"Dot - In 1945, in 1955 and again in 1971 the senior governments looked long and hard at damming the Fraser north of Lytton ("Google" Moran Dam).

Dot - on all three occasions it was the irreparable damage to salmon that stopped the project.

...

Dot - even if the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the provincial government are not deliberately killing off all salmon runs in the Fraser, it sure looks that way."

This is an angle that hadn't occured to me. It's a bit too scary for words, but I have to admit one does wonder.

For years I have thought that the unwillingness of BC Governments to damn the Fraser was an important policy choice that showed that BC, not Ottawa, could best manage the salmon resource. Now I am not so sure.

This article should be printed in the Sun or Province, but of course we know this will never happen. Certainly a scary scenario.

"Cui bono" is certainly the thread to follow in these affairs. Or, as was so aptly put in ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, follow the money.

Who will benefit if such dramatic changes as are suggested in this article are to be implemented (forget the near bribery on Vancouver Island, for a moment)? If a Kemano III (or refurbished Kemano II) were to be developed, a bone might be thrown to the people of Kitimat and Terrace in the form of a refurbished smelter (with a downsized labour force) in exchange for vastly increased power sales. Or, maybe there would be no bone at all.

A dam on the Fraser is practically unthinkable, given the tremendous salmon runs that depend on that channel. However, an industrial power-hungry world might readily question the value of a few (million) fish compared to the ability to continue to increase power consumption at double-digits per year. Certainly video games and air conditioning must seem more important than a few slimy poikilotherms that can be grown and harvested more efficiently and with greater corporate control in toxic fish farms.

Besides, with all that new power for sale, the sale of BC Hydro would be an even greater private sector coup for the lucky buyer. Just ask CN Rail how disappointed they have been in scooping up BC Rail. Or, if Hydro profits can be turned to the continuous gilding of the Liberals' reputation as superlative fiscal managers, expanded power sales would burnish that gilding to a blinding brightness.

The natural world continues to lose out to industrial hubris. But as has been said, Mother Nature always bats last.

Thanks for the story, Rafe.

The most important fact, always ignored by economists, priest and politicians, is the simple physical reality we all learn in highschool, that all energy inputs cause equal reactions. These reactions my be immediate, or way in the future, but in the long run they cancel out all benefits. In other words, there's no such thing as "win-win", we all hear so much about with the promotion of harebrained money making schemes, but there's always
"win-lose" or "win-pay".

Ecological systems are built on long standing natural balances. The minute human activities, or natural disasters, upset those balances, the ecology starts rebalancing itself, often with disastrous consequences. There's no escape from this simple fact. There's no such thing in nature as the often quoted nonsense of the "survival of the fittest", because we don't know who, or what the fittest are and have no way of determining it. Ecological systems promote the evolution and survival of species that will lower the rate of resource conversion and eliminate waste to ensure the longevity of the system.
When a certain species become superfluous in this plan, they are eliminated, as thousands of species before us. This means that when the human species become a burden on global ecological balance, the human race will be eliminated. This has happened to many civilizations on smaller scale in the past, there are hundreds of cities buried under various deserts around the world, but now the survival of the whole human race is on the block.

Mind you, the last survivors will have lots of money in their pockets. Nothing to eat, no water to drink, no air to breathe, but tons of money. So, if our lords and masters want to dam the Fraser and start on their long standing plans of channeling Alaskan and BC waters down to Mexico for their agribiz operations, watch what Mother Nature has up her sleeve ? Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Well we could always dam the Fraser and stock the reservoir with Atlantic salmon, eh Rafe?

I don't think any government would touch the Fraser, its too symbolic and environmental issues are much more contentious that they were earlier.

In '92 there was a sale of Sockeye Salmon in Great Falls Montana by Natives. The pickup truck, with BC plates, had three or four freezers on the back. That was the year that the summer Sockeye run lost millions of Salmon. Funny how the salmon keep disappearing from the Fraser. If one looks at the state of the fisheries across Canada from coast to coast connecting the dots is no problem at all. Business, and here we mean Big Business calls the shots through inordinate influence on ALL Governments. Profits trumps environment every time. Pacific Salmon have fed people since the beginning of human settlement here on the coast as the cod did on the East Coast. Why the decline? Why the quick buck for the business 'privateers' and their political minions. The many lake fisheries in between the two oceans are so poluted with industrial waste that First Nations peoples are dying from eating poisoned fish. Connecting the dots is easy the problem is the political BS that keeps getting in the way as our ever corrupt politicians have their strings being pulled ever harder by those whose only concern is the dollars they make from raping the enviornment. Why no inforcement of illegal fishing by First Nations folk - why they will be so easy to blame when the fish disappear forever. The dots are connected for those who know their history and are able to do a little research instead of picking sides and doning blinders.

Thanks Rafe for showing us the dots. I think if any sentient being were to join them and look at the resulting pattern without the rose-tinted glasses they would see the rich enjoying life to the fullest and the over-taxed middle class and the poor struggling to get through the day. This province is being raped by big business and if the average BC'er could tear themselves away from the shopping malls, reality TV and the Province/BCTV version of current events for a few minutes we could have these heartless bastards packing in minutes. But alas, this will never happen. BC lives by the motto "What is good for big business is good for the average joe". What a load of crap! I pity anybody that can defend this government.

rosetti said "I pity anybody that can defend this government"...

...nobody can.

In the 50s and early 60s the Americans developed NAWAPA--the North American Water and Power Alliance. It is a plan to acquire Canada's water and electric power. If you want to connect the dots, go from Washington to Ottawa to Victoria and see how our domestically grown politicians have been selling us down the river to the Yanks. Want an example?--just have a look at the Columbia River Treaty--it fits the NAWAPA plan to a tee. Too bad Canadians are so gutless when it comes to standing up against the robber barons to the south.

I'm going to watch Paul Gross's H2O again. Then I'm going back to re-read the http://www.BluePlanetProject.net website to re-invigorate my focus. Electricity is one thing. Drinking water is the culmination of the points.

The ecological arguement against damming the Fraser is strong and would probably torpedo any effort to do just that. We must also weigh another ecological arguement. Should we produce electricity for our ever expanding economy (and arguing that it should not expand so quickly will fall upon deaf ears) through alternate means such as nuclear or natural gas? What if there is a compromise in damming the Fraser with specific attention to salmon habitats. Should there not be public dialogue regarding possible solutions to enable salmon to bypass the dam while using money generated from electricity sales to rehabilitate upstream and downstream habitats to promote salmon stocks. Yes the connection between Mair's dots stands firm, and it is through keen analysis that proper dialogue can occur. However, we should not jettison possibilities just because they sound anathma to our conditioning. We must find a careful path for our continuous development on this planet, not object to every step.

Dot - Alcan is being sued by Kitimat for breaching this agreement and starting them on a fast roll to being a ghost town.
In Norway, the town automatically gets a percentage of the electricity money. This means that towns like Odda and Kinsavik, (which here would be tourist backwaters at best) are rich because they produce hydropower.
I think the provincial government should look at the merit of this.
Hydropower damages fisheries. No question. But it saves many tonnes of co2 going in the air too. Its a tradeoff. Power is too cheap in Canada anyway so they could tack on 3 or 4% to give to the citizens of the towns that produce hydropower.
This is necessary for social reasons too. (Cheaper to house people rurally than in the vancouver megacity)
It is time to introduce this concept. The norm in windpower is for the farmer to get a share of the profits from the tower on his or her land and eventually canada will see the light and support wind power too. So why not introduce the same basic concept for hydroelectricity?

Here's a description of NAWAPA. The scope, and sheer hubris of it boggles the mind: Water diverted from Alaska and the Yukon, flooding the Rocky Mountain Trench, diverted east to the prairies, and sent to the insatiable Southwest. As an American proposal, the lack of regard for Canadian sovereignty is staggering.

http://www.schillerinstitute.org/economy/phys_econ/phys_econ_nawapa_1983.html

It takes a similar mindset to propose the damming of a river like the Fraser.

It doesn't boggle my mind, having flown low level over an army-like (engineers/surveyors?) camp near the headwaters of the Kechika in 1984. Better education than university, as a fire brat in the north, seeing moose skeletons secured by fallen wires yet taut for the thrashing, scores of petrified sheep trapped by wind in abandoned bunkhouses, ghastly porcupine carcasses next to batteries they'd been eating in abandoned equipment sheds.

Barrel dumps the size of villages, capacitors discarded at airstrips leaking directly into "pristine" river systems, what flavour of ecological fantasy are we talking about? Is it possible that land denuded by the beetle, which could have been easily stopped by one man with a driptorch and two cat operators, the wood now being salvaged without planting and free-to-grow requirements, will mean less recharge and more channel flow for the Fraser?

Oh my, another dot for the trackless railbeds and 999 years.

Dot - The trail smelter is poised to strike

Dot - The company is trying to get some areas designated essential.

Dot - The company states, oh well we'll just sell the excess hydro to cover any losses

Dot, Dot, Dot.

BrianWhite; please point to any current politician or executive you think might consider giving the benefit of public assets to citizens. Explain what in their character or history makes you think so.

It was the NAWAPA Project I was referring to, without naming it, in my previous posting, taking Alaskan and Canadian waters down to California and Mexico. It is a totally insane plan that would completely change the climate of North America and the whole world. I'm glad to see that others are also concerned and are keeping an eye on this criminal effort. The more people know of these plans the less the chance for their implementation.

By a curious coincidence, Hitler's "scientists" had a very similar plan for damming off the Strait of Gibraltar and draining the Mediterranian Sea, for the use of the reclaimed land for agriculture, then building a huge freshwater lake in Central Africa that would provide water for irrigation etc.

Since I've heard of the NAWAPA scheme some 30 years ago, I was wondering if they got their ideas from the USA (Unser Selige Adolf)( Our Blessed Adolf).

There was never any question in my mind that the main purpose of the FTA and then the NAFTA has always been the impoverishment of Canada to the point where the regional and the federal governments would agree to any crazy and criminal plans to divert our waters for more waste to support harebrained economic theories. In short, blackmail to enslave. Ed Deak, Big Lake.

The nature of bureaucracy is to let problems build.

We should be dismantling dams not building more. There are environmentally benign methods of producing electricity that have been ignored or have received token recognition.

NAWAPA!

I remember learning of NAWAPA in a geography class in Montreal (circa 1979).

The professor delighted in noting that the engineers never factored in the tremendous weight of the water in a dammed Rocky Mtn trench, which would likely trigger ground movement (quakes) and likely burst the dam.

Connect the dots is a good approach, though often you are accused of being a conspiracist (is this a word?)!

Many moons ago there used to be a little saying, a play on words, that as kids we tossed about... that said: "until America drinks Canada Dry". Tumbling about on the grass we used to think that meant until the end of time..."gazillions" of lifetimes away...who knew a gazillion years would pass so quickly...

HELP!!! We need emergency reservoiration immediately. Our waterways are being choked with wild salmon as we speak. We can no longer waterski with safety and all that fresh water flooding in everyday is causing hardship for anyone requiring aggregate gravel to help construct the Alimpdix. If you have any earth moving equipment please bring it to BC ASAP. We cannot hold out against the wilderness much longer.

commentor: Bailey
posted: 12 Hours Ago
"BrianWhite; please point to any current politician or executive you think might consider giving the benefit of public assets to citizens. Explain what in their character or history makes you think so".
Bailey, did you vote? I wasnt talking to a politician, I was talking to you. Wringing your hands and saying you are powerless is chicken and egg.
Voting for a politician who thinks that way might one day elect one.
Being sarcastic to me for mentioning it achieves nothing.

Is anyone else having problems posting to thetyee? My last few submissions have disappeared into cyberspace.

BrianWhite; I wasn't being at all sarcastic. I was asking you a legitimate question.

I've been very concerned about the process that has been leading us to this place, where the kinds of interconnected things Mr. Mair cites above as 'dots' have grown in number to the point where a pattern has emerged. The pattern suggests personal untrustworthiness among the people we elect to guard the civil society, its priorities and properties.

You said you think the provincial government should incentivize non carbon power by sharing the profits somehow with citizens, but all these dots seem to point to public assets enriching private interests who pay money to political interests.

Norske is cited as a 'contributer', and decisions are made that might benefit Norske even though it wastes millions of tax dollars.

So who would do this thing you suggest? Please point to someone who is in a position to advance your suggested policy, which seems reasonable and sensible, who might actually do it.

It`s always been one of those myths in this province that the `people` own the resources. Well BC Hydro is just another example of how a few select insiders or friends have gotten rich using the `peoples` assets.

The first example I can think of is `Hydrogate`. What was so interesting to me about that little scandal was the list of investors. Family, friends and just about anybody with insider information including union bosses, bureaucrats and corporate executives from right across the political spectrum invested in that one. A who`s who of BC`s power elite.

Then I came across this Enron - California - PowerX story and I realized it just more of the same. With the right connections any one of us could be wealthy too.

I also noticed that BC Hydro has privatized some divisions. They would love to sell it all off to themselves except for one part that they would like to leave in public hands and that`s the debt. I am hazy on the dollar amount but I believe it might be $39B. That is the trend; sell BC Hydro off piecemeal but make sure the debt stays with the public and always pay lip service to this `BC`s assets are not for sale`.

My Grandpappy always said this poitics in this province was about "Power", money and greed, slightly different spin but it sure works. Fish dont have anything to do with quality of life do they?

Ask Mexico how willing the Americans are to share river water. If they complain about Canada (and I think we have been generous over the years) then they are simply hyprocrites.

There's a huge hollowed out mountain in Kitimat that was going to be part of Kemano II. OMG, dare I say it: put a couple nukes inside it and generate all the power you want. It's in the middle of nowhere and if there's any problem you can seal it up with concrete.
But that would require us to abandon the nukes are inherantly evil mindframe. As impossible as suggesting that hydro planners, environmentalists, natives and fisheries could actually work together and come up with something that generates power and actually improves the salmon fishery.

Damming the Fraser is and will be for some time, still a dream of those who toil for profit at the public's expense.

Fortunately the Fraser, even if the fish are all gone remains a vital corridor for a number of things, not the least two of Canada's busiests for-export rail lines.

Despite that unlikely (for now) event, I do appreciate learning what Gary Collins is doing when he isn't flying or spending more time with his family.

Oh, and yes, if anyone thought the troubles with the Vancouver Island power crisis is manmade you are right. But it wasn't made by all the small people who just want to plug their toasters in.

Where there is coal smoke there is usually fire.

Folks it is simple. Do you want your light bulbs to light or not?

If you say yes, then the answer is simple.

1.Tell the environ freaks to peddle their BS elsewhere.

2. Tell BCHydro to so their thing and provide electrical power where it might be required.

3. Use whatever the best envorinmental fuel that is efficient. Wind power excluded (that kills birds)

4. Ignore complaintents as they are stupid, but want electrical power.

Simple, hey what!

Jesus. Let's see here; simple
freaks
BS
their thing
kills birds
complaintents
stupid
power
then back to simple

You really haven't given all this very much thought, have you?

yeh sdgreen lets lets build more power plants golf courses houses more condos and turn the whole province into a freaking retirement home for rich easterners and americans. When we have turned paradise into another parking maybe you will have some where to go? Oh yes that is the gordo the freakin drunks plan isn't it.

What was that call to arms of the late 80`s. Something like; `Pave the Stein - to the water line`.

Why are'nt gordon campbell, **** neufeld, kevin falcon etc in prison where they belong.
(we'll see how tough they are then-picking on Grandmothers is frowned upon in the prison yard)
I know what a bunch of filthy crooks these guys are, I've seen it with my own eyes.
Anyone who voted for them should be ashamed.
You should see the multi-level scam they're pulling off in Squamish. That's going to come out it the press by the way - excluding canwest goebell ofcourse.
gordo-your house of cards is going to fall. Guys in kent are already trading smokes for you.
Thats right, they're going to do to you what you've been doing to us for the last four years.

Allen...Consider that CPRail does not meet the Fraser until Lytton and that CN now has the BCR right of way.

Jester; Would you make those accusations publicly using your real name? Didn't think so, in which case your comments mean nothing.

I think that the liberals record of betrayals corruption, broken promises and outright lies speaks for itself and that's not even including the tainted bc rail deal and gordo's numerous "personal" indiscetions. Nonetheless I see your point and hereby retract my previous statement.
PPPSSYYYCCCCHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEE!

Eddy Haskel, thank you and I'm really embarassed for missing the flow of the story.

Maybe the energy answer is to just develop mega-massive coal fired power generating units at all those coalmines along BC's eastern border.

Continued privatisation of the power system in BC is another concern. Check out

citizensforpublicpower.ca

And the Columbia Basin Trust with its government appointed stewards is still trying to float the idea of selling off it's power shares.

Just like to point out to sdgreen with his slogan "windpower kills birds" that lots of things kill birds. Some small little cuddly things kill a whole lot of birds.
Cats. In fact domestic cats kill a whole lot of birds. A guy in forebc (renewable energy bc) did a comparison of the birdkilling of the average cat and the average windturbine and he came up with the millicat! The killing power of a passive turbine can be measured in THOUSANTS of an average active bird killing cat.
So, long before you protest the terrible turbines, perhaps you should concider a final resting place for kitty?
Even the one great room floor plans with big windows that are in vogue now kill birds. The bird sees a passage to the other side, flies into the glass and gets stunned and often killed. I have seen this happen and have seen kitty pick up the poor bird before it knew what it hit. So, what to do about that. Ban windowcleaning in nesting season?
Life is not black and white and simple. It is grey and complicated.
Windpower doesnt produce acid rain (that kills millions of freshwater fish and prevents the existance of the birds that once fed upon some of them). Dr Suzuki recommends windpower because it is a lesser evil in power generation.

commentor: sdgreen
posted: 1 Day Ago
Folks it is simple. Do you want your light bulbs to light or not?
1.Tell the environ freaks to peddle their BS elsewhere.

3. Use whatever the best envorinmental fuel that is efficient. Wind power excluded (that kills birds)

Regarding Duke Point comments: Seems to me an example of two wrongs making a right. Any power engineer not aware that natural gas supplies are even in faster decline than oil is utterly incompetent. I am no big fan of Kyoto, but it is our governments policy to enact it. And if BC has ‘green power’ (a relative term) with our hydro-what area of BC would have the greatest percentage of population willing to pay a premium for this? All us granola types around Duke point (Southern Van Island-Gulf Islands)!

As for Damming the Fraser: In the 50’s it was not built because of the salmon. Now with global warming and the DFO killing off the salmon, quite quickly the dam could soon be built. Imagine all the money BC could make exporting power to the US as natural gas power plants run out of affordable supplies! We best be sure to demand payment in gold-not devaluing US dollars!

I have developed a massive irrigation plan that would divert the headwaters of the fraser into the columbia and then cause the columbia to be rediverted back into the fraser near revelstoke. The resulting power potential could fuel millions of homes and the americans would be at our mercy for the water we siphon from the columbia. anyone listening?

It seems that Rafe may be the only person who is presently confirming Bob Dylan's lyrical axiom, "Oh but I was so much older than, I'm younger then that now." Rafe's rants (before CKNW went homogenous)regarding the fish farm/toilets indicated to me that he was going to tell it like (he thought) it was. He is getting better as a spokeperson for people as he gets older. (no complacency with wisdom).

I am finding it a little ironic that my 16 year old daughter and her friends are listen less to the 'current music' and beginning to download more Sinatra, Bobby Darin,Buddy Holly, James Dean and other 50ish stuff. 'What is happening here, what it is isn't (sic) exactly clear'

Is it possible that both Rafe and Gentleman Jim Pattison have something big up their sleeve over at 650 AM, or is this just part of something else unexpected coming over the rainbow?

ROBBINS Sce Research,

When I called in this morning to talk to Rafe, on air, it was am600.