Tag Archives: Water and Energy

Wind Farms In Pacific Northwest May Shut Down Due To Power Surplus

WATER
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From Huffington Post – May 13, 2011

by Tim Fought

PORTLAND, Ore. — The manager of most of the electricity in the
Pacific Northwest is running such a surplus of power from hydroelectric
dams that it put wind farms on notice Friday that they may be shut down
as early as this weekend.

The Bonneville Power Administration has more than enough electricity
during a cold, wet spring that has created a big surge in river flows
where hydroelectric dams are located. The agency responded by announcing
its intentions to curtail wind power until the grid has more capacity,
in a move likely to cost the industry millions of dollars.

The decision reflects an overlooked issue amid the push to
add wind farms around the country: The capacity of power grids has not
kept pace.

How soon and low long wind farms might be shut down depends on how
quickly the region warms up and the water shoots downriver to the
Pacific Ocean, said Steven Wright, administrator of the BPA. The farms
that would be shut down are mostly in Washington and Oregon.

The main culprit for the wind slowdown is spring weather that
followed a winter with heavy snow in the mountains feeding the Columbia
River basin. The spring surge is expected to be the largest since 1997.

When water levels are this high, the agency said, it has no choice
but to use the water to generate electricity in hydroelectric dams. Laws
protecting endangered species prevent it from sending all the excess
water through spillways and around the dams. That beats up salmon and
steelhead. It also creates so much nitrogen gas bubbling in the water
that the fish get the equivalent of the bends.

Grid operators say they have run out of capability to sell the
surplus electricity, store the water or shut down gas, oil, and nuclear
plants – leaving wind farms the unfortunate victim.

The financing of many wind farms relies on tax credits that are of
benefit only if electricity is produced. And the decision could set the
stage for even more significant fights in the years to come if the
Northwest wind industry doubles its capacity, as projected, over the
next decade.

Major wind interests, including mainstream utilities such as Portland
General Electric, have opposed the BPA’s proposal and are suggesting
lawsuits are next. The utility says the move could violate antitrust and
market manipulation laws.

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Growth: Time to Remove its Halo

Climate Change, WATER, , , ,
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“No belief in industrial society is so pervasive and so essential to it as ‘progress’ defined in terms of economic growth. It sustains faith in the industrial system and reinforces the hope among the poor that they may also ‘strike it rich'”. – From Ark II by Dennis Pirages and Paul Ehrlich, 1974.

INTRODUCTION

Many years ago, the ecologist Paul Anderson wrote “The ecological childhood of man is over, and it has ended without ecological wisdom.” For the primary socio-political interests that control our society this, sadly, is still true. Ecological wisdom is more than understanding ecology. It implies understanding both what we are doing in “nature”, and what the consequences of our “doing” may be.

I have reached my own “ecological wisdom”, as it stands now, from decades of work in research, university teaching, and resource management. Such information is for the purpose of self introduction to help readers understand the basis of my perspective.

After 60 years of such experience I am inclined to look back a long way – clear back to my early life. By the same token, I find myself looking far ahead – at the future of my grandchildren, at the future of other grandchildren. This thinking, and the uneasiness it brings, is more than reminiscence about the past or casual thoughts regarding the future. It is a deep concern driven by the massive changes that I have seen, and see, coming in the world around us.  It is driven, in one of its dimensions, by the problems that I see in fisheries, my professional discipline.

Around the planet, across North America, and more particularly for this discussion, in B.C., we can witness an endless parade of growth-driven building and “development” projects. On the surface, the process is driven onward by the need for more jobs – jobs for more and more people, but less spoken of, profit and growth for business. The insatiable growth process is circular, there is no “end game”.  More people, need for more jobs, use of more resources and space, then more people yet, need for still more jobs, urgency to find more resources – around and around it goes.  In many respects this circular syndrome has come to define our culture. In one form or another it has come to define most human cultures. In its present scale, it has come to stress ecosystems at all levels.

We still have some chance to do far better in some parts of the world.  The time has come to change direction. Bigger, faster, and more are no longer better.

GLOBALLY – AN EARTH UNDER STRESS

Global ecosystems are under stress from our activities, demands, and impacts. Wherever we look, be it forests, soils, fish populations, water supply, or biodiversity, damage and overuse goes on and expands. The scale of stresses and risks as well is understood and has been spelled out by many authors.

In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report was released. It involved the work of an enormous number of people and organizations. It was designed to assess the consequences of ecosystem change, and to establish a scientific basis for actions to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their contributions to human well-being. The following are examples from among major findings:

  • Approximately 60%, 15 out of 24, ecosystem services evaluated in the assessment are degraded or are being used unsustainably. Most of this had developed in the past 50 years.
  • 20 % of the world’s major coral reefs have been lost, 20% more have been degraded.
  • 60% of the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (at 376 ppm in 2003) has taken place since 1959.
  • Humans have changed, to a significant extent irreversibly, the diversity of life on earth.
  • Many of the great fisheries of the world are already lost or are in danger of loss in the next few decades.

Much of the following part of my discussion is based on fisheries issues because of my education and experience. However, the challenging elements of human behavior involved transcend fisheries issues.

GLOBALLY – FISHERIES IN TROUBLE

In many regards the situation with fisheries is emblematic of a wider human dilemma. Many, if not most, of the fisheries of the world are in trouble. Among many of them sustainability hangs in the balance or is already lost. This damage to most fisheries has been done by people and fishing, driven in the end by our ever increasing numbers and collective appetites for food and profit.  Damage to some fishery resources is not exclusively from overuse.

In some instances the use of one resource has compromised the existence of another. In doing research for the book Fishes and Forestry – Worldwide Watershed Interactions and Management, edited by Northcote and Hartman, it was found that expanding forestry activities had damaged fish habitat and populations at a time before people cared or thought about it. Such damage carried on years after people did know about it. Although our book dealt with forestry effects, it is likely that similar books could be written about impacts on fish populations from mining, agriculture, urban expansion, or other human activities.

Beyond the effects of environmental impacts, growth in fishing, particularly for marine species, has put such resources in jeopardy. In an article in Nature, Aug. 8, Vol. 418, Daniel Pauly and co-authors showed that total catch of invertebrates, groundfish, and pelagic fish rose from about 20 million tons in 1950 to about 80 million tons in 1988. It fell to about 70 million tons by 1999. However, catch data do not tell the whole story. The composition of the total catch has changed through “fishing down”. In “fishing down”, the fishery over time takes a progressively higher fraction of the catch from species that are lower in the food chain.

B.C. – LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD

In the B.C. salmon fisheries the pressures on the fish are double-barreled. We catch too many of them, and concurrently, we degrade their environment through growth in industry, housing, waste disposal, and resource extraction. Viewed in such a context, salmon in the Fraser River, and indeed in other major rivers face a very uncertain future.

The issues go beyond those of run forecast and allocation, which are regularly in the news. The Fraser River system is under the stress of a configuration of impacts and ongoing growth-driven change. In a chapter in the book Sustainable Fisheries Management – Pacific Salmon, Drs. Northcote, Groot and I listed twelve environmental impacts, including Alcan’s diversion, that endanger salmon runs in the river. Many of these impacts may well occur at low levels of effect, however, collectively they pose a threat.

Effective response to such threats, especially those which may have subtle effects, is difficult without well developed monitoring and assessment. The combinations of impacts that cause the threats may be different for different salmon populations depending on where and when they migrate. The research on cumulative effects, as they may be manifested for different populations in the Fraser River system, has not been done.

Concerned citizens and thoughtful managers do understand some of the “high point” impairments to salmon populations in the system. They recognize some of the most problematic impact sources. The issues and the conflicts involved in “high profile” problems may, however, divert attention from the complexes of current environmental issues and from the heavy duty impacts of long-term macro changes in the environment. The risks exist at two levels.

RISKS AT TWO LEVELS

Fisheries resources, at levels from local to global, are put in jeopardy by competitive fishing and overuse in the short term, and by macro changes in an array of environmental conditions in the long term.  Human population size is a pervasive element among the latter. In this regard, it is an interesting and indeed almost a hallmark of my profession, that most biologists struggle hard with issues of “allocation” and “management”, but stand aloof from discussing growth in human numbers as it contributes to fisheries failures. The book Salmon 2100 – the Future of Wild Pacific Salmon by Lackey et al is a notable exception.

Some fisheries can change quickly under the pressure to feed a rapidly increasing human population. I worked in Malawi, Africa, for 2 years on fisheries and environmental projects. In the short course of 3 decades (1960s to 1990s), during which the Malawi population came close to doubling, the fish stocks of the southern end of the lake were over-used and the size range of species captured decreased dramatically. Fish populations along the narrow fishing zones in the mid- and upper lake became over exploited and changed somewhat more slowly. It was acceptable for Malawian managers to search for ways to catch more fish, however, it was not acceptable for them to discuss the impacts of a population that doubled in 30 years or less.

In B.C. and the Pacific Northwest states, population growth will, potentially, play an enormous role in determining the long-term future of salmon. If the current average annual human population growth of the last half of the 20th century (1.9%) continues, Lackey et al. predict that numbers in the Pacific Northwest will reach about 85 million by 2100. I present these numbers not so much as something of certainty, but rather to indicate that if we look into the long-term future, salmon in systems such as the Fraser River face a very problematic future.

Much of BC’s share of future growth will occur in the lower Fraser River basin from Hope to Vancouver with more water pollution, more gravel removal, more roads, more water removal, more subdivisions, etc.  Ongoing climate change, expansion of human population, and “development” will be the primary determinants that will shape the freshwater environmental future for the diverse Pacific salmon stocks in the Fraser River system.

A long-term strategy, involving research and related management responses which are scaled to the magnitude of the issues, must be developed for salmon populations of the southern half of B.C.  Such research must deal with the implications of expanding human populations and related development and infrastructure.

The rapid growth of human numbers, beyond “sustainability”, is the pervasive element in fisheries management whether in the Fraser River system or other parts of the world. It is the pervasive element in most ecological issues that face society(ies).  Whether it is in fishery matters in the Fraser River, fisheries issues around the globe or other some other resource-related concern,  biologists must put problems of human population growth, and its unending imbalance, into the “equation”.

TO THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS – CHALLENGE THE GROWTH ETHIC

It is the reality of our times that we must question not only the specifics of each resource use issue and each “development” issue of our time, but also the societal context in which it occurs. Over the past 30 years or more, I have witnessed cases in which people, who were concerned about the environment, questioned or opposed activities that ranged from small to large, and from moderate to heavy in impact.

We have not, however, questioned well the direction or the “end game” along which each step in the growth/development process takes us further. The numbers should wake us up. The UN medium growth projection has human numbers peaking at about 9.3 billion – 3 billion more than now. The US growth projection is for about 420 million by 2050. The Canadian projection is for about 42 million.  Based on growth rate from 1950 to 2000, B.C. will have a population of 8 million or more.

The question that we “environmentalists” must ask in regard to these kinds of trends is, “Where does the process take us?” Do we wait, passively, until the growth process takes the planet to the 9 billion plus mark?   Do we grow until nature says “Stop,” as it surely will, or do we begin an active discussion of the processes that envelope us? These are the issues. These are the questions that should be asked in every political campaign in which our “leaders”, perhaps in ignorance, take us one increment further along the road to greater environmental risks.

Such questions and issues must begin to be part of every discussion and every hearing as additional “development” projects come before society. The fact that project review formats and terms of reference may not openly permit such discussion, in this day and age, can only serve to emphasize their ultimate limitations.

REACHING FOR A HIGHER RUNG ON THE LADDER

To a large degree it is the political process that reflects the direction of a society. In a deeper sense this process reflects our relationship to our environment and to nature. The political discussion that we have heard is one in which the core of the debate is about the “individual” as opposed to the “collective”.  As such, these two perspectives are both about how we use the planet and about how nature may serve our species. It is in this context that we presently try to “write the rules.” A look at the conditions around us tell us that now such “rules” of societal operation are short-sighted. Too many people in our society live with their eyes on the stock market and their hands on their wallets. The environment is an abstraction “somewhere outside.”

My sense of the situation is that we are at a “break-point” at which the “political” context must also reflect rules of nature that are common to all species. Such a transition would reflect intellectual process as much as political doctrine. It would reflect, in the fullest sense, that we cannot “grow forever.” It would also reflect that “all things are interconnected in nature.” The Nuu–Chah-Nulth people on the west coast of Vancouver Island embraced this concept long ago in their expression, “hishuk ish ts’awalk.”

Historically, people have made positive transitional leaps in regard to some things in society, in particular, how they should operate and govern themselves. I think that we are due for another step. I believe that it is time that we recognized nature as a partner and a regulator rather than as a servant and a collection of resources. This idea is an abstraction on one hand, but a powerful reality on the other. In its fullest sense, the concept has no home in any present political organization. It is a concept based on perceived relationships rather than how we gain and own material wealth.  As such it may be elusive, and making it work would require new dimensions to our thinking and social depth. However, the consequences of failure to reach for and attain it, because we opt for “business as usual”, may be disruptive and dangerous.

My last hope is that it is not already too late.

G. F. Hartman, Ph.D.

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Civil Disobedience in the Offing to Protect BC’s Environment

Energy and Resources, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATER, , ,
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One is not supposed to anticipate lawbreaking, much less say that one will participate. Interesting that as I write this, it is the 71st anniversary of Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister of Britain. I claim no resemblance to the great man – I only say that I learned from him that candour is the only sensible, and indeed honest, way to deal with problems.
 
I must tell you, then, that there will be civil disobedience all over the province if the governments proceed with BC’s Fish Farm Policy and its Energy Plan and, with federal blessing, with the pipelines and tankers taking the bitumen from the Tar Sands over BC’s wilderness and down our coast in tankers.
 
Let me set forth the problems about which I intend to be candid:

  1. Our wild salmon are in extreme danger and much of that danger comes from salmon farms with the profits going overseas. Closed containment is rejected by the farmers as being too expensive. Think on that. What they’re clearly saying is “in order to run our business we need British Columbians to absorb the cost of going to closed containment!” They say, plainly, that the cost to BC must be your environment and your wild salmon.
  2. Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are ruining our rivers with their dams, roads and transmission lines.
  3. BC Hydro, on direct orders from the Liberal government must make sweetheart deals with these IPPs by which they must pay them more than double what Hydro (through their export arm Powerex) can sell it for – or use it themselves instead at 9-12 times what BC Hydro can make the power for themselves.
  4. IPP power is produced during the run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need the power and thus must accept this private power at a huge loss.
  5.  Because of the foregoing BC Hydro must pay IPPs, over the next 20-40 years over $50 Billion – rising with each contract – for power they don’t need. (When the Clark government says we need IPP power to make BC self sufficient they are lying through their teeth).
  6. Virtually none of the IPP profits stay in  BC and the jobs, after construction – mostly from outside the communities where the projects are built – are custodial only.
  7. Both the federal and BC governments support Enbridge building two 1000+ km pipelines from the Tar Sands to Kitimat, one for bringing the bitumen (i.e. Tar Sands gunk) to Kitimat, the second to take the natural gas derivative that is mixed with the bitumen so it is sufficiently liquefied to pass through the pipeline, back to Alberta. Because there is no timeline involved, a burst pipe is not a risk but a certainty.
  8. Kinder-Morgan, who owns the existing bitumen pipeline from the Tar Sands to the the Burrard Inlet near Vancouver, wants to more than double its capacity – meaning a dramatic increase in supertankers carrying bitumen right by Vancouver, the Gulf Islands, and Victoria.
  9. When (not if) a pipeline bursts there is nothing Enbridge or Kinder-Morgan can do except shut off the supply with all the gunk already in the pipeline going onto the lands and creeks it passes. One can readily see that every second after a rupture, the spill will be aggravated. Enbridge’s record in these matters is appalling – their dumping of bitumen last summer into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan being but one example.
  10. These pipelines pass through some of the last wilderness left in the world and there is no way tEnbridge can patrol over 1000 km of pipe in this wilderness and even if they did, nothing can be done about the bitumen in the pipes for days or longer if there’s a rupture.
  11. The Federal and Provincial governments have already agreed to approve huge tankers taking the bitumen down the BC coast – probably the most dangerous coast in the world and, again, it’s not a risk of loss and catastrophic consequences but a certainty we’re dealing with. Prime Minister Harper compares this coastline with the Atlantic coast or the Great Lakes!
  12. Finally, I feel compelled to mention that I learned recently the BC Liberal government is quietly designing a wolf “management” (read “slaughter”) plan that will likely sanction, among other horrors, the killing of wolves from helicopters under the pretense of protecting caribou populations. I dealt with this crap when I was Environment Minister in 1979, instituting a ban on the slaughter of wolves; clearly the forces in favour of this arcane practice never let up.

Here is the kicker: The public has virtually no say as to whether or not these projects will proceed.
 
The only public input permitted is the right to go to the environmental assessment process which comes after the decision to go ahead has been made, and then only to make suggestions about environmental rules to be followed.
 
Here’s what I said earlier: “I must tell you, then, that there will be civil disobedience all over the province if the governments proceed with BC’s Fish Farm Policy and its Energy Plan and, with federal blessing, with the pipelines and tankers taking the bitumen from the Tar Sands over BC’s wilderness and down our coast in tankers.”
 
Now let me pose this question: Is there any way these projects can be stopped without people picketing and going to jail?
 
And whose fault will that be – The Cassandra who predicts what will happen or the governments which not only permit but actively support the environmental crimes, and bankruptcy of BC Hydro, brought on knowingly and heedlessly by these governments?

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

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

by Gordon Hamilton

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nobody from BC Hydro was available for comment on Sunday.

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

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From The Gulf Islands Driftwood – May 5, 2011

by David Denning

Special to the Driftwood

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The event is sponsored by the Salt Spring Island Conservancy.

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Not a Good Night for BC’s Environment

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

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

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

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Minority Govt. & Strategic Voting to Save BC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s look at what BC needs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Marv Everett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

M.J. (Marv) Everett, Retired,

Campbell River

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Vancouver Sun: Abandon goal of hydro self-sufficiency

WATER
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From the Vancouver Sun – April 19, 2011

by Harvey Enchin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Federal & Provincial Elections: Crucial Choices for BC’s Future

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, ,
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The Common Sense Canadian is not a supporter of any political party but deals in issues and essentially we concentrate on the linked issues of the environment and energy matters.

The rationale for the Common Sense Canadian’s policy is this: every political party has the “cure” for all our social needs and each of them declares that it and only it has the ability to make the right moves to bring the actual result for what is demanded. But we have reached a crossroads – a true moment of truth.

There is surely one lesson we have learned: no matter how bad the opposition says the government is, the fiscal damage is reparable. Moreover, we ought also to have learned that each incoming government says that the situation was worse than they thought yet somehow they don’t turn out to be much of an improvement.

There is a huge difference in the messages. The Provincial Liberals, following the Socred line, tell us that the NDP left the treasury empty and ruined the economy. They make no allowances for what was known as the “Asian Flu” that so damaged BC’s export business. The fact that the NDP balanced their last year’s budget and that Premier Campbell thus saw fit to give better off people an instant billion dollar-plus tax break seems lost in the rhetoric that is politics.

I think that the case can be made that the Campbell government missed the clear signs of a recession which were there to be seen and simply didn’t tell the truth about that, and, of course, the HST.

The 1991-2001 NDP left a lot to be desired, especially in the leadership department – with four premiers in that period – and were so incapable of keeping the ship steady they were forced to bring outsiders into cabinet.

It’s not my purpose to defend or vilify either party but simply to make the point that no government has a monopoly on stupidity and no government has really wrestled the problems of health care, education, welfare and unemployment to the ground and none are likely to.

In the many years I’ve been involved in political life this is the first time I’ve seen a situation which, if not changed, will permanently leave longstanding wounds – wounds which will get worse and be incurable to boot. One of these is of a visual nature which goes to the very root of what British Columbia really is; that goes to the very root of how we keep being prosperous or at least give stability to our province in economic terms. These issues are intertwined.

The first is the environment. Virtually all mankind has played havoc with the environment but that’s surely no excuse for us to falter. We don’t have to destroy our forests to make a living. We have no need to jeopardize, indeed kill off our wild salmon so that people other than British Columbians can provide dividends for their shareholders.

We have no need to sacrifice our rivers so, once again, outsiders can profit from the electricity produced.

The second is BC Hydro, the main gem in the provincial crown. WAC Bennett saw three areas where the people, through those they elect, could use crown corporations for good policy decisions.

Bennett knew that no private ferry system would keep unprofitable routes yet he also knew that all British Columbians must have decent, affordable transportation options, so he bought Black Ball Ferries and created BC Ferries – which Gordon Campbell privatized. It left us the worst of all results – BC no longer directs its affairs but must still subsidize it.

Bennett knew that BC, large and bountiful as it is, needed a rail system that would lose money on some runs in order to open the province up and thus should be owned by the people and again a vehicle for public policy. Campbell gave this away to the private sector which won’t tolerate losing lines.

Bennett also knew that for British Columbians to compete and prosper it must have certainty of power both at home and in industry, so he bought out BC Electric Railway and created BC Hydro. This company was a huge success yet Campbell has developed a private power scheme leaving BC Hydro in a position that, if it couldn’t go on raising rates to subsidize its mandated giveaway program, would be bankrupt. It will be sold by way of bankruptcy, a bankruptcy which is clear on the horizon.

We must surely re-evaluate our political priorities. If the sale or disposition of our public assets would bring us prosperity thus making us better able to meet social obligations that would be one thing. But the fact is that each of these privatizing schemes hurts our economy badly.

For the first time in our history we have embarked on a program to destroy our environment and our ability to make our own rules about transport and power – and we have done this for the immense enrichment of others.

For the first time we have policies in place that will deliberately destroy the environment for private energy we can’t use, the profits from which go to large out of province corporations.

I believe that the last chance we’ll have to save the situation is in the forthcoming federal election and the provincial election most likely to occur this Fall, if not sooner.

This means, in my view, we must make a stark decision: are we, in exchange for the usual promises about health care, education, and welfare, going to put back into government those who are destroying our environment and giving away our power?

To this must be added that both the Federal Conservatives and the provincial Liberals have lied through their teeth in doing their destructive deeds.

The federal Conservatives are as much to blame as the Campbell/Clark bunch. One need only look at what’s coming out of the Cohen Commission to see how the destruction of our salmon by fish farms is not an accident but a very careful and deliberate policy. Moreover the feds have actually been financing the Independent Power Producers with our tax money! Can you beat this? Your tax dollars are going to help General Electric destroy our rivers and our power system!

In one line I want to dispose of the notion that we need majority governments: can you imagine what the Harper government would have done if they had a majority?

At The Common Sense Canadian we will support candidates who will end the giveaways and recover that which can be recovered, knowing that painful though the decision may be to many of us, our environment and energy will continue to be stolen from us, with one of the clear consequences that we have even less money to look after our hospitals, schools, universities and those who need help.  

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