Tag Archives: Water and Energy

NERC, a US-based private entity, has stealthily obtained control of the North American power grid, including provincial electric utilities like BC Hydro

Obscure US Corporation May Be Behind BC Hydro’s Exaggerated Power Demand, Ruinous IPP Contracts

Economics, WATER, , ,
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Why has BC Hydro gone so Big?
 
Over the past few years a number of us have puzzled over this question. The Crown Corporation, in most people’s minds, was given its natural monopoly status in the belief that the Board and Officers will prudently manage Hydro’s assets so as to deliver adequate electricity to British Columbians at the lowest rates possible. For decades this seemed to be what happened, making BC the place in North America with the lowest electricity rates. It was held to be an achievement to celebrate and certainly gave our province an energy edge when it came to attracting new businesses. This is fast becoming no longer the case.
 
Let’s take a look at the record. In 2000 total assets were $11.596 billion; by 2011, assets had ballooned to $19.479 billion. In 2000, total liabilities were $9.320 billion; by 2011 they too had ballooned to $16.599 billion. If one were to add the yet-to-be-collected amounts held in the “Regulatory Assets” accounts (money we owe as ratepayers) that BC‘s Auditor General discovered, BC Hydro would be negative equity, more liabilities than assets.

Had there been a matching increase in demand it would make some sense but in the chart below you can see that has never been so. For several years the unanswered question has been: How could financially literate people steer our crown corporation on such a perilous course? The enormity of this financial fiasco places the prized assets of BC citizens directly in harm’s way with no credible explanation as to why.
 
Through the decades BC Hydro has consistently shown a passion to have more generation and transmission capacity than was ever necessary to fulfill its real purpose of satisfying its BC customers. In support of this assertion please consider the Chart below (credit: Sandra Hoffman, PhD.).
 

 
The forecasts for all businesses are corporate manifestations of a course to be navigated. Forecasts drive investment planning and by extension, borrowing.
 
In his 1999 book, White Gold: Hydroelectric Power in Canada, Karl Froschauer , writing about BC Hydro, stated “By the early 1980s, the ‘unplanned surplus’- the equivalent of the entire capacity of the $2 billion Revelstoke dam (1,843 MW)- became evident, and BC Hydro was called to account for its planning decisions. The statement of Robert Bonner, BC Hydro chairman at the time, was reported as follows: ‘ Hydro was merely responding to what its corporate customers thought they would need. He said those industries could not have forecast plant closings and the general slump in the economy that resulted in a drop in the demand of electricity.’”

It is worth borrowing a military concept at this point. The best commanders are those displaying “situational awareness”. It is part of the art of valuable leadership. Chairman Bonner was simply excusing himself and his management team from their dearth of “situational awareness”. There are numerous indicators to call upon plus more than a hundred years of formal economic literature that would provide “situational awareness” for those wishing to avoid making “stranded investments” – those investment that no longer can produce revenues but still must be paid for.
 
Mr. Froschauer goes on to write that “There is no evidence that these companies were held responsible for not purchasing the electricity for which they had made firm inquiries…Upon revising and reconfirming the inquiries made by potential industrial customers, BC Hydro found that its estimates were now less than half of the original forecast.”
 
BC Hydro forecasts have consistently being far too optimistic because the corporate leadership and Governments have sought to turn electricity into an export product, forgetting along the way to ask the ratepayers in BC if that is a good idea and at what cost. The most recent forecast is no different than what Mr. Froschauer critiqued.

Demand for electricity in BC is from three categories: residential, business and large industrial. According to BC Hydro’s forecasting manager, the first two categories are driven by population and economic forecasts obtained from provincial sources. It is the third category where the trouble arises, much as described above. BC Hydro’s corporate development officer, Warren Bell, is tasked with taking expressions of need from would be new customers. He has demand growth for this group increasing from 15,722 GWhrs in 2010 to 22,271 GWhrs by 2017. In this group would be the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which has yet to clear environmental hurdles and get the support of the Provincial Government. Mr. Bell is tasking the corporation to be ready to provide electricity to what history tells us are the most fickle people BC Hydro could want as customers.
 
So does an unblemished record of demand exaggeration and an explosion in new investing/borrowing bring one closer to understanding why? I doubt it. So what else is there?
 
The answer may be found in another location. Most readers will not have heard or read of a private US corporation, the “North American Electric Reliability Corporation” (NERC). This private enterprise came into existence in 2006 and has the stated intent:
 
a. to promote the reliable planning and operation of the electric bulk power systems of North America;
b. to act as the electric reliability organization for the United States as certified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and for Canada and Mexico as recognized by applicable government and regulatory authorities in such countries, all pursuant to law;
c. to develop, implement, and enforce, consistent with executed agreements with regional entities and approvals by applicable regulatory authorities, standards that provide for reliable planning and operation of the electric bulk power systems of North America; and
d. to conduct such other lawful business and activities, not otherwise inconsistent with specific purposes set forth herein, in which a corporation subject to the New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation Act may engage.
 
Since 2006 our Federal Government has caused the National Energy Board to complete a memorandum of understanding with NERC. In its 2010 Annual Report NERC states that its “standards are mandatory and enforceable in Ontario and New Brunswick as a matter of Provincial law. NERC has an agreement with Manitoba Hydro, making reliability standards mandatory for that entity.” MOUs also existed with Nova Scotia, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Learn about the nature of BC Hydro’s obligations to NERC in this report.
 
So what has been taking place is the rearrangement of control of bulk electricity production in North America by a private US entity. NERC has the power to enforce its will on producers and looks to have the legal authority to by-pass local utility commissions. It is this development that might be the key to the understanding of why BC Hydro has indulged in its aggressive contracting with Independent Power Producers in BC when domestic demand increases are non-existant.

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Hydro’s Overflowing Dams, Huge Losses Due to Private Power

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This is neither a complicated nor a long story – but it’s a tragic vindication for a hell of a lot of people who have been telling the story, ignored at best, more often vilified.
 
Look at page 1 of the story in the Vancouver Sun, May 11 under the heading “HYDRO AWASH IN PRIVATE POWER”, where you’ll see that BC Hydro is spilling water over its dams and missing a chance to make a huge profit and is, instead, sustaining a crippling loss all by reason of corrupt bargains it’s been forced to make with private companies.
 
Ask yourself how Hydro could lose money in one of the wettest years in history, when their reservoirs are chock-a-block full?
 
It’s because of the gross negligence of the Campbell/Clark government – supported by the mainstream media (which has refused to do its job and investigate the private power plan – a plan which compels Hydro to buy private power at double+ the market price.)
 
Yes, folks, the chickens I’ve been writing about for years have indeed come home to roost – BC Hydro is buying private power while spilling its own water over the dams. Your power company, instead of using the water in its reservoirs to make power for British Columbians, lets it spill away, unused, while it pours money into grasping private hands at immense profits to them and immense losses to us.
 
Moreover, BC Hydro – such is the surplus of power in the US – could be buying Bonneville Dam power for a song and flipping it into a neat profit.
 
The exposure of the evils of the so-called “run of river” scheme was first published by Dr. John Calvert in his book, Liquid Gold, which exposure has been re-emphasized by too many power experts to mention – though one must point out the work of our resident economist Erik Andersen, who has been putting the price of these corporate rip-offs in language we can all understand.
 
We at the Common Sense Canadian have had super back-up from our contributors. It’s dangerous to list some for fear of offending others but as the official spokesperson for the Common Sense Canadian I must give special thanks to John Calvert, Marvin Rosenau, Larry Dill, Joe Foy, Otto Langer, Rex Weyler and so many others who weren’t afraid to stick their heads above the parapet.
 
Do Damien and I feel vindicated?
 
You’re damned right we do, though it leaves a very bitter taste. For nearly three years we’ve traveled this province from meeting to meeting, trailed by power company stooges putting out the bullshit that we weren’t telling the truth while having no “facts” of their own to put forward. We’ve seen local media reporters have their reports of our meetings spiked by editors told from above to make no mention of our evidence. We’ve searched and waited in vain for just one major media editor to back up the simple truths we were disseminating.
 
The momentary pleasure that comes with vindication is massively overwhelmed when one tots up the damage including the destruction of 75 rivers and streams and the ecologies they sustain, with hundreds more to come; the destruction of salmon runs and resident Rainbows, Cutthroat, Dolly Varden and Bull Trout; clear-cuts for utterly unnecessary roads and transmission lines; the incalculable loss of wildlife; and last but scarcely least, the bankruptcy of BC Hydro (the only reason it isn’t officially bankrupt is that it can always raise money by raising rates and obtaining grants from the government – this means that British Columbia, its citizens and industries are bankrolling slick, greedy corporations as they cheerfully comply with the secret sweetheart deals the Campbell/Clark government has forced BC Hydro to give them. Yes, the profits from these corrupt deals are, for the most part, sailing out of the province directly out of your pockets and mine..
 
British Columbia has the right to have this whole sordid mess investigated – we are also entitled to a media that delves into this grossly negligent government action and lays the facts out before us.
 
I cannot leave without making special mention of Tom Rankin, who spent a fortune in his Save Our Rivers Society bringing the truth to the people. Damien and I are both much in his debt and the Common Sense Canadian was, in large part, inspired by Tom’s sacrifices.
 
There it is, folks, the truth is out and, in all likelihood, they’ll all get away with it.

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BC Hydro Forced to Pay Exhorbitant Prices for IPPs, Passing Over Cheap Power as Reservoirs Overflow

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Read this story from Scott Simpson in the Vancouver Sun, reporting on the glut of cheap hydroelectric power in BC and Washington State due to overflowing reservoirs from a big Spring runoff; despite this, BC Hydro is forced to pay top dollar for private power, unable to avail itself of more affordable alternatives. (May 12, 2012)

After a bumper year for precipitation in the Pacific Northwest, BC Hydro stations around British Columbia are sitting idle while independent power producers run flat out.

There’s so much water available for hydroelectric power that a Washington-Oregon utility, which runs full-time to protect salmon and trout, is paying other utilities to take electricity off its hands.

That means bargain-priced import electricity is available to BC Hydro from the Bonneville Power Authority, but it’s a bittersweet opportunity.

It’s difficult for BC Hydro to tap into the cheap power because of contractual obligations to purchase power from about 75 independent power producers (IPPs). Hydro is forced to buy from IPP operators, including big industrial ones such as Rio Tinto Alcan and Teck Resources, even as its own generation stations wait on standby. For example, at Peace Canyon generating station downstream of W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River, the primary source of hydroelectricity for all of B.C., the turbines are sitting idle for the first time in a decade.

Prices paid to IPPs vary by season, from an average winter high of $100 to a springtime low of about $60. By contrast, the Bonneville price in recent weeks has averaged less than $20 US.

Overall, according to Hydro’s 2011-12 annual report, IPPs earned $676 million from Hydro in the 12-month period ending March 31 ­— at a price per megawatt of power that was more than twice the cost of imported electricity during the same period of time

The water is pouring in just as warmer spring temperatures push down electricity demand. Data this week from the U.S. Energy Information Agency shows Oregon with 172 per cent of its long-term average precipitation supply, and B.C. with 131 per cent.

Meanwhile, a continuing U.S. economic recession is curtailing industrial power requirements south of the border.

That means there’s no market for B.C. electricity exports to the U.S. Nor do B.C. residents need Hydro to crank up domestic production.

B.C.’s IPP community includes wind, large industrial hydro and gas-fired generation — but most operations are small-scale run of river hydroelectric installations.

The textbook case is the watershed of the Squamish River system.

Hydro is taking a pass on all the water running into its Daisy Lake reservoir near Whistler. Instead of diverting the water from Daisy via pipeline to a BC Hydro generating station on the Squamish, the Crown corporation is allowing the water to flow directly downstream into the Cheakamus River.

Meanwhile, on two other Squamish River tributaries, the Ashlu and the Mamquam, Hydro is paying IPPs to generate power for the British Columbia electricity grid.

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Civil Disobedience Warranted for Pipelines, Tankers, Fish Farms, Private River Power

Canada, Energy and Resources, Oceans, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, WATER, Western Canada, , , , , , , , , ,
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What is civil disobedience?

I ask because I’m going to be urging such a course in the times to come.

Although he didn’t invent the idea, Mahatma Gandhi invented the modern term when he protested a tax on salt imposed by the British which hurt the poor Indian especially. He broke the law deliberately and went to jail for doing so.

A more current example was that of the Freedom Marchers of the 1960s who challenged the segregation laws of the Southern US by “sitting in” at segregated restaurants; by Rosa Parks who defied the laws of Montgomery, Alabama, by sitting in the white only section of a bus; and by Dr. Martin Luther King who in the same time urged peaceful demonstrations.

Many would go back much further in time to Jesus.

What are some of the rules?

  • It must be non violent. That is a very important rule.
  • The law being protested must be unjust in one or more ways. It must be imposed unfairly or itself contrary to law or justice or both.
  • Those protesting must be prepared to go to jail.
  • There must be no other reasonable way to attain justice.
  • They must be effective.

Where do I suggest civil disobedience?

Fish farms, for one area. Government policy allows them yet they are not only in violation of the UN law requiring the Precautionary Principle but against Canadian law in this regard.

So-called “run of river” projects which, without fail, severely damage the river and its ecology usually to the point of – for all intents and purposes – utter destruction.

Pipelines – especially the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines taking the ultra toxic bitumen from The Tar Sands to Kitimat – which don’t pose a risk of huge environmental damage but the certainty of it.

The utter lack of government concern for the environment and the public that wishes to preserve it is underscored by the recent decision of the federal government to dam the Kokish river near Port McNeill – a river that is home to all species of salmon, resident Rainbow, Cutthroat, Dolly Varden and has both a winter and summer run of steelhead.

Tanker trafficking of bitumen from Kitimat or through Vancouver Harbour which, again, don’t pose risks but certainties of huge environmental damage.

Civil Disobedience has had successes in the past in BC but too often there have been one or two who have refused to obey the law and once they have been jailed, the protest has petered out.

We must organize such that scores, even hundreds, defy the law and are ready to do time.

There has been very little by way of organization in the overall community but First Nations appear to be ready and, if nothing else, the rest of us must be prepared to support them and face the same consequences.

Our first step must be, in my view, a clear statement by environmental organizations and individual British Columbians that we will stand shoulder with First Nations  – and we at the Common Sense Canadian plan to meet with their leaders and see how we can help.

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Pennsylvania Doctors Barred from Revealing Toxic Chemicals Used in Fracking to Patients

Canada, Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Politics, WATER, Water and Hydrocarbons, , , ,
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Read this story from Mother Jones on a new law that will bar doctors from revealing to their patients the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing that may be affecting their health. (March 23, 2012)

Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction—but they won’t be able to share it with their patients.* A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will “gag” doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public.

Pennsylvania is at the forefront in the debate over “fracking,” the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. Recent discoveries of great reserves in the Marcellus Shale region of the state prompted a rush to development, as have advancements in fracking technologies. But with those changes have come a number of concerns from citizens about potential environmental and health impacts from natural gas drilling.

There is good reason to be curious about exactly what’s in those fluids. A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/03/fracking-doctors-gag-pennsylvania

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45-day Site C Dam Public Consultation Period Begins – No Public Meetings in Vancouver ot Victoria

Hydropower, WATER,
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Read this story from Business in Vancouver reporting on the recently-announced 45-day public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Site C Dam in Northeast BC. (April 11, 2012):

Six open houses will be held to provide information and garner feedback on the proposed Site C dam – but if you want to attend in person, you’ll have to travel to northern B.C. or Alberta.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and BC Environmental Assessment Office released Tuesday the draft environmental impact statement (http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca/pcp/forms/Site_C_form.html) for the proposed $8 billion, 1,100-megawatt hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.

A 45-day public comment period on the impact statement has been scheduled. Written comments will be submitted between April 17 and June 1. Comments can be mailed or submitted online.

A series of open houses has been scheduled for the first two weeks of May:

 

 

  • May 1, 3 to 8 p.m., North Peace Cultural Centre, Fort St. John;
  • May 2, 4 to 8 p.m., Hudson’s Hope Community Hall;
  • May 3, 4 to 8 p.m., Pomeroy Inn & Suites, Chetwynd;
  • May 8, 4 to 8 p.m., Sawridge Inn & Conference Centre, Peace River, Alberta;
  • May 9, 4 to 8 p.m., Best Western Dawson Creek, Dawson Creek;
  • May 10, 3 to 8 p.m., Ramada Inn, Prince George.

If approved, the Site C dam is expected to take a decade to build. It would be the third in a series of dams on the B.C. portion of the Peace River.

The project includes a 1,050-metre-long, 60-metre-high earthen dam, an 83-kilometre-long reservoir, a 1,100-MW generating station and two 77-kilometre transmission lines running along an existing right-of-way to connect to BC Hydro’s grid.

The biggest environmental drawback to the plan is that it would require the flooding of 5,340 hectares of prime agricultural land. (See “Damned if we do: Site C revisited” – issue 1142; September 13-20, 2012.)

Read article: http://www.bivinteractive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5642:site-c-dam-public-hearings-set-for-northern-bc-&catid=14:daily-news&Itemid=46

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David Suzuki Was Wrong…But at Least He Gets it Now

Canada, Politics, WATER, Western Canada, , ,
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It’s indeed an overworked accolade but Dr. David Suzuki is a great man. In the Environmental world he is in that pantheon of heroes that include the likes of Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, Thor Heyerdahl and Jacques Cousteau. Dr. Suzuki is a scientist but is better known as the man who brought the environment into the living rooms of the world, explaining things in ways we all could understand.

In years when it was unfashionable to be an environmentalist in Canada he, with the likes of Colleen McCrory, Mark Angelo, Joe Foy, Betty Krawczyk and so many others, slowly but surely got the public’s attention. Dr. Suzuki’s impact is incalculable.
 
But great people make mistakes and usually they are great mistakes, bringing unforeseen consequences that should have been foreseen. Perhaps that’s because people are reluctant to challenge those held in such high esteem.
 
Dr. Suzuki not only hasn’t suffered fools gladly, he doesn’t suffer those who disagree with him. This caused great harm for those who believe that the Campbell/Clark government has done irreparable harm to BC’s environment. I’m one of those people.

I felt so strongly on this subject that I campaigned long and hard for the NDP in the May ’09 election. In that election Dr. Suzuki and the crass opportunist, Tzeporah Berman, supported the private development of rivers.
 
Dr. Suzuki now admits that he was wrong to think that private enterprise and environmentalists could work together to obtain the best of both worlds. In my opinion, Dr. Suzuki failed to understand that corporations don’t give a rat’s ass about the environment and only act responsibly when they’re forced to. As a former Environment Minister I could have told him that. Indeed, a corporation’s mandate is to make money for shareholders and for management and the directors to piss away profits on environmental concerns is actually a breach of the trust placed in them.
 
Dr. Suzuki made his commitment to capital/environmental cooperation in good faith but that doesn’t alter the fact that he wreaked great harm on the environment he has laboured so long and hard to protect.
 
Those of us active in trying to save rivers were in shocked disbelief when we learned of his position. In fact I was so shocked that in a public meeting I referred to him as a “pseudo-environmentalist”, a remark instantly passed on to him – but much as I admire David, I wasn’t sorry for the outburst.
 
How can I say that his position helped the Liberals win a close election?
 
Because I was there. I campaigned all around the province for the NDP and saw first hand what people thought. If David Suzuki thought that damming of our rivers to produce power was OK, well then it must be – those who disagree must be just shrill tree huggers.
 
The impact wasn’t, perhaps, so great in the Lower Mainland and Southern Vancouver Island but it was substantial in rural BC where many races were very close. As I spoke in rural ridings, Suzuki’s words provided an invisible critic of what I was saying.
 
I applaud Dr. Suzuki leaving his Foundation so that their neutral status required for them, as a charitable society, to get public funds, isn’t compromised. (As an aside, I wonder if the Fraser Institute has such a status or is bias OK for the far right?)
 
David Suzuki must make amends. He must look at the serious issues of fish farms, destruction of farmland, ruination of rivers for electricity we don’t need produced for the bank vaults of larger corporations, pipelines and huge tankers taking Tar Sands gunk through our precious environment and down our coast and out of Vancouver Harbour.
 
He doesn’t owe a damned thing to me or any other who has disagreed with his 2009 stance.
 
He does, however, owe a hell of a lot to his province and to the next generation and those to come.

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Water, Water Everywhere, but for How Long? Privatizing Water in BC

Scarcity, WATER, ,
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World Water Day (March 22nd) is a good time to consider this: Canada has nearly 10% of the world’s supply of fresh water. How lucky are we?

But what is all this water doing to earn its keep? Nothing. Or so think our politicians – and thirsty corporations like General Electric. 

In 2010, GE (according to Council of Canadians, the world’s largest water company) and Goldman Sachs (uh, oh) co-founded the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Alliance. The basic purpose of the alliance is to map (and presumably lay hands on) the global supply of fresh water. After all, as the alliance points out, “In many regions around the world, water scarcity from climate change and pollution is starting to impact a company’s performance.”

Within a year the expanded alliance included Coca-Cola, Calgary-based Talisman Energy, Dow Chemicals and United Technologies, the world’s 10th largest arms producer. (Knowing where water shortage conflicts might appear could, after all, be useful.) 

Oh, what a web these companies weave. 

In Alberta, the president of GE Canada was a member of the Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy which last year recommended the creation of a new Alberta Water Authority. The new authority would facilitate buying and selling of water licences. 

According to the council’s report, the authority would “also advise on policy changes to give holders of water licenses more opportunity to sell, lease or trade some or all of their right to draw water. Such changes will allow licensees holding water allocations they are not currently using or no longer need to lease or sell this surplus to others within the watershed at a price set by market forces of supply-and-demand.” 

How bad could that be? 

Ask the government of Australia. In the 1990s exactly this sort of water market was established for the Murray Darling River Basin. A 2001 drought started a water-rights speculation frenzy. By September 2010, the Australian government had spent nearly $1.5 billion buying back water rights at inflated free market prices.  

Here in BC (where Talisman Energy already has a licence to divert up to 10,000 cubic metres (10 million litres) from the Williston reservoir every day for the next 20 years), similar plans are afoot.

The provincial government is expected to table a new Water Act in 2012. It is anticipated that the new Act will allow water licence owners (whatever the purported use licensed) to sell to the highest bidder. The new owner can arbitrarily change the licensed use from, say, agriculture to heavy industry. In a drought such as Australia’s, good luck to farmers who might need to buy water back. 

Welcome to the deregulated water market. 

Companies like Brookfield Asset Management (BAM) love it. BAM, one of two companies which shared ownership of most of BC’s public land forests and all the private land forests, is keen to get into the hydroelectricity game. (FYI, BAM director J. Trevor Eyton is also a director of Coca-Cola Enterprises.) 

We sell them the rights to our water and they sell us their electricity. No wonder EcoJustice describes BC’s proposed Water Act as a pretty sweet deal for industry.

Yes, of course most industries require water and, within reason, they should have access to it. However, instead of turning our water rights into tradable commodities, how about we maintain control of our water for the public good?

Here’s a crazy idea for World Water Day. Industries could pay for the water they use by volume. Companies might decide to reduce the water they currently waste and that would be a bonus. Whether or not they do, the people of BC could be paid a fair fee for a precious resource. Instead of paying for corporate bonuses, the money could, oh, I don’t know, pay for health care and education? Perhaps some of the revenue could be used to upgrade our crumbling infrastructure.  

Or we could carry on with plans to more or less just give our water rights away.

Miranda Holmes is an associate editor of Watershed Sentinel magazine. For more information on this topic, go to www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/ge-and-privatization-water

 

 

 

 

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Private power projects like this one on the Ashlu River have been caught red-handed killing wild fish

Audio: Simi Sara, Damien Gillis Talk Private Power, Fish Kills and Enbridge

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Listen to this interview of Damien Gillis by CKNW’s Simi Sara on recent revelations that so-called run of the river projects are killing fish. The two also discuss Provincial Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve Thomson’s appearance on Sara’s show this past Friday and the complete lack of penalties or enforcement by either DFO or the Province on these blatant violations by several private power operators. They also touch on the Harper government’s plan to gut the Fisheries Act and how that benefits Enbridge and the private power industry. (March 20- 12 min)

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Audio: Damien Gillis Talks the Assault on Fish by Harper, BC Governments

Canada, Fisheries, Oceans, Politics, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, WATER, Western Canada, , , , , , ,
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Listen to Damien Gillis and CHLY’s “A Sense of Justice” host Rae Kornberger’s recent wide-ranging discussion on the war being waged against fish by both the Canadian and BC Governments. The pair cover everything from Stephen Harper’s underhanded plan to gut the fisheries act in order to pave the way for oil pipelines and other major industrial projects that would harm fish habitat, to news on the impacts of salmon farms and private river diversion projects on wild fish. (March 14, 2012 – 46 min)

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