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? Read full article at The Common Sense Canadian

Tucked away in the wild of northern Vancouver Island, the Kokish River is a treasure for fishers and wilderness lovers alike.

The Kokish River, located 15 km east of Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island, is threatened by a proposed 45 megawatt hydropower project. The river is renowned for its high fish values including endangered summer and winter runs of steelhead.

Thus has begun yet another rape of a river without any public process at all. The deal requires approval from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is why the Wilderness Committee is calling on citizens to write to them and demand they reject this project that would unquestionably damage important fish habitat.

The proposal is to divert the river through 9 kms of pipe through the generators then back into the river. This river has 2 steelhead runs and all 5 species of Pacific salmon.

Back to Ms. Barlee:

Kwagis Power, owned by Brookfield Renewable Power and the Namgis First Nation, has applied to dam and divert the 11 km river into a 9 km pipe. The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) considers the Kokish to be a high-value river with a sensitive fish population.

The Kokish is a fish-rich river. In addition to the steelhead populations, it is home to five species of wild salmon, coastal cutthroat trout and Dolly Varden.

This is an outrage and it must be stopped.

Let’s remind ourselves what this means.

In the environmental sense, the river will no longer be the home and breeding point for the salmon and trout which rely upon this river. How the hell can you expect anything else to happen? It is indeed “common sense”!

What also happens is the slow death of the river and its ecology which depend upon the fish in the river for its own survival.

On the fiscal side, here is yet another nail in the BC Hydro coffin. It will be required to take this power during the spring run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need the power, at double+ what it’s worth in the market or use it at many times over what BC Hydro can make for themselves!

Adrian Dix now has a right, and indeed a duty, to speak out loudly and clearly that he and his party condemn this project and that if elected, he will cancel this deal forthwith.

As for the premier and her outfit – who have already approved the project without any public consultation – this demonstrates, as if it were needed, her appalling ignorance of environmental and, indeed, fiscal matters. It also indicates the premier’s lack of courage – she evidently wants no controversial matters to spoil her day, assuming that if she just sticks to photo opportunities, her admitted good looks will sway the voters.

Now she gives us all the finger as she hands over yet another of our rivers to her corporate supporters. (I suppose we should be comforted in the knowledge that the Vancouver Board of Trade always gives her a standing ovation.)

This government has squandered at least 3 billion dollars, tripled our provincial debt and is dumb enough to cost the province $35 million dollars by refusing that sum from Telus who offered that if the dome was called Telus Field.

It has not just shown no interest in the environment, it has encouraged those who would pillage it for profit, to fill their boots.

It has driven BC Hydro into what would be bankruptcy in the private sector and now strikes yet another blow to it by adding the Kokish to the ecological disasters which have been the hallmark of the Campbell/Clark government.

More than fifty organizations and individuals – including NHL star Willie Mitchell and yours truly – have signed onto the Wilderness Committee’s letter calling for DFO to reject the project. They clearly believe that if the public adds its voice to the chorus, there is a real opportunity to make DFO do the right thing.

I do a weekly little radio spot called the Political Panel with Erin Chutter on the “right”, Moe Sihota, president of the BC NDP on the “left” and me God knows where. Moe and I had a bit of a dustup some weeks ago about the Environmental Assessment Hearings in the province which he, when Environment Minister, set up. He praised them if not to the skies, pretty high and I said, essentially, that they were a farce.

In support of his position (after I’d declared that they hadn’t turned down a single private power project) he retorted the Klenaklini project had been kyboshed whereas in fact that wasn’t so – it had been turned down not for any environmental reason but because their proposed transmission lines and roads went through a park. My point isn’t criticism of Moe – he agreed, upon consideration, that I was right. The reason none have been turned down for environmental reasons is that this is not the purpose of the hearings! The hearings are after the approval has been given in principle and the question becomes the terms of reference for subsequent deliberations by technical people.

Well, you might say, doesn’t that mean that they project could still be turned down?

Technically, yes – but it’s not likely to happen and hasn’t happened yet. It’s now in the realm of politics for the approval is now in cabinet’s hands and all the panel can do is make recommendations and since the man in charge in the process is a Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell appointment, you feel, even if your can’t prove it, that punches will always be pulled.

The companies that have made applications are also, in most cases, political donors of some importance to the BC Liberal Party. What does happen, if things do get a little dicey, is that the company is asked to go back to the drawing board and come up with a “mitigation” plan. This is what happened with Taseko Mines and Fish Lake. The “mitigation” for destroying a lake and 75,000 trout is that the company would build an artificial lake and throw some trout in it! I need hardly say that this is scarcely mitigation; it’s a cheap cop-out.

It used to be that a municipal body could decide whether or not to zone for a private power project and while that was unsatisfactory, since it didn’t deal with environmental concerns thoroughly, it was something and the one time I know it was used was when, a few years ago, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District held hearings all over the district into the question of zoning for the Ashlu River project. They turned it down and the Campbell government promptly passed legislation taking away from local governments their power to zone for these projects.

(The Ashlu is a good example for it’s a horror story which can be visited by Lower Mainland citizens quite easily. It was billed as a “small project”, genuine run-of river, and “a weir not a dam”. See for yourself, when the plant is running, how much water is left in the river.)

I have attended several of these Environmental Assessment meetings and they are essentially put on by the company which invariably holds them at an inconvenient time and place. One such effort was amusing to say the least. The company wanted to avoid the largest population center in the area, Nelson, so held it in Kaslo where more people showed than there are people who live there!

The meetings are chaired by an employee of the Ministry in conjunction with the company. It may seem a little thing, but appearances are important; the chair and the company person(s)  can often be seen having dinner and/or cocktails together.

Members of the public can speak but only on the questions of what the terms of reference for the technical panel will be. Any questions about the advisability of the project are ruled out of order with two exceptions – the company spokesperson can take as long as they want to extol its virtues as can a First Nations chief if his band has been adequately rewarded.

It’s a demonstrable farce.

It all raises a fundamental question – if the public can make their views known on whether a building should be built, or a certain store chain build a store, why the hell can’t they have a say as to whether of not destruction of their river should take place?

It’s this question that haunts the process, will always haunt the process, and why BC will soon have civil disobedience if the public continue to be denied their say.

I hate to sound ungracious towards our friends and neighbours by asking that question but it’s occurred to me quite often and I, for one, would like an answer.

With fish farms, what the hell is in it for us with them?

Over 90% of the farms are foreign owned and none of them is owned in BC. The license fees we collect are like a handful of sand is to Vancouver’s beaches. Our wild salmon are destroyed, the environment desecrated and the loot all goes to big companies and their shareholders, mostly in Norway. Furthermore, because these companies are from out of province they don’t give a fiddler’s fart how much damage they do.

Jobs?

A few caretakers and that’s it.

We take all the risks, we take the certain environmental losses and they get all the money!

Whoops, I forgot that there is a BC beneficiary – the Liberal Party of BC, G. (Pinocchio) Campbell, prop.

With pipelines shipping oil from the Tar Sands through pipelines to Kitimat for passage through our waters – what the hell is in it for us?

The oil comes from Alberta so that only the Alberta and Federal governments get any royalties and other taxes. We run the many real risks in taking this filthy stuff over our province, through our delicate habitat, then shipping it down the most treacherous part of our coast and get nothing for it!

We have to do the policing for sabotage, terrorist attack or plain misadventure since Enbridge sure isn’t going to. And on their track record, who would want them to be our watchdogs?

When the damage is done – and it will happen – we’ll have to bear the cost since Enbridge sure isn’t BP and a big loss would probably bankrupt them.

These questions apply to the oil presently being piped down to tankers in Burrard Inlet putting not only Vancouver Harbour at risk but all the BC coastline they sail past.

Moreover, as with fish farms, these companies are from out of province and don’t give a damn for our environment.

What’s in that for us?

Some rent for the right-of-way?

Jobs?

Sure there will be employment to build the line but that’s short term and most of those jobs will be from out of province.

We take all the risks and they get the dough!

Whoops! I forgot Pinocchio and his trained seals (See “whoops” above for details.)

Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are building their dams (they prefer we call them weirs) on rivers all over the province to make electricity.

What the hell’s in it for us?

These are all large offshore companies that take the profits while we inherit buggered up rivers. But it’s worse, Not only do we lose our rivers, we pay for these dams because our provincial company, BC Hydro, owned by me and thee, is forced to pay these IPPs double what their power can be sold for. Since IPPs don’t make electricity unless their river is flowing quickly, as in the run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it, Hydro must export it at a huge loss! Our loss as citizen/shareholders!

We don’t need their power, indeed can’t even use it, we finance their plants by making Hydro give them sweetheart deals, we get a fast bankrupting BC Hydro and the money all goes to non BC shareholders like Warren Buffett and General Electric!

What’s in it for us?

Whoops again! (See above re Pinocchio and his lickspittles).

We’re chumps! Marks! Rubes playing Three Card Monte at the fair! We’re being robbed blind then we beg for more!

Think on this, gentle readers – we’re taking a three way financial hit and a huge three pronged attack on our environment, be it our salmon, our rivers, our harbours, our coastline and our wild habitat and, through our government, we’re begging for more!

But I predict a change, an awakening of the people. When the Premier and the Attorney-General instructed Crown Counsel to ask for a life sentence for Betty Krawczyk for disobeying a court order to cease demonstrating, using two violent pedophile cases to back it up, it touched a lot of nerves. A life sentence for an 82 year old for protesting an environmental desecration? Likening it to sexual violation of kids? What has this government come to?

There will be civil disobedience in BC and it won’t be pretty. We’ve been lied to enough. Our heritage is bring ripped apart not with government consent but at its request.

I’m not calling for civil disobedience – I’m saying it will come because this disgraceful government has asked, no begged for it.

The basic flaw is that at these “public hearings” the public are not permitted to question the need for the project in the first place. A Ms Kathy Eichenberger chairs these meetings and simply won’t let a word be said about whether we need the project – unless, of course, you’re a spokesman for the company. I went to a number of hearings on the Bute Inlet project and was called out of order every time I spoke as did hundreds of outraged citizens. Don McInnes, the president of Plutonic Power, the company, however, could talk as long as he wished about the merits of the proposal, give power point presentations – whatever he wished.

It’s also interesting to note the chummy socializing Ms Eichenberger and the Plutonic Power folks indulge in.

All right – pause and take a deep breath. The government, which is supposed to be neutral in this process, has sent a delegation abroad to promote private power projects and who do you suppose is part of that Committee?

None other than Kathy Eichenberger of the Environmental Assessment Office!

At the same time Ms Eichenberger is the primary contact for Stlixwim Hydro/NI Hydro Holdings proposal for a private power plant that will impact every remaining alpine lake and stream in the Tyson Lake vicinity of Narrows Inlet on the Sunshine Coast.

Let me make this clear – if Ms Eichenberger wants to be the chair of meetings where she is employed by one side, that’s for her and her conscience to deal with. I allege no criminal acts whatsoever. What I say is this:

How the Hell can two governments appoint someone to be an independent chair when she has conflicts of interest you could run one of those monster trucks that screws up our rivers through?

And how can the provincial government appoint an “independent” chair to join a committee whose only business is to shill for the very companies she’s supposed to be independent of?

Every day in every way this government shows itself to be utterly devoid of any moral compass.

The polls showing Premier Campbell in deep doo-doo came out before the Site “C” decision. God only knows what the results would have been if they had been taken afterwards.

Site “C” demonstrates beyond doubt that Campbell hasn’t been telling the truth in two critical areas of his energy policy. B.C. is NOT a net importer of power which is the fundament of that policy. BC Hydro is sometimes, though not always. Moreover, counted as imports is the energy it buys abroad at low use times and re-sells in peak periods. It can do this because it can “store” energy as water in a reservoir. This isn’t importing — it’s flipping, and at a nice profit too. You would think that Campbell and his crowd would know something about flipping.

The fact is that BC Hydro is not the only provider of energy in B.C., and when you include — as you must — energy produced by Alcan, Teck Cominco and Fortis, British Columbia is a net exporter of power.

Of more concern ought to be the Campbell government’s mantra that private power will be used by British Columbia to make it energy “secure.” This is plain and simply a falsehood, a falsehood the mainstream media simply can’t grasp.

This is key, for if private power was needed for our own vital needs that would be a very serious matter, and the debate about damming our rivers would be different. The egregious nature of this falsehood can easily be seen thusly: the power to be produced by two large private “run of river” projects, the Bute Inlet and KlinaKilni projects, is considerably more than can be produced by Site “C.” So why isn’t Campbell fast tracking these undertakings, thus avoiding the need to do Site “C”?

Because they can only produce their power during the run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it.

In short, when Gordon Campbell told us that the decision to give our rivers away was so that private power could help us be energy sufficient in 2016, the truth was otherwise.

If you needed more proof of this, Site “C” provides it once and for all.

Why Campbell’s plummet won’t hurt Libs

Now to the polls.

At first blush they look terrible for the Liberals, but in fact, while they’re terrible for Gordon Campbell, they are a blessing in disguise for the party. Campbell doesn’t give a damn because he’ll quit next year or maybe the next at the latest and no doubt be offered a lot of money on boards of directors of energy companies — he’s earned it. For the party, however, the numbers bode well, if in a back-handed sort of way.

Carole James, despite the brave assertions of Moe Sihota, the NDP president, can’t win the next election unless the Greens and/or a new party split the vote. Given a couple of years before the May 2013 election, under a new leader the Liberals, while they won’t be rid of Campbell’s corrosive stain could, given the right leader, win again.

James’s problem is that she’s too nice and too decent for politics which, especially in British Columbia, is a blood sport. When she took her seat in the House as leader of the opposition, she wanted to improve the atmosphere — make things more grown-up and polite, you might say. However noble and admirable that was, it betrayed her ignorance of how the system works.

It’s really simple. Under our system, backbench MLAs on both sides are political eunuchs. Former U.S. speaker of the house Sam Rayburn said, “To get along, you must go along,” and sadly that’s the truth of the matter. I’m not saying that backbenchers don’t ask tough questions at caucus meetings — I’m sure they still do as they did eons ago when I was there. In the end, however, they do precisely what they’re told.

How the blood sport is played

Why do you think that government MLAs always vote for their government’s bills?

If they don’t, not only will they never make cabinet, or parliamentary secretary or even the sinecure known as the “Whip,” they risk being thrown out of the caucus and even the party.

The importance of what I’ve just said is this — the only purpose of the legislative chamber is for the opposition to spill blood figuratively instead of actually.

Good oppositions hold the government’s feet to the fire. They try to divide the government; they try to embarrass them. They want the media to show the public what idiots the government and especially the cabinet are. (You would think that would be easy with this lot in power.)

In that sense they have more freedom to make their mark with these two provisos — if they do so other than what the leader wants, they’re writing themselves out of a future cabinet, and while it may be fun to bray at the government, it’s not much food for the soul.

The object of the leader of the opposition is not to make the House a safe place for little school children to be, but to make the government sweat.

It’s to her great credit as a person that Carole James can’t do this, but it’s the death knell for her as a leader.

Premier Watts?

The Liberals will have a leadership contest in May of 2011 and they will elect Diane Watts, mayor of Surrey, as leader, and failing that, Mike DeJong the attorney-general.

Diane Watts will be preferred in a woman-to-woman fight, plus she’ll be able to say, “I’m not responsible for that horror story called the Campbell government and just look at what a wonderful mayor I’ve been.”

I hope I’m wrong. Carole James as premier would probably do a decent job — it’s not as if she has a tough act to follow.

The problem is she has to get there first and I don’t think she can do it.

“Run of River, better stated as private power initiatives, will not supply power to BC Hydro because it produces its power during the run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it!”

This is the question Premier Campbell must now answer -

Now you have admitted that private power will not be going for BC consumption but for export, and now that you’ve approved Site “C” to produce power for our use, will the private rivers policy, which destroys our rivers to supply power in the United States, be ended with no new licenses to be issued?

by Marvin Shaffer

Every now and again you read something so outrageous you have to laugh. So it is with the report recently released by BC Citizens for Clean Energy: A Triple Legacy for Future Generations.

The essence of this lobby group’s proposal is that the government should develop an export policy for green energy targeting up to 17000 MW of exports by 2016, an amount greater than the size of BC Hydro’e entire existing hydroelectric system. Then it wants to target for more than double that amount of exports by 2036. And the legacy they offer if this is done:

• secure supply of renewable energy
• substantial reductions in climate change impacts
• the elimination of B.C. tax-supported debt within 15 years or less and eventually even the elimination of the provincial sales tax (or presumably the provincial component of the impending HST).

The promised legacies are, of course, nonsense. Committing all that energy potential to export won’t enhance B.C.’s security of supply.  It is the export of privately-developed, privately-owned power this group wants government to promote. BC Hydro couldn’t use that power itself when the power is committed to export; it would  just be the conduit making the development and exports happen.

Nor will the export sales substantially reduce climate change impacts. It will be the greenhouse gas targets adopted in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere that will determine how much GHG emissions will be reduced and potential climate change impacts avoided. Greater green energy exports from B.C. may affect how U.S. targets are met, but they certainly won’t determine what those targets are.

As for the elimination of B.C.’s tax-supported debt — that is so fanciful one hardly knows what to say. The facts are exactly the opposite. The export plan BC Citizens want the government to implement would be a financial disaster.

The key element of the plan is that BC Hydro or its trading subsidiary Powerex would buy all of the power IPPs can develop in the province (after streamlined environmental review), paying high enough prices so the projects could be financed, built and profitably operated. BC Hydro would then provide all the back-up, shaping, and transmission services needed to be able to sell the power to export customers and receive whatever price it could negotiate.

Notwithstanding the heroic (but grossly incomplete and fundamentally flawed) numbers put forward by BC Citizens, there is no reason to believe BC Hydro could do this at a profit, let alone the multi-billion dollar annual profit BC Citizens suggest.  The amount BC Hydro would have to pay the IPPs to develop all of these green energy resources, plus the transmission and other costs it would incur and alternative trading opportunities it would forego would in all likelihood greatly exceed the amount it could get from the export sales, even with whatever renewable and other green energy credits it could secure.

Maybe BC Citizens just got the sign wrong. Silly mistake — it would be a loss of billions, not a gain that BC could expect.

BC Citizens reasonably ask the question: if we export lumber, non-renewable minerals and metals, why shouldn’t we export green energy. That however is not the issue here. The issue is why should government force BC Hydro to buy power it doesn’t need (in extraordinarily excessive amounts), supply all of the services the IPP sellers don’t have, and take all of the market risk of exports.

If the numbers are so good, why don’t the IPPs buy the services they need and export the power themselvers. After all, that is what the forest and mining firms do, and pretty well everyone else who exports goods or services from B.C.

BC Citizens aren’t looking for an energy export policy that is in the broad public interest. They are looking for a government handout of breathtaking proportions, covered by the green umbrella that apparently can make even the most outlandish proposals seemingly more palatable.

IPPs already have a lot with the costly policies in the BC Energy Plan. What their lobby group is telling us in this report is that they want more — a lot more!

Original article

The proponent, Bute Hydro Inc., recently indicated that additional field work and analysis would be conducted in the spring and fall of 2010 before it will be in a position to submit its environmental impact statement. In light of this new information, the timelines for the review panel process will be substantially delayed.

The participant funding process will be re-initiated when the proponent is in a position to confirm a timeline for the submission of its environmental impact statement. At that time, an announcement will be made with the revised funding amounts and the deadline to submit applications. Current applicants will have an opportunity to revise and resubmit their applications for consideration at that time.

The Agency announced in May 2009 the availability of $250,000 under its Participant Funding Program to assist groups and individuals to participate in the environmental review for the Bute Inlet Hydroelectric Project.

Information on the Participant Funding Program, the proposed project and on the environmental assessment process is available on the Agency’s Web site at www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca, registry number 09-05-44825.

Bute Hydro Inc. is proposing to construct 17 run-of-river hydroelectric facilities in the vicinity of Bute Inlet. Major components in addition to the generating facilities include a substation near the mouth of Southgate River, associated access roads and ancillary works, 216 km of 230 kV collector transmission line and 227 km of 500 kV trunk transmission line from the proposed substation near the mouth of Southgate River to the existing 500 kV substation at Malaspina.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency administers the federal environmental assessment process, which identifies the environmental effects of proposed projects and measures to address those effects, in support of sustainable development.

For further information: media may contact: Annie Roy, Manager, Communications, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Tel.: (613) 957-0396