A visualization of industrial impacts across Canada as of 2010 (Global Forest Watch)
A national study suggests that Alberta has disturbed more natural landscape than any other province.
The analysis by Global Forest Watch adds that Wild Rose Country also has two of the three areas in Canada where the rate of disturbance is the highest.
“There were at least three major hotspots, two in Alberta,” said report author Peter Lee.
The report (download here) combines government data, satellite imagery and cropland maps to look at human intrusions in the last decade into all major Canadian ecozones. Those disruptions included everything from roads to seismic lines to clearcuts to croplands.
“We took all the available credible data sets that we could find and combined them all,” said Lee. “We ended up with what we believe is the best available map of human footprint across Canada.”
Alberta leads in the amount of land disturbed at about 410,000 square kilometres. Almost two-thirds of the province — 62 per cent — has seen industrial or agricultural intrusion.
Saskatchewan, at 46 per cent, is second among the larger provinces. Quebec comes nearest in area with 347,000 square kilometres.
The Maritime provinces actually have the highest rate of disturbance. The human footprint in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia is 94, 85 and 72 per cent respectively of each province’s total area. But those provinces are so relatively small that the actual amount of disturbed land is dwarfed by totals elsewhere.
When Lee compared the current map to one developed about 10 years ago, he found two of three areas where the rate of development was highest were in Alberta as well — one was in the oilsands region; the other along the eastern slopes of the Rockies.
The third area is in a heavily logged part of northern Quebec. New intrusion in northeastern British Columbia, where there is extensive energy development, is almost as heavy.
Lee said development in the three top zones is pushing into previously untouched land at the rate of five to 10 kilometres a year.
The report’s calculations include a 500-metre buffer zone, which corresponds to the distance animals such as woodland caribou tend to keep between themselves and development.
Duncan MacDonnell of Alberta Environment said the government has plans to set aside about 20 per cent of the remaining boreal forest, which covers the northern third of the province.
That includes about 20,000 square kilometres in the oilsands region. MacDonnell said Alberta plans to eventually combine old and new protected areas to create the largest connected boreal conservation area in North America.
Those plans haven’t been implemented and all are the subject of controversy with area aboriginals.
MacDonnell said the province is developing land-use plans for the entire province which are intended to balance pressures on the landscape.
Representatives from the federal government were not available for comment.
Lee notes his findings come at a time when Canadian and provincial policies on development are being increasingly scrutinized, whether they involve forestry, energy or agriculture. He said this sort of basic, common-sense data-gathering should be done by Ottawa.
“It’s those sort of general questions that the person in the street asks,” said Lee. “Where are all the disturbances in Canada? Where are the pristine areas?
“This is a simple monitoring analysis that should be done and could very easily be done by the feds … (but) they’re not doing it.”
The wastewater is created when some of the chemical-laced water used to fracture thick underground rocks flows back out of the wellbore. The water is tainted with chemicals, toxins and in some parts of the country — such as Pennsylvania — naturally occurring radioactive materials, such as radium. Research has shown that even wastewater that had been treated with conventional means was changing the chemistry of rivers when discharged into waterways.
In 2011, Pennsylvania barred drillers from taking the wastewater to treatment facilities, forcing them to haul the fluid waste to be disposed in underground injection wells in Ohio. This, along with a lack of freshwater in other parts of the country needed to drill new wells, has scientists and the industry looking for creative solutions.
Mining waste and fracking radiation – an unlikely marriage
The discovery by Duke University researchers would allow oil and gas drillers to combine flowback waters from the fracking process with acid drainage from mining, or any other salty water. The solids that form, which include radioactive materials, are removed and dumped at a hazardous waste landfill, and then the now cleaner water is used to drill a new well, said Avner Vengosh, the Duke professor who oversaw the project, which included scientists from Dartmouth College and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
The metals and radium in the drilling wastewater automatically attract to sulfates — or salts, he explained.
“It’s a romance. It’s inevitable it will combine,” said Vengosh, a professor of geochemistry and water quality.
The research was primarily funded by Duke University, Vengosh said. One of the scientists had some funding from the National Science Foundation, he added.
Vengosh’s research was published in December in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, but still needs to be field tested, he said.
Finding solutions for safely dealing with contaminated water and having enough usable water to drill new wells is crucial for the oil and gas industry. It has booming in recent years due to new methods of hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — a method that uses millions of gallons of chemical-laced water to crack thick layers of underground rock so fossil fuels can flow out.
But as drilling spreads to more areas the industry has faced obstacles. In the gas-rich Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania, wastewater disposal is problematic. In drought-prone areas, such as Texas and California, drillers face a shortage of freshwater. As a result, the industry is seeking to recycle wastewater.
Vengosh’s researchers blended fracking wastewater from the Marcellus shale with acid drainage from mines, materials collected in western Pennsylvania by the industry. The researchers had hypothesized that the salts, metals and radium would combine so they could be removed as solids, leaving behind water clean enough to be used in another fracking operation, though not quite pure enough to be potable.
After two days, they examined the chemical and radioactive levels of the 26 different mixtures they had created and found that within the first 10 hours the metals — including iron, barium and strontium — and most of the radium had combined to form a new solid. The salinity of the remaining fluid had reduced enough to be used in fracking, Vengosh said.
“I’m not sure it resolves all the problems, but it can have some improvement,” Vengosh said.
Texas facing its own water issues from fracking
Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, which represents drillers in an oil-rich, desert-like area of West Texas, said maximizing water use is a top priority for the industry.
“Those of us who live, work and play near oil and gas activities place a premium on efficient water uses,” he said in an email.
But Tad Patzek, chairman and professor of the petroleum engineering department at the University of Texas in Austin, cautioned that the method could present problems in the field. The remaining water would still be jam-packed with chemicals and toxins, he noted.
“That water can get spilled,” Patzek said. “That water can get into a shallow aquifer. There are many other considerations.”
Still, freshwater and wastewater are such serious issues that Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, director of the University of Houston’s geosciences program, said researchers are seeking solutions on several fronts: by recycling flowback water, by creating ways to use less water to begin with or by using a liquid other than water to crack the rock.
Texas doesn’t have acid mine waste, an environmental threat to the Appalachian basin, to mix with the fracking fluids, but the method could be applied in the Lone Star state differently, Van Nieuwenhuise noted. The contaminated drilling water could be mixed with fluids from brine aquifers that are too salty to be used as drinking water, he said.
“This is novel. It’s a really neat idea,” he said, adding that solid waste is safer than liquid and the amount created in this process would be manageable.
It’s the latest in a long line of efforts by the Harper Government to dismantle Canada’s environmental laws in order to facilitate energy development. In a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the National Energy Board – quietly released just before Christmas – DFO relinquished much of its oversight of fish habitat in pipeline corridors.
The decision means that Enbridge and Kinder Morgan – which formally filed its own pipeline application on December 16, the same day the NEB memo was made public – will no longer need to obtain permits from DFO to alter habitat for their projects. “Fish and fish habitat along those pipelines is now the responsibility of the Alberta-based, energy friendly National Energy Board,” notes Robin Rowland of Northwest Energy News, who broke the story yesterday.
NEB takes point on fisheries, species at risk
Under the terms of the agreement, the NEB becomes the lead agency in determining issues that relate to the Species at Risk Actorthe Fisheries Act and, only involving DFO should they deem it necessary:
[quote]The NEB will assess a project application and determine if mitigation strategies are needed to reduce or prevent impacts to fish or fish habitat. If the project could result in serious harm for fish then the NEB will inform DFO that a Fisheries Act authorization under paragraph 35(2)(b) is likely to be required. DFO will review and issue an authorization when appropriate, prior to project construction. Authorizations issued by DFO would relate to those watercourses impacted, not the entire project.
This MOU better integrates the Government of Canada’s initiative to streamline application processes by eliminating the requirement for duplicate reviews.[/quote]
Asks Rowland, “Just how much expertise, if any, in fisheries and fish habitat can be found in the Calgary offices of the National Energy Board?”
First Nations consultation impacted
The memo – particularly the following passage – is likely also to provoke legal challenges from First Nations over the dimishing of their constitutional rights to consultation and accommodation:
[quote]When the Crown contemplates conduct that may adversely affect established or potential Aboriginal and treaty rights in relation to the issuance of authorizations under the Fisheries Act, and/or permits under SARA, the NEB application assessment process will be relied upon by DFO to the extent possible, to ensure Aboriginal groups are consulted as required, and where appropriate accommodated[/quote]
The move hardly comes as a surprise, given the gutting of the Fisheries Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act, and many other longstanding Canadian environmental laws in order to push forward the Conservative energy policy. Yet it is sure to provoke a serious backlash amongst British Columbians and First Nations as the ramifications of this quiet deal sink in.
CIBC VP and former Conservative Environment Minister Jim Prentice (image: youtube)
CALGARY – Former Conservative cabinet minister Jim Prentice is urging Canada and the United States to look beyond the contentious and high-profile Keystone XL oil pipeline when it comes to their trade relationship.
Prentice, now a senior executive at CIBC (TSX:CM), says “we must move beyond this distraction” and calls for a “bigger picture” and “longer term” focus.
In a speech in Calgary Thursday evening, Prentice reiterated his staunch support for the $5.4-billion project, which would enable oilsands crude to flow to Texas refineries, saying it’s in the national interest for both Canada and the United States.
Moving forward, Prentice says Canada and the U.S. must work on harmonizing national energy standards, instead of leaving it to a patchwork of state and municipal rules, many of which single out oilsands-derived fuels.
He also says the two countries should work together on environmental policies that are in their mutual interest and building the necessary infrastructure to export both oil and natural gas to international markets.
Typhoon Haiyan was a reminder in 2013 of the need for dramatic action on climate change
Platitudes are wholly incompatible with our present environmental situation on planet Earth, so saccharine pleasantries would be quite inappropriate to summarize the events of 2013. The natural world continues to be under ominous assault. The collective awareness of humanity and its political leadership has still not registered the urgency of the problem with enough clarity to effect the required changes in our behaviour. Global remedial action has been halting at best, leaving limited initiatives to be taken by communities, cities and a few countries. However heroic these efforts may be, they are insufficient to address the magnitude of the challenge.
If modern science is correct, the opportunity for avoiding critical ecological instability is rapidly shrinking — if it’s not already too late — and the pressure is building for corrective measures. So 2014 arrives with an anxious dread brought by a sense of impending inevitability, and a sense of frail hope inspired by remote possibility.
Hope and dread
The dread presently exceeds the hope because none of the major ecological problems facing the planet are being successfully addressed. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, so temperatures are increasing in tandem — albeit more slowly for unknown reasons — and ocean acidification worsens. Species extinction is in free-fall due to climate change, habitat loss and biological homogenization. Soil, water and forest resources are either threatened or in decline almost everywhere.
Shortages in oil and gas supplies has been alleviated by extensive fracking but this has exacerbated the carbon dioxide problem, abetted by increases in global coal consumption. Glaciers and ice sheets are melting so ocean levels continue to rise. Industrial ocean fisheries are still ravaging most of the world’s marine stocks while mercury toxicity contaminates the remaining large fish. Coral reefs are dying and oceanic dead zones are proliferating. The threatening health effects of chemical and plastic pollution have become ubiquitous. Climate change refugees are a new and growing challenge to social, economic and political stability. Even our world-wide financial system is showing signs of vulnerability.
The law of limits
Optimism is shrinking as we encounter complexities that seem beyond our character, resolve and ability to address. Yes, we are making notable advances in technology, biology, physics, medicine, communication and general knowledge. But these accomplishments are occurring with the dawning realization that we may have a fundamental defect in the structure of civilization itself, together with our inability to recognize, confront, accept or alter its course. As the momentum of global industrialization leaves nature in tatters, we have so far avoided a predicted collision with the law of limits. But a haunting and collective nervousness is beginning to emerge as our human population soars, as the speed of our technological and consumer enthusiasm spreads, and as the ominous wall of limits seems to loom closer.
Even an assessment of our social ecology is sobering. A economic philosophy continues to widen the gap between rich and poor, threatening the civic adhesives of justice, fairness and opportunity that keep societies contented and peaceful. Serious questions are being asked about the ability of free-market capitalism to function within the bounds of nature’s imperatives.
The folly of 2008’s gross financial irresponsibility in international monetary dealings continues to cause worldwide personal and collective strife. Constraining regulations have been vigorously resisted by financial institutions, underscoring the danger of combining human greed with unfettered financial markets as a viable model for managing humanity’s economic interests. And finally, global demographic changes are unsettling many social ecologies.
Increasing population, complexity
Humanity’s population continues to rise, although a few countries are now dealing with the social and economic problems posed by falling populations — a measure of the degree to which perpetual growth has been equated to our sense of progress. Adjusting to an eventually stable human population is going to be difficult enough; adjusting to unequal demographic changes among countries is going to be even more difficult.
Perhaps the most subtle, powerful and discernible development during 2013 has been the penetrating insights about our human character arising from sophisticated thinkers. They are now articulating their serious doubts about our ability to manage a civilization that is rising exponentially in complexity. Neuroscience has added considerably to our understanding of the individual and collective psychology that motivates and governs our behaviour. The indications are not reassuring. We are not, for example, as rational, pragmatic or foresighted as we like to think we are. Our confidence usually overshadows our competence. Our survival strategies as individuals are more evolved than they are as groups — this is why we have persisted as a species but most human civilizations have not.
Capacity for self-reflection
The high opinion we have of ourselves is constantly being lowered by the honesty of self-examination. Our relative status continues to decline as we learn of the other marvellous living creatures that are indispensable components of the incredible intricacy of life on Earth. If we are any more amazing than ants and elephants or mosses and lichen, if we have any uniquely commendable attributes, it would seem to be the range of our awareness and our capacity to be reflectively conscious.
If this is the case, then our abusive treatment of the miracle of a living Earth would be all the more abject, deprived and inexcusable, our squandering and pillaging of its treasures even worse than wanton. Our present behaviour not only diminishes the planet but it also diminishes us. As our tiny measure of time ticks off another year, we need to weigh our small gains and accomplishments against our great failings and losses.
Two distinct pieces of federal legislation govern activities in and on our rivers, lakes and coastal waters: 1) The Canada Shipping Act, concerning the waterway surface and the protection navigation rights; 2) The Fisheries Act, pertaining to protection of the marine habitat, below the surface of these same waters. But while they apply to the same waters, on and below the surface respectively, the two Acts do not connect. In other words, under the current legislative framework, one cannot impose restrictions on certain types of motorized boats based on their impacts on the marine habitat.
In effect, regardless of the variances in environmental and community challenges from one waterway to another, the legislative challenges are the same, leaving communities across Canada without the means to protect their respective local environments and community interests.
BC’s ecologically sensitive salmon rivers left unprotected
Over the past 3 decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of recreational boaters on BC’s waterways. Gone are the days when the only boat one would see was the occasional fisherman in his “tinny” with a small outboard motor.
Across the province, lakes and rivers, big and small, are now accessed by an increasing number of bigger, faster and much more powerful boats. Recreation in BC is big business. While the increased congestion on BC’s large lakes creates numerous safety concerns, it is on the smaller lakes and rivers that the harmful environmental effects are most evident.
Studies dating back to the 1950’s (Lagler et al) identified the harmful effects of boat-caused erosion and sedimentation on aquatic plants and animals. Lagler found that prolonged use of an outboard in 75 centimetre deep water, and a propeller 35 centimetres from the bottom, removed all plants and silt from a swath 1.5 metres wide. In the ensuing six decades, study after study in the US and Canada have indicated that operating a boat in water less than 2 metres deep damages the aquatic ecosystem.
The erosive effects of boat wakes are also well-documented. In studies too numerous to mention, boat wakes have been shown to cause shoreline erosion and disturbance to aquatic mammals and nesting waterfowl while boat noise chases waterfowl from their nests. These disturbances devour the birds’ scarce resources and can lead to a serious long-term decline in waterfowl.
BC is blessed with hundreds of salmon-bearing rivers and streams. Hundreds of thousands of salmon fry live suspended in these shallow waters before making their way to the Pacific Ocean. With the advent of jet boat technology, high-powered aluminium hulled boats can travel at high speeds in these extremely shallow and ecologically sensitive marine environments.
Powerful, modern “wake boats” are kicking up waves and protest
One BC boat manufacturer has a model called “Extreme Shallow” designed for “skinny water” fun and boasts it can operate in just 5 inches of water. The impellers of these jet boats can pump as much as 3000 to 4000 gallons of water a minute.
The result? Salmon fry, and the aquatic insects that are their food supply, are crushed or washed ashore by these powerful forces. Similar impacts are associated with other types of motorized watercraft that generate wakes in these highly environmentally fragile salmon-bearing rivers. Nevertheless, though all this evidence in studies dates back more than 60 years, communities remain powerless to do something about this in the absence of a modern legislative framework.
While Transport Canada’s safe boating guide states that a 10 kph speed should be observed if less than 30 metres from shore, these common-sense guidelines do not apply to our rivers, where the 30 metre rule would effectively restrict boats to a no-wake speed on most inland rivers and streams.
The Canada Shipping Act, administered by Transport Canada, ensures that there are no impediments to navigation and that marine transportation is conducted in a safe manner. Not only is the Act ill-suited and not intended for protection of the environment, but also Transport Canada requires that all non-regulatory options be explored before a municipality can proceed with a request for a regulatory solution. In this regard, Transport Canada strongly encourages communities to adopt a voluntary code of conduct with near 100% adherence. This latter requirement is a source of irresolvable conflicts across Canada because few communities can achieve the necessary level of voluntary support for the code of conduct to be effective.
Accordingly, municipal governments and community organizations across Canada have been unable or unwilling to tackle this issue, anticipating a complicated and potentially controversial process that can take years while, all too often, pitting neighbour against neighbour in what may seem like a never ending ordeal.
The second piece of legislation, the Fisheries Act, administered by Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was created in 1867 and remains one of Canada’s oldest existing pieces of legislation. While its mandate is to conserve and protect fisheries resources in all Canadian waterways by protecting the marine habitat, the current government has rendered the Act an empty shell, at the request of the pipeline industry.
Moreover, recent DFO enforcement changes include the reduction of DFO staffing to levels last seen in the 1980’s and the removal of the term “Habitat Management Program” from their organization and offices. DFO offices are being closed across the country and habitat protection staff are being laid off. The confluence of massive new industrial development and severe cuts to staff, can and will surely, harm habitat and fisheries of the future. There is no will presently within DFO to take the action required to protect our waterways from harm caused by recreational boats.
Suffice to say that: 1) neither of the two Acts were designed to address the current pressures that recreational boating poses for communities across the country; 2) the Fisheries Act is now so weakened that it has to be re-written, practically starting from the equivalent of a blank page; and 3) the two Acts must be linked in order to protect the marine habitat via restrictions on certain types of boating activity.
Will Dubitsky is a Quebec-based contributor to The Common Sense Canadian. Jean Clark is the Director of the Lower Shuswap Stewardship Society. Both are co-founders of the newly-formed Coalition for Responsible and Sustainable Navigation, which will work with communities across Canada to drive legislative protections for waterways from motorized boating.
Alexandre Paul upon his release from Russian prison on November 22 (AFP/Valdimir Baryshev)
MONTREAL – Even after getting arrested at gunpoint, spending two months in a Russian jail, and a third in limbo while awaiting his exit visa, Greenpeace activist Alexandre Paul says the protest was worth it.
In fact, the 35-year-old Montrealer doesn’t hesitate when asked whether he would do it again. Said Paul in an interview Friday at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport, shortly after arriving home:
[quote]Give me two weeks vacation and I’d go back out there (on another boat).[/quote]
Paul said the whole ordeal helped raise awareness about climate change and the effects of Arctic drilling.
The career activist, who worked on Greenpeace boats several times in the past, was among those arrested during a September protest against a Russian state-owned offshore drilling platform in the Arctic.
Paul and the other activists had their cases closed this week under a recent amnesty passed by the Russian parliament.
On Friday, Paul was greeted at the airport by his teary-eyed mother, his father, a small group of friends, and a swarm of reporters.
“I’m really, really happy to be back home,” Paul said, flanked by his mother Nicole and father Raymond.
[quote]It wasn’t the most joyous experience, I can tell you that. But every moment I spent behind bars was worth it.[/quote]
Second Canadian Arctic 30 member released
Fellow Canadian Paul Ruzycki, of Port Colborne, Ont., also arrived home on Friday, Greenpeace Canada said in a release.
Ruzycki declined interview requests, but said through Greenpeace that he’s “very happy to be back home in Canada.”
“I’ll be taking some private time now to be with my family and friends … and have that Christmas turkey dinner I missed,” Greenpeace quoted Ruzycki as saying.
Like something out of an action movie
Paul recalled the arrest as “a scary moment, something really out of an action movie,” with Russian authorities rappelling onto their ship from a hovering helicopter. They forced him and other Greenpeace members to their knees at gunpoint, he said.
Paul originally set out on a Greenpeace boat in mid-July and expected to be home by early autumn, only to end up spending two months in jail.
When Paul realized the piracy charges could carry a 15-year sentence, panic set in, he said.
“I realized my parents might not be around for that length of time,” he told a news conference at the airport.
The charge was later downgraded to hooliganism.
Kremlin brushing up images before Games?
The decision to grant the activists amnesty has been seen by many as part of an attempt by the Kremlin to dampen criticism of Russia’s human rights record ahead of the Games.
Paul told the news conference he appreciated the support he received during his experience and said he was treated well in jail.
Paul: Harper Government did nothing to help Arctic 30
He thanked Canadian consular officials for helping him keep in touch with his family as well as bringing him books.
But he had harsh words for the federal government.
Asked what he thought about Canada’s intervention in helping him return home, Paul replied: “What intervention? That’s my question.
“I was a bit disappointed, but it’s time to move on. We know that in Canada we have a government that’s been put there by the petroleum industry. That’s known.
“But the word I’d use to describe the involvement of Mr. Baird or the entire federal government would be ‘disappointed, really disappointed’.”
MONTREAL – Editors and news directors across the country have selected the Lac-Megantic train derailment as Canada’s News Story of the Year, garnering 30.6% of the vote – ahead of Senate expenses and the Rob Ford scandal, which drew 24.2% and 22.6%, respectively.
The following are select quotes from news editors across the country on the Lac-Megantic story:
LAC-MEGANTIC, Que. – Quotes from news directors and editors who chose the Lac-Megantic train derailment as Canada’s News Story of the Year for 2013 in the annual poll of news organizations by The Canadian Press:
[quote]When a train roars into a small community’s downtown and the subsequent derailment kills nearly 50 people and destroys more than 30 buildings, it’s a tragedy of massive proportion.[/quote]
— Perry Bergson, managing editor, Prince Albert Daily Herald
— — —
[quote]A major catastrophe that should never have happened and which has propelled discussions of rail safety and the safety of transporting our top export — crude.[/quote]
— Ian Shelton, deputy editor, iPolitics
— — —
[quote]Considering the scale of loss and the many ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ that made it that much more compelling, the Lac-Megantic tragedy seems the clear choice for news story of the year.[/quote]
— Leo Pare, news and new media editor, Red Deer Advocate
— — —
[quote]The impact of the freight train cars exploding in Lac-Megantic was a tragic and dramatic story all on its own — the trusted railway destroying the core of the small tourist town. But it’s the breadth of the fallout from the disaster that makes it the news story of the year, with questions raised about railway safety; about the transport of dangerous goods; about how uninformed municipalities are about what passes through their backyards; about U.S. vs Canadian regulations. And then there’s the ongoing human story of dignity, heartbreak, trauma, guilt, and efforts to rebuild.[/quote]
— Catherine Wallace, managing editor, Montreal Gazette
— — —
[quote]There are so many ramifications which could could come out of this pipeline versus rail transit of oil rail safety issues and oversight by governments…plus the impact on a small town…which will need millions to rebuild.[/quote]
— George Gall, news sports director, Country 105 CKQM; Energy 99-7 CKPT; 91-9 BOB; CKLY
— — —
[quote]The Lac-Megantic disaster was one which caused everyone who lives in a small Canadian city or town that has freight trains rumbling through it stop and ponder — ‘that could happen to me some day.’ From the shear enormity of the death, destruction and upheaval for a small community’s way of life, to the shaken trust we all have in our rail safety laws, Lac-Megantic will likely become a red-letter day in the world of railway safety going forward.[/quote]
— Murray Guy, assistant managing editor for Times & Transcript (Moncton), Brunswick News
— — —
[quote]Events like the train disaster are not supposed to happen in Canada, but when they do they raise serious questions about the safety of our rail system and just what chemicals are being transported through hundreds of unknowing communities from one end of the country to the other.[/quote]
[quote]For residents of many small towns in Canada where the railway often runs through the middle of the community, the story was chilling; a runaway train runs off the rails and explodes, causing destruction to everything in its path. It hits close to home, what happened in Lac-Megantic could have happened in their town. It’s a stark reminder of the hazardous cargo that is travelling through these small communities, with the public largely unaware of the potential danger. It should be a wake-up call for all of us.[/quote]
— Ken Kingston, news director, CJFX-FM (989XFM)
— — —
[quote]Disasters don’t get any bigger. A human tragedy with a lot of political and policy implications going forward.[/quote]
— Adrienne Tanner, deputy editor, Vancouver Sun
— — —
[quote]No story tore at my heart, or had such clear public policy ramifications, as the tragedy in Lac-Megantic.[/quote]
— Chris Hannay, online politics editor, Globe and Mail
— — —
[quote]A tragic rail disaster that has called in to question so many things. Government oversight of transportation, labour cutbacks versus safety concerns, environmental issues concerning the Bakken oil fields…even Quebec versus the rest of Canada in terms of disaster relief and compassion.[/quote]
— David Hughes, executive producer, CTV National News
— — —
[quote]Made everyone feel vulnerable. Could have happened anywhere. So many helpless were killed suddenly, tragically.
[/quote]
— Frank De Palma, newsroom director, The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax
— — —
[quote]A devastated downtown, 47 victims, a terrible fire, an unparalleled environmental disaster for Quebec and the discovery of laxness in the monitoring of train transport.[/quote]
— Maurice Cloutier, editor-in-chief, Sherbrooke La Tribune
— — —
[quote]With its sheer magnitude, the Lac-Megantic explosion stood out in 2013 for many reasons. This human, social, environmental and government drama captured the imagination of Quebecers and Canadians alike while making news pretty much all over the world.[/quote]
— Pierre Champoux, news director, Radio-Canada.ca
— — —
[quote]This tragedy stunned the entire country. It led to people becoming aware of the risks involved in transporting oil by train and of the poor condition of the rail network. These topics resonated in Ottawa.[/quote]
— Eric Aussant, managing editor, Metro newspaper in Montreal
— — —
[quote]Hugely spectacular, but especially in terms of safety for places where trains carry dangerou materials. The federal government reviewed its regulations.[/quote]
— Denis Bouchard, managing editor and deputy publisher, Chicoutimi Le Quotidien
— — —
[quote]The Lac-Megantic tragedy is an unprecedented environmental, economic and humanitarian disaster.[/quote]
— Francois Beaudoin, managing editor, Granby Voix de l’Est
The Friday night trash dump is a well-known trick of governments looking to dispense with bad news as quietly as possible. Controversial announcements are made in the last hour of the last day of the week to avoid public scrutiny.
This year, the holiday season has served the same role, only on a much grander scale, with multiple environmental hearings and major resource project announcements occurring at the time of year citizens and media are least able to engage with them. The list is truly breathtaking – here are just a few of the presents we got in our stocking this December:
BC Hydro scheduled the public hearings for the $10 Billion Site C Dam over the holidays, and only in northern BC, deliberately limiting participation from the general public – even though they will pay dearly for the project if it proceeds. Making matters worse, Site C is not for the public – rather it is to help power the enormously energy-intensive, proposed LNG industry in BC.
Port Metro Vancouver conducted its public comment period over the highly controversial, proposed Surrey Fraser Docks coal handling facility. The Port received some 3,500 submissions – all but 6 of them speaking against the plan – yet, it shows no real signs of listening to the public and experts, choosing instead to downplay the overwhelmingly negative response in its post-review comments last week.
The litany of such announcements and hearings makes it clear this is more than just a coincidence. It demonstrates a blatant disregard for the public interest in these hugely formative decisions for the future of our health, environment and economy.
If this bunch of Scrooges really believed in the value of their projects, they wouldn’t feel the need to hide them between office parties, holiday baking and eggnog with the family.
Yet, in all these cases, there is no real burden of proof on project proponents to demonstrate the value of their economic arguments. “The economy” means many things to many people and groups within society – not to mention regions around the globe – as it means something very different in the short-term versus the long. And there is often just as much evidence that these projects are harmful to another segment of our economy.
Whose ‘economy’?
In short, “the economy”, according to Enbridge or the NEB or the Harper Government is more accurately described as “the economy as they see it”. It’s their economy. And in today’s regulatory landscape, it’s sufficient simply to say that a project is good – even necessary – for the economy, and Bob’s your uncle.
That, in a nutshell, is the attitude of governments and regulators in todays’s Canada.
But let us put some of these assertions to the test.
Enbridge paints false picture of economic benefits
With Enbridge, the central premise is that, because international oil markets typically pay a higher price than the domestic West Texas Intermediate exchange, Canadian producers are land-locked and stuck getting a lower value for their product than they merit. The Western Canadian Select discount on Tar Sands products, taking into account the lower quality and higher processing costs of bitumen, adds further insult to injury, we’re told. If only Canada could reach out to new markets, we’d see hundreds of billions of dollars of added value gush into the Canadian economy (only bitumen doesn’t gush, it oozes).
Yet throughout the Enbridge hearing, we heard compelling evidence about the economic risks associated with this bitumen export strategy. Independent economist and former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan has written extensively about the dangers of banking our economic future on this plan, while cautioning that the job claims made by Enbridge are wildly exaggerated.
[quote]As an economist, I am troubled by continued attempts by Enbridge to misrepresent the facts of this project…Enbridge executive Janet Holder claimed, ‘The Northern Gateway pipeline represents a $6.5-billion investment in our economy. It will create 3,000 jobs during construction and 560 permanent British Columbia jobs.’ This is just not true…Digging deeper into Enbridge’s own analysis reveals that construction jobs from Northern Gateway are just over 1,000.[/quote]
As for permanent jobs, Allan continues, “Only 78 jobs are related to the actual project.”
There is the well-documented issue of the Dutch Disease – the concept that in hitching one’s economy to the oil and gas industry results in an inflated dollar, which in turn hollows out other industries like our manufacturing sector. The topic, especially when raised by Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair, has produced a flurry of denials, demonstrating the danger it poses to the status quo.
This is more than some fringe theory – it is widely-acknowledged by such pillars of the global financial community as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which concurs Canada suffers from this financial affliction.
Yet, Enbridge went as far as arguing at the hearings that the fate of Canada’s entire economy hinged on the success of its project. Company counsel Richard Neufeld made the laughable claim to the Joint Review Panel that if Northern Gateway were rejected, ”Canada would be facing, we submit, an economic catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.” What’s not so funny is that the JRP bought it, hook, line and sinker.
Economic risks posed by Enbridge
Then there are the relative lack of economic benefits versus the huge risks to BC’s economy from the pipeline. Premier Christy Clark included a “what’s in it for BC” clause in her famous 5 conditions for Enbridge. To date, nothing has been done to meet this criteria. Moreover, changes in Canada’s immigration laws are designed to ensure a steady stream of foreign temporary workers building these projects – at a 15% discount over Canadian labourers for doing the same job.
BC’s billion-dollar sport fishing industry is threatened by tanker traffic
The cornerstone of BC’s economy today is tourism – a $13.4 Billion industry based on our “Supernatural BC” brand, which is severely threatened by the very real risk of an oil spill.
On that note, the risk factor from the proposed pipeline and tankers was virtually ignored in the NEB’s review of Northern Gateway – this despite the concerns of professional fossil fuel port and shipping engineers who intervened with detailed concerns regarding the tanker component of the proposal. In their professional opinion, the risks are too great, the math too faulty, the questions too many – despite the panel’s downplaying of these concerns.
The economic myths of fracking and LNG
The same pattern of economic arguments without evidence repeats itself throughout the resource sector today.
According to leading unconventional energy expert David Hughes – a 32-year senior geoscientist for the Geological survey of Canada and leader of its national Unconventional Gas Potential Review – America’s fracking boom is quickly going bust. Hughes analyzed actual wellhead data across the five biggest US shale gas plays – accounting for 80% of total national production – and found that the average decline rate of these wells over 3 years is a staggering 84%. That means that in 3 years, a well is pretty much tapped out.
Hughes predicts that in order for America’s shale gas production to remain flat – not grow, or supply new markets – it would require 7,000 new wells every year, at a cost of $42 billion. This is what Thomas Homer-Dixon has aptly labelled “fracking to stand still” – the title of a recent Globe and Mail editorial on the subject.
So is fracking an economic miracle or a fantasy with nightmarish consequences? And even if the economic myth were true, would it justify all those holes in the ground, all that carbon in the atmosphere, all the spoiled water?
Many holes in LNG’s sinking ship
As for LNG, there are myriad reasons why the current gold rush will not pan out – at least not for regular British Columbians. For starters, while the BC Liberal government promises tens of billions in provincial revenues, out of the other side of their mouth they talk of slashing royalties and amping up public subsidies in order to woo foreign investors. In the end, the government cannot have its cake and eat it too.
Meanwhile, as to the entire premise for LNG – that BC producers will fetch a higher price in Asia with this gas (echoing Enbridge’s argument) – Bloomberg predicts a 60% decline in the Asian price by 2020, the very year we’re supposed to first enter the market. That would amount to a $6 million loss per tanker!
Again, how does this benefit our economy? If the oil and gas industry requires massive public subsidies to make its projects worthwhile than how solid is their economic foundation to begin with? And what about the economic value of farmland – not to mention its necessity to our survival?
You can’t eat money
In 2011, in defense of port expansion projects atop the province’s best farmland, Port Metro Vancouver CEO Robin Sylvester actually stated:
[quote]Agriculture is emotionally important, but economically [of ] relatively low importance to the Lower Mainland.[/quote]
BC’s agricultural land faces extreme pressure from development
And yet, the year prior to that statement, agriculture yielded $2.65 Billion for BC’s economy (that’s legal agriculture alone), with $728 million coming from the Lower Mainland – compared with $180 million in revenues for the port authority.
Also in BC, there has been great concern about the impacts of open-net-pen salmon farms on wild fish and the marine environment. We’re told that the industry is essential because of all the economic benefits it provides. And yet, the entire aquaculture industry in BC provides just 1,700 direct jobs, with about 800 coming from salmon farming. Meanwhile, being over 90% Norwegian-owned, the lion’s share of the industry’s profits flow out of the province.
Of course, these decisions should not be solely about “the economy”. One would hope, if our species has any chance of survival in an era of climate change, we would somehow move past this argument that the economy trumps all. But if we’re going to talk about the economy, then let’s have an honest, factual, holistic debate about the economic advantages and trade-offs of a given industry or project.
