settled six claims, paid out damages totaling over $170 million and incurred tens of millions more in legal costs. Mexico has lost five cases and paid damages of US$204 million. The U.S. has never lost a NAFTA investor-state case.[/quote]

Harper blocking watchdog

NAFTA does, however, have a watchdog arm that’s supposed to address environmental disputes and public concerns, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. But Canada is blocking the commission from investigating the impacts of tailings ponds at the Alberta oilsands.

Environmental Defence, the Natural Resources Defense Council and three people downstream from the oilsands asked the CEC to investigate whether tailings leaking into the Athabasca River and other waterways represent a violation of the federal Fisheries Act. According to the complaint, the tailings ponds, which are actually much larger than what most people would think of as ponds, are spilling millions of litres of toxic liquid every day. Environmental Defence says the CEC found “plenty of evidence that tar sands companies were breaking Canadian law and lots of evidence that the Canadian government was failing to do anything about it.”

It’s the third time in the past year that Canada has prevented the commission from examining environmental issues. Canada earlier blocked an investigation into the protection of polar bears from threats including climate change and one concerning the dangers posed to wild salmon from B.C. fish farms.

Citizens, environment left out

Trade agreements are negotiated in the best interests of corporations instead of citizens. On top of that, federal and provincial governments keep pinning our economic hopes on volatile oil and gas markets, with little thought about how those resources could provide long-term prosperity. Recent plummeting oil prices show where that leads.

These priorities are screwed up. We end up with a boom-and-bust economy and the erosion of social programs as budgets are slashed when oil prices drop. Skewed trade deals allow corporations to override environmental protections that haven’t already been gutted, and create a labour climate in which wages, benefits and working standards fall.

It’s time for Canada to recognize that a diversified economy and citizens’ right to live in a healthy environment are more important than facilitating short-term profits for foreign and multinational corporations.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Canada, Quebec’s political leaders blind to green jobs revolution

January 23, 2015Economics, Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, RenewablesfeaturedWill Dubitsky

Part 1 of a 2-part story from innovation expert Will Dubitsky on Canada’s missed opportunity to build a prosperous green economy.

The ardent defenders of our resource economy are in no way limited to the climate skeptics who support TransCanada’s Energy East project, the Keystone XL pipeline and the tripling of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline capacity to Vancouver. There are also much larger and perhaps more influential groups of traditional resource economy supporters – the greenwashers such as Justin Trudeau, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, the majority of mainstream journalists, economists, Bay Streeters and more.

These stakeholders would have us believe that with a little tinkering of the status quo, we can address requirements to reduce greenhouse gases while supporting projects like TransCanada’s Energy East and the other proposed pipeline projects for Canada.

According to this line of thinking, the traditional resource-based economic paradigm is a permanent fixture of global economics. Consequently, if TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline isn’t built, another petroleum source would fill the “void”, leaving the impacts on greenhouse gases at the level of the status quo. In other words, new infrastructure to increase dour dependence on petroleum is fine, even though the International Energy Agency has said we must leave 80% of proven reserves in the ground if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Green economy still ignored by many

It is rather unfortunate that the green economy paradigm – despite the facts on the ground in China, Europe and the US – remains off the radar screen of nearly all economists.

Even the very conservative International Monetary Fund, Goldman Sachs and UBS are way ahead traditional economists on the decline of the resource economy paradigm, respectively exposing: 1) the spellbinding levels of subsidization of the fossil fuel sectors; 2) the high financial risks of unconventional fossil resources, such as the tar sands; 3) the rapidly growing quantity of stranded oil assets due to the combination of high debt loads and reserves that cannot be supported by market prices; and 4) the growing aggressiveness and frequency of government action on climate change around the globe . Together, these factors are fostering the emergence of a global green economy.

Massive opportunity, huge job growth…except in Canada

The green sectors are among the fastest growing and highest job creation sectors of our times. Unfortunately, Canada is missing out on these opportunities while China, the European Union and, to a lesser extent, the US are way ahead of us.

There are 3.5 million people currently working in the green sectors in the European Union (EU), with 1.2 million in renewables. The clean energy sectors in Germany are right up there with the German auto sector in terms of job numbers, and there is a 7,000-position labour shortage in the EU wind energy sector.

At last count there were 300,000 people working in the Chinese solar energy sector and another 800,000 in its thermal solar sector. The projections for China’s wind sector are 500,000 jobs by 2020.

Meanwhile, the US had174,000 people working in the solar sector as of November 2014.

All this makes good sense, given the fact that government investments in the green economy create 6 to 8 times more jobs than the same level of investment in the extractive resource economy.

Quebec missing the boat

Though Quebec is participating in a carbon (cap and trade) market with California, current Couillard Quebec government actions are founded on a resource economy with negligible interest shown in high job creation green sectors. This is counterproductive not only for the environment but for the province’s economic development as well.

To begin, Quebec could better grow its economy and reduce its dependence on wealthier provinces by concurrently: 1) rejecting the few hundred jobs associated with Energy East; 2) reducing its dependence on petroleum from outside Quebec and thereby reducing local emissions; 3) focusing on the high job creation green sectors, including the development of Quebec’s emerging electric vehicle sector.

Quebec’s emerging EV success story

The transportation sector represents 42% of Québec’s emissions, so it’s a good place to start for tackling emissions. The good news is that not only does the province enjoy a clean energy surplus – mainly hydro – but its nascent electric vehicle (ev) sector has given rise to some promising local companies and institutions, including:

EV battery manufacturer Bolloré/Bathium
Electric motor wheel company TM4
A Nova Bus (Volvo) electric bus under development
Two manufacturers of electric vehicle charging stations – GRIDbot and ADDÉnergie
EV research centres such as the Centre National du Transport Avancé and L’Ecole de technologie supérieure

Should Québec and Canada not seize the day, it is China and the US – California in particular — that will continue to be the leaders in, and reap optimal long term benefits from, the electrification of transport.

China: Full steam ahead on clean tech

While BYD of China is already manufacturing electric buses – this includes a manufacturing plant for BYD electric buses in California – China’s central government has adopted aggressive policies to the effect that beginning 2016, 30% of all government vehicle purchases will be electric.

Meanwhile, the city of Shenzhen recently announced a cap on new vehicle sales to cut air pollution, coupled with a requirement that 20% of registrations must be electric vehicles.

China’s central government is also considering a $16 Billion program to set up charging stations across the country and it has removed the 10% purchase tax for electric and hybrid vehicles.

California leads way with EVs

In the US, California is leading the way on electric vehicles with a comprehensive plan and legislation agenda that includes financial assistance for low income residents and support for clean energy micro-grids complete with energy storage and electric vehicle charging stations. New homes and parking lots are also being required to have the electrical infrastructure in place for setting up electric vehicle charging stations.

Quebec backslides on green investment, shale oil and gas

Yet the Couillard government, much like policies of Harper and Trudeau, lives in the past tense, supporting TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline proposal while cancelling a $500 million PQ program for the electrification of transport, instead committing $450 million for an unneeded cement plant that will be fueled by petcoke – a high-carbon content fuel derived from the residues of tar sands refineries. Couillard also remains fixated on his predecessors’ Plan Nord – a large scale vision for heavy extractive industries in the province’s north.

Meanwhile, Couillard shows disturbing signs of softening Quebec’s moratorium on fracking, letting it be known that his government will not be taking action along the lines of the New York State to impose a permanent ban on shale gas development. Instead, his government appears to be keeping its options open for developing a shale oil sector on the Island of Anticosti, which the previous PQ government injected $115 million into through two equity agreements.

In addition to the high level of methane leaks from shale gas wells and risks of soil, water and air pollution, it is becoming clear from the US experience that shale gas and oil lead to boom and bust economics. Yet Couillard appears reluctant to fully cut ties with this form of development and instead seize the enormous benefits available from the green economy.

Watch for the sequel to this story next week – exploring the decline of the fossil fuel era and remarkable rise of the green economy.

Oil prices drop as global warming rises: Suzuki

January 22, 2015Climate Change, EconomicsfeaturedDr. David Suzuki

Oil prices drop as global warming rises- Suzuki — Cheaper gas means more fill-ups at the pump

With oil prices plunging from more than $100 a barrel last summer to below $50 now, the consequences of a petro-fuelled economy are hitting home — especially in Alberta, where experts forecast a recession. The province’s projected budget surplus has turned into a $500-million deficit on top of a $12-billion debt, with predicted revenue losses of $11 billion or more over the next three or four years if prices stay low or continue to drop as expected.

Alberta’s government is talking about service reductions, public-sector wage and job cuts and even increased or new taxes on individuals. TD Bank says Canada as a whole can expect deficits over the next few years unless Ottawa takes money from its contingency fund.

Norway’s oil wealth cushions blow

It’s absurd that a lower price on a single commodity could have such a profound economic impact, but that’s what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket and fail to plan for such contingencies. With a population and oil-and-gas production profile similar to Alberta, Europe’s largest petroleum producer, Norway, is also feeling the impacts. But much higher taxes on industry, majority state ownership of the country’s largest oil-and-gas company and an approximately $900-billion sovereign wealth fund built from oil revenues are cushioning the fall.

Oilmart- Low, low prices! — By Lorne Craig

Lower oil prices = more driving

Some see low fuel prices as good news, but there are many downsides. With driving becoming less costly, more cars and trucks could be on the road, which is good for the auto industry but bad in terms of pollution, climate change and traffic accidents. And because the price of oil is now lower than the cost to extract oil sands bitumen, the industry is starting to put the brakes on rapid expansion plans — bad news for workers and businesses in Fort McMurray and those heavily invested in the industry but good news for the planet.

Most oil and gas must be left in the ground

Recent research shows most of Canada’s oil sands bitumen — as well as all Arctic oil and gas, most of Canada’s coal and some conventional oil and gas — must be left in the ground if the world is to avoid a global temperature increase of more than 2 C above pre-industrial levels, the internationally agreed-upon threshold for limiting catastrophic impacts of global warming. The report, by researchers at University College London’s Institute for Sustainable Resources and published in the journal Nature, concludes a third of the world’s oil reserves, half of gas reserves and more than 80 per cent of coal reserves must not be burned before 2050.

The study also found that carbon capture and storage, touted as one way to continue exploiting and burning fossil fuels, is too new, expensive and limited to make enough of a difference by 2050.

Study co-author Paul Ekins told National Geographic that putting hundreds of billions of dollars into fossil fuel exploration and development is “deeply irrational” economic behaviour. “What would be ideal,” he said, would be to “use the opportunity of this fall in the oil price to start instituting a global carbon tax, which would take some of the volatility out of the prices.” Removing fossil fuel subsidies would also help.

Hottest year on record…again

John Stone, a Canadian scientist and lead author on the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, told CBC the UCL study “is another wake-up call to snap us out of our denial of climate change.”

With 2014 confirmed as the hottest year on record, and 13 of the hottest 15 years having occurred since 2000, we can’t afford to ignore the consequences. According to researchers, the odds that natural variability is causing today’s climate change are less than one in 27 million!

It’s astounding that, in the face of such overwhelming evidence from scientists worldwide, people continue to deny the problem exists or that humans are responsible and can or should do anything about it.

Clean tech good for economy and environment

It’s especially irresponsible when energy conservation and cleaner fuel alternatives offer so many economic benefits, including job creation, greater stability and reduced health-care costs. As world leaders prepare for the UN climate summit later this year, we must look at the recent market meltdown as an opportunity to shift away from fossil fuels. It’ll be much easier and less costly to get on with it now than to wait until we’re left with few choices.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

READ “2015: Year of reckoning for Canada’s fossil fuel economy”

LNG shocker: Squamish rejects pipeline builder’s drilling permit

January 21, 2015Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersfeaturedDamien Gillis

LNG shocker- Squamish council rejects LNG pipeline builder's drilling permit — Squamish council rejects Fortis BC application for test drilling (Instagram/ Dan Prisk)

In a surprising show of municipal political power – even in a region that has demonstrated strong misgivings regarding proposed LNG development – Squamish council has rejected Fortis BC’s controversial permit application for test drilling in a Wildlife Management Area.

The vote came at Tuesday night’s council meeting, which revisited an earlier discussion regarding Fortis’ planned pipeline expansion to feed the Woodfibre LNG plant near Squamish, proposed by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto.

Plan gets bogged down in sensitive area

Woodfibre-LNG-offers-few-jobs-vs.-big-impacts--Retired-KPMG-partner — Proposed Woodfibre LNG plant

The application – which sought permits for drilling in a sensitive ecological area – stoked vocal opposition in the community when it was first debated by council 2 weeks ago. With close to 200 citizens packing the council chamber, the local government set its decision aside until this week’s meeting.

The Tuesday vote fell 4-3 against the plan, which would involve test drilling for a pipeline to be routed under the Squamish River, through an estuary and Wildlife Management Area (WMA). Council instructed representatives of gas pipeline operator Fortis to come back to it with a plan that avoids the estuary and WMA and doesn’t involve a compressor station being located in the middle of town. Such a route would likely need to involve building the pipeline around the north end of the community, which Fortis complained would be too costly, lengthy and challenging.

A strongly-worded letter from the Squamish First Nation objecting to the company’s proposal appears to have helped sway council.

Back to the drawing board

Despite the heavy attention the issue received during the recent municipal election – which saw an anti-LNG mayor defeat a sitting mayor who favoured the Woodfibre project – and strong opposition from local grassroots groups, the decision came as a surprise to many in attendance.

Retired KMPG partner and My Sea to Sky member Eoin Finn – a leading public critic of the project – predicts that Fortis will now have to withdraw its proposal from the Environmental Assessment process and start from scratch with a new version, “as Fortis had baked in the rejected routing in their application to the BCEAO.”

Local governments get involved

The move by Squamish council is just the latest example of a growing trend of municipal governments inserting themselves into the energy planning process around BC – from Burnaby and Vancouver’s strong stances on Kinder Morgan, to various councils that have stood against the proposed Enbridge pipeline, and a long list of Sunshine Coast and Howe Sound councils which have voted against the proposed Woodfibre project.

Why BC Hydro always overestimates future power demand: Economist

January 20, 2015Economics, Hydropower, WATERfeaturedErik Andersen

What BC Hydro says about its own work clearly establishes the forecast as a foundation document for future planning for new generation and distribution investments:

[quote]Load forecasting is central to BC Hydro’s long-term planning, medium-term investment, and short-term operational and forecasting activities. (1)[/quote]

Because of this importance, the forecast needs to be as accurate as possible and that is where matters get interesting.

Getting the numbers wrong

An illustration of getting the numbers wrong can be seen on page 21 of the 2012 Load Forecast: “Comparison of 2011 and 2012 Forecasts”. There is a forecasting error of about 4% in each year for the period 2013 through to 2032. BC Hydro discovered that it had projected total demand numbers in 2011 that it subsequently reduced 12 months later, by about 4% for each of the following 20 years.

Case in point for year 2017; the 2011 forecasted demand value was 4,219 GWhrs more than was presented in Forecast Year 2012, one year later. This amount of error is the equivalence of the projected annual output of the proposed Site C dam or $9 billion of borrowed money.

This is not a one-off event, just part of a pattern across the past decade. For example, from the 2007 Forecast, the demand value for 2012 was projected to be 57,201 GWhrs for the year. Actual reported sales, in GWhrs (2), were 52,197; 5,004 less than forecasted in 2007. This was a forecasting error of 9% for only 5 years on from its presentation.

Industrial power demand on the decline

By the 2012 Forecast BC Hydro was beginning to recognize that its previously held opinion of future demand was wrong. For example:

[quote]The residential forecast is below last year’s forecast for all years of the forecast due to lower housing starts and account projections, and lower loads anticipated from EVs…Industrial sales are projected to be lower than last year’s forecast.(3)[/quote]

This was a very belated recognition of a condition that was evident starting about 2007. Sales to large industrial customers had been steady at about 16,000 GWhrs per year in the first half of the decade, but certainly not increasing and thereby providing no supportive evidence of growth of demand for this customer category.

To no one’s surprise 2008 sales to large industrials was the start of a downward trend. In 2009 sales were 14,303 GWhrs, in 2010 13,020 GWhrs, where they have flat-lined right up to March of 2014 (last report available).

Commercial and light industrial too…

Regarding the sales outlook for the customer category “commercial and light industrial”, BC Hydro wrote: “Total commercial forecast is below the 2011 Forecast in the initial period of the forecast; this primarily reflects lower commercial distribution sales driven by slower growing economic drivers.”

What gives?

Now, dear reader, you might rightly ask yourself why has and does BC Hydro gets its forecasting wrong. The answer or answers are not so easy to discern but they are most likely because of using model entry data of poor quality, thereby compromising projections. For residential customers, the “forecast is the product of accounts and use per account. The account forecast is driven by projections of regional housing starts.”

For commercial customers, “The key drivers of these end-use models are regional economic variables (i.e., commercial output [Gross Domestic Product (GDP)]), employment, retail sales, and non-economic variables such as weather and average stock efficiency of the various end uses of electricity.” For large industrial customers:

[quote]GDP growth projections are used to develop the forecast. (4)[/quote]

Political science

Common to all customer categories is the forecast for Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is where BC Hydro loses control by taking the GDP outlook from the BC Ministry of Finance. The Government’s outlook on GDP has been consistently bullish, simply because its preparation has too large a political dimension. Government budget presentations universally project an increase for year two greater than for the upcoming year. To do otherwise would be a career-ending action.

Rising consumer costs = more conservation

As to the residential forecast it focuses on the outlook for meter installations. People are the consumers of electricity not addresses of meters. It was clear from the evidence presented at the hearing on the installation of the “smart meter” that one customer sometimes had multiple meters. In urban areas, where real estate prices have increased dramatically, population densification has been a trend, meaning that more than two people can often be behind one meter.

BC Hydro does prepare their forecasts being mindful of price elasticity. Yet resistance to higher rates, and ones destined to increase at accelerating rates, has possibly not been adequately appreciated by BC Hydro.

An additional driver used by BC Hydro when preparing the forecast of residential demand is “personal income”. There are two factors that degrade the use of personal income data. The first is the trend of exporting high-income, value-added jobs from the province. The second is the progressive increase in service fees and rates that shrink disposable incomes. Decreasing ridership on BC ferries is a good example of this dynamic.

Need for Site C unproven

There is no argument that BC Hydro has a history of wrongly exaggerating the outlook for electricity demand. This could be because some of the input data for its modeling are politically contaminated. The construction of Site C, a $9 billion matter using borrowed money, is not even close to having the support of a believable forecast of demand. The sloppy business case for this dam is a disgrace and an insult to the citizens of BC.

(1) BC Hydro Electric Load Forecast: 2012; page 7
(2) BC Hydro Annual Report for Fiscal 2012
(3) BC Hydro 2012 Load Forecast; page 11
(4) Ibid; page 8