Rafe... On the WRONG side of First Nations...

1. Chief Ken Brown, Klahoose First Nation whose community financially benefits from micro hydro development.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_north/campbellrivermirror/opinion/38628249.html

Rafe, pissing off these various stakeholders while continuing to push for your political agenda will never equate to success. ;)

Salmon

Too bad people like Tzeporah Berman and Chief Ken Brown don't want to protect salmon bearing rivers and related habitat if it means saying no to IPP's on pristine BC rivers.

Plutonic

Luke of course is being coy about Ms Berman but his friends at Plutonic have provided us with a transcript of her conversation with Bill Good.

Unlike Luke, I'll post an actual link :

http://www.plutonic.ca/s/Media.asp?ReportID=335471&_Type=Media&_Title=Moving-to-green-power-Tzeporah-Berman-PowerUp-Canada-joins-Bill-Good.-With-...

Here's my favourite quote, note how she's willing to sacrifice rivers and habitat to protect the world from CO2, what a trooper.

"I will say that I think the opposition that we're seeing in British Columbia by some environmental groups and others to the move towards green power, the whole kind of save our rivers piece, needs to be rethought.

And this is from someone.... I suddenly.... The majority of my adult life I've been working to protect those valleys and those rivers.

The fact is, though, that we need to re-evaluate our priorities based upon what we know about global warming. Scientists are saying we have six to eight years to reduce carbon emissions quickly and shift towards green energy, or we reach a tipping point at which point climate change skitters out of control, [where] we cannot control it and we'll just see a dramatic increase in droughts and fires. On the coast here we're actually going to see way more precipitation, and we're going to see.... In ten years the United Nations is predicting 50-per cent increase in dramatic storms."

Conservative enviros?

"Although he ultimately decided against a return to active politics, Manning still believes green conservatism could be the next "big idea" to seize Albertans and perhaps drive the next political revolution in the province.

In an interview from Calgary this week, Manning talked about how it might help manage the problems that come with unbridled growth. He believes Albertans are likely ready to marry a genuine commitment to conservation with a conservative market-based approach to economic development.

"If you could put these two together, I think that idea has a lot of political potential to capture younger people and older people alike. It hits at how you can harness the private sector's approach to things to pull the environmental wagon."

http://www2.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/story.html?id=a5700803-8d41-438c-95e6-7cd025eb5fa4

the Spin is in

As Luke and Preston demonstrate, the right-wing wants the market to decide environmental issues for us.

Compared to those two, Ms Berman is a saint, she's willing to protect one part of the environment at the expense of another.

Is it possible these people think there is a never-ending supply of Bute Inlets out there?

Unfortunately yes.

Luke Skywalker

How many times have you told this lie? The mind boggles. From BC Hydro:

Here is a map showing each IPP facility and its associated "Power Call" date:

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/
internet/documents/planning_regulatory/
acquiring_power/illustration_of_bc_by_
region_september_2007.Par.0001.File.ipp_
supply_map.pdf

jimmy_laroux...

He's baaaaaack....with another fraudulent statement. Of course! lol

From BC Hydro's 2000/2001 annual reports under the NDP:

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/
internet/documents/info/pdf/info_2000_annual_report.Par.0001.File.info_2000_annual_
report.pdf

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/internet/documents/info/pdf/info_2001_annual_report.Par.0001.File.info_2001_annual_report.pdf

So let's again get this straight. BC Hydro, under NDP management:

1. Encourages micro hydro IPP's;

2. Gives IPP's a list of 600 rivers for run of river IPP's;

3. Prepares a handbook for IPP's on how to develop micro hydro;

4. Enters into IPP contracts for micro hydro;

So the current provincial government is continuing on with NDP BC Hydro practice. What's the diff? (although you completely deny same)

But then you are... jimmy_laroux :)

Bute inlet as "small hydro"

The first run-of-the-river projects in BC were small. The Bute Inlet project has a massive 1027 MW capacity.

http://www.plutonic.ca/s/ButeInlet.asp

To compare, the Revelstoke Dam currently has a capacity 2000 MW (although BC Hydro is adding another turbine to bring the capacity up to 2500 MW). The enormous Mica Dam is 1800 MW (again BC Hydro plans to eventually increase this to 2800 MW, roughly the same as the WAC Bennett Dam). The point is that the Bute Inlet project has a capacity on par with the largest dams in BC. It's environmental impact will not be small.

Luke Skywalker

Notice that I did not write in my post that the NDP did not continue the electricity purchases from IPPs, or the expansion thereof. This makes your entire post a straw man argument. Not the first and surely not the last :)

Here's why your ridiculous retort is fallacious. You wrote that the NDP first initiated IPP microhydro in BC. This is your quote:

But BC Hydro, on the other hand, says:

As in IPP purchases began in BC under the Social Credit government. Completely different party from the NDP, in case you didn't know. Did you look at that map I posted? Pretty cool, eh? It shows all the existing and currently proposed IPP projects, including those from the eighties.

As you likely do not know...

http://www.drury.edu/ess/Logic/Informal/Strawman.html

TIRADE

If you are wondering why and how the the enviro movement has become pretty much a spent force in BC, well, there you have it above.

Grandstanding, playing quid-pro-quo politics and chasing after grants has taken its predictable toll, and all that is left are a bunch of talking heads, fleeting blips on your TV screen.

It began when the enviro movement hooked up with FNs as both sought favourable publicity, marrying a purely local, racial cause with the much more all-embracing human dilemma of environmental abuse. FNs, the enviros preached, were never like all the other humans throughout time that Ronald Wright {A Short History of Progress]has described,

Doing so has required draping native peoples in the robes of Gods seeking only to commune with "sacred" nature, and totally immune to the more base desires {such as resource-rape} we "whites" have imposed upon them.

That statement says nothing about the FN's political campaign, for that is being and has been fought in the Courts. But it has plenty to say about our powerlessness to oppose or modify FN challenges to the commonweal, such as the ALR lands fiasco, logging in the Clayoquot, bear-hunting and logging in the GBR, and now FN active participation in RoR projects. Fear of being seen as "racist" quells constructive public criticism when it comes to FNs, and we should note that bringing FNs on board to a project is seen as a trump card, as Luke gloats over above.

And so we are now discovering that native peoples are humans after all, subject to the same "greed" we've been constantly hauled over the coals for. Their leaders are no less subject to being schmoozed by invitations to sit in the rarified atmosphere of Corporate boardrooms than are ours, and no less willing to take quick profits at the expense of their own future generations.

GWest and others here are going to take the above as an overt or at best covert incitement to racism, as they've done with me before. But that's OK folks, if it convinces only a few people that a river or stream is NOT any FN's "territory", but is rather a treasure held by ALL of us in trust for future generations, I'll gladly wear the bigot label.

The hypocrisy invoked by Tzepora and the chiefs is no different than the promise of Jaaawbs by Plutonic. Your various forms of greed makes me puke

EPAs from IPPs in BC

In 1999 BC Hydro was buying 1,839 GWh of electricity from IPPs.

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/
internet/documents/info/pdf/info_2000_annual_report.Par.0001.File.info_2000_annual_report.pdf

After the 2006 Open Call for Power, "B.C. Hydro had agreed to buy 7,125 GWh", ~12% of the energy used in the province each year.

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/10/30/BCHydro/

BC Hydro now buys 7,765 GWh from IPPs, and plans to nearly double their IPP purchases in the near future:

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/internet/documents/info/pdf/info_annual_report_2008.Par.0001.File.info_annual_report_2008.pdf

Gordon Campbell

I hope anyone who has been lured into voting for Gordo will think again when they remember or realize that through Bill 30 he took away communities' right to input into any PPPs in their communities!!

manufactured enemies

The belief that Tzepora appears somewhat naïve about run-of-river hydro, and FNs are becoming white faster than some would like is the product of truncated thinking … select that which supports your argument, ignore the rest ... and is manufactured for a reason.

The problem is not Tzepora or FNs, it is our failure to recognize that those who stand to benefit the most are aware of the benefits of labeling, compartmentalizing and manufacturing an enemy. It’s a strategy that has a long history. And by reading comments on this topic, it seems to be working.

EARP ToR

Obviously Rafe and his band of "banana"s (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything) do not want to see a rational process for project reviews. If they behaved as Rafe has reported, it appears that their minds are made up so they do not want to be confused by the facts.

The purpose of the Environmental Assessment Review Process meeting that Rafe attended was to determine the Terms of Reference for the review. The merits of proposed project will be examined once the ToR are set.

I do not know which side is correct in the argument about whether BC has sufficient electrical power. It does seem logical that a decreasing reliance on fossil fuels will call for an increase in electricity generated from renewable sources. But an argument can be made that conservation will offset potential growth.

Perhaps a way to address the demand/supply issue is to require local sources of energy. It seems that people are happy to have developments in other backyards. Southwest BCers continually call for development of Site C even though the northeast region already has two major dams. They are also happy to benefit from the $billions the government receives from the natural gas industry in the same area. In the meantime, they fight against local gas development and power projects. What would happen if, for example, Vancouver Islanders would need to rely on local coalbed gas (Campbell River) instead of gas from the northeast delivered through a subsidized pipeline? Or if they had to produce electricity from gas fired plants (Port Alberni?) instead of using power generated elsewhere and transmitted on high voltage lines through Delta.

"Save Our Rivers" Video of Top Scientists

Thanks go to Damien Gillis for producing this video and quote:

Run of the River Hydro Projects

While it makes sense to proceed with caution on the run of the river projects it does not make any sense to be doing this privately and at a much higher cost to BC.

The run of the river projects should be done by BC HYDRO which belongs to the people.
This is the legacy of Social Credit and the wisdom of W.A.C. Bennet.

They should be done with the environment taken into account, and a need for the power in BC.

Under Nafta whatever we export to the USA will have to be maintained even though we may run short in BC.

The Campbell Government are thieves, by pushing private power with little benefit to the people of BC.

There is talk of jobs but once they are developed there will be few jobs.

What is the benefit to BC? Some small royalties, and we lose control of our rivers to out of Country corporations.

This is what the Campbell Government in BC is giving the people of BC who own the rivers.

Throw the Bums out.

Balance

About a year ago, I ran into an acquaintance I had not seen in about 8 years. He deals with fish habitat for the Feds. He said he's tired of hearing about 'balance'. It's become a code word for us to justify our destruction and degradation of nature to meet our ends.

As he put it, 'balance' is so far in favour of development that fish habitat only loses.

jimmy_laroux...

Fair enough, but BC Hydro was also likely purchasing surplus IPP power as far back as circa 1961 when it was first created.

Until circa 2000, the source of BC Hydro's purchase of IPP power was likely such producers as municipal utilities, Alcan, and Cominco, for example, and surplus to their needs.

And that was around the same time that the BC NDP and BC Hydro drastically changed their policy in terms looking to IPP's to specifically develop and provide micro-hydro power, so-called run-of-river projects, specifically for BC Hydro's needs.

And the year 2000 was the game changer, ground zero for today's IPP micro hydro development.

As for Plutonic's Bute Inlet proposal... very ambitious and they better get all of their ducks lined up in a row.

That proposal involves 17 separate micro hydro facilities, each with an average capacity of ~60 MW.

Frankly, I'd be surprised if even part of that proposal ever comes to fruition.

Not green...not small

Frank wrote:

Quote:

"she's willing to protect one part of the environment at the expense of another."

I agree,....that's the strange and desperate kind of logic that comes when people allow themselves to be co-opted...when insider status is more important than keeping your integrity or the ability to think critically about the big picture.

All the relentless and cowardly "compromising" with Campbell's corporate agenda has been a key factor in the step by step implementation of privatization that has devastated this province.... as well as the human rights of the people of this province.

Also, thanks Rafe, for writing this article and for attending the charade of a "public" meeting held recently in Powell River.

You make two key points here:

Quote:

"No ordinary British Columbian had any say in the Campbell energy plan, which, in essence, was the plan put forward by Alcan.

And no local government has any say with respect to power projects, a right taken away by the Campbell government with the infamous Bill 30.

Thus, the massive destruction of our environment and the slow but sure death of BC Hydro have been planned and is being implemented without any opportunity for the public to be heard."

The premeditation of those involved in the environmental destruction of this province must be addressed.

Many thanks to Rafe Mair

... for attending these unpleasant meetings and for telling us honestly what he saw. It's important for us to hear ... but it ain't a pretty picture.

Thanks to The Tyee for publishing the reports. But from there, things go downhill.

The first two comments following Rafe's column look like pre-packaged material thoughtfully prepared and provided by the B.C. Public Affairs Bureau, whose salaries are paid by people (taxpayers) who profoundly disagree with these IPPs. Not an acceptable function in a supposedly democratic society.

But then, neither are these giveaway power projects.

Run of the mouth....

...much better term for those who promote these so called Run of River projects.

These projects are river diversion and destruction.

We can stop these.
Meeting in Vancouver about Bute Inlet-

Tuesday, Feb. 10, Vancouver

Public meeting on Bute Inlet power project

Organized by the B.C. Creek Protection Society and the Watershed
Watch Salmon Society (http://www.watershed-watch.org/)

Public meeting-Bute Inlet {more info}

Tuesday, Feb. 10, Vancouver

Public meeting on Bute Inlet power project

Organized by the B.C. Creek Protection Society and the Watershed
Watch Salmon Society (http://www.watershed-watch.org/)

UBC Robson Square Campus, Room C150

7-9 PM

Luke Skywalker

This is not true. Did you look at that map I posted? I'll post it again.

http://tinyurl.com/cpr3lc

For example, the Brown Lake plant, completed in 1996. It was a result of the 1989 call for power.

http://www.epcor.ca/en-ca/about-epcor/operations/operations-bcp-pnw/power-generation/Pages/BrownLake.aspx

And there are many others.

Very, very wrong. But don't take my word for it. Listen to IPPBC:

http://www.ippbc.com/EN/about_ippbc/history/

One of the first inventories of small hydro sites in BC was completed in 1983:

http://tinyurl.com/dlyaym

jimmy_laroux...

Both a quantitative as well as a qualitative analysis should be involved in every matter.

From a qualitative perspective, during the 1980's and into the 1990's BC Hydro's Site C proposal was a dead duck politically.

And when BC Hydro called for IPP proposals in 1989, the NDP was elected relatively shortly thereafter in October, 1991.

On must remember that the lag time from BC Hydro's call, to conceptual proposals, to environmental assessment, to financing, to getting the shovels into the ground is both quite bureaucratic as well as lengthy.

What that tells me is that the BC Hydro, under the NDP's reign, was skittish in terms of moving forward with IPP micro-hydro. One must also remember that the 1990's likely did not see much relative growth in electrical demand.

For example, let's look at Ledcor's Ashlu Creek IPP:

Then later in October, 1996 the NDP stopped the IPP process due to ideological reasons/ internal political reasons.

http://www.ashlucreek.com/chronology-of-the-ashlu-creek-hydro-project-develo-1.html

However, BC Hydro, under the then NDP government, later reversed its public policy regarding run-of-river, micro-hydro IPPs.

And your BC Hydro link from 2000 further reinforces same:

And that's in reference to BC Hydro providing IPP's with a booklet of potential micro-hydro sites along 600 rivers and how to develop same. And BC Hydro, during 2000, began signing contracts for micro-hydro electrical purchases from IPPs.

Again, I wish to re-iterate:

Luke Skywalker

The first purchase agreements were signed in 1989. I'm not sure why this is all so remarkably difficult for you to understand.

Nothing you wrote in your last post supports this statement. And indeed the fact tell quite a different story.

BC Hydro under the NDP signed no new electricity purchase agreements with IPPs for small hydro electricity until 2000, when 3 were signed. The bulk of the new purchase agreements made under the NDP were from cogeneration plants (Island CoGen, Hartland Landfill, Purcell CoGen).

Small hydro really took off in 2006. The quantity of electrical energy BC Hydro agreed to buy from IPPs in the 2006 Call for Power, around 7,125 GWh, far outstripped purchases made from IPPs before that.

http://www.bchydro.com/planning_regulatory/acquiring_power/open_call_for_power/cft_results.html

This is about an order of magnitude larger than the EPAs made in 2002, also under the Liberal government...

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/internet/documents/info/pdf/info_2002_annual_report.Par.0001.File.info_2002_annual_report.pdf

In 2003 still more EPAs were made:

http://www.bchydro.com/etc/medialib/internet/documents/info/pdf/2003_annual_report.Par.0001.File.2003_annual_report.pdf

Yes, BC Hydro provided information concerning potential small hydro sites in 2000. But, and this is even in the relevant quote in my last post, there was a similar study done in 1983 by BC Hydro, upon which the 2000 study was based.

Luke Skywalker

I suppose it now been quantitatively as well as qualitatively been shown that you don't know what you're talking about.

What does Site C have to do with anything? Red herring.

Wait for it... Red herring!

I'll give you a hint. It's a herring, and it's red. This is fun :) The question is when the EPAs were signed, not when the power comes online.

Good day, ladies, gentlemen, and spinners

Thanks Rafe for maintaining public awareness about such important issues. We are so distracted by the pending archaic revival that we seem to dance around this issue and never get the real picture. Like homegrown said

“I hope anyone who has been lured into voting for Gordo will think again when they remember or realize that through Bill 30 he took away communities' right to input into any PPPs in their communities!!”

That is a great point. With proper planning and implementation, personal power projects can avoid a good deal of stress on ecosystems and the biosphere, while in part allowing us to transition off grid as we should into more self-governing, sustainable communities.

With peak oil and other disasters staring at us, how will these not so inconsequential power plants even be maintained? Will they end up being projects that not only devastate ecosystems but in the wake of shoddy foresight will be left forgotten as relics to their own redundancy?

Doesn’t the government function like a dream? You have to be asleep to believe it. Maybe Harper, Campbell, and a lucky few will live in some kind of self-financing underground nature city where they will only need to wait a few million years to walk on real lawn again… maybe there will be a more advanced civilization waiting for them on the other side... yea we'll see ya on the other side.

Growth syndrome

Our species has hard wired, over the last few thousand years, a profane impulse towards instant gratification and unsavory material excess.

Now that it appears we are nearing the end of the long garden party, many of us do not have the knowledge, willingness, or intelligence to recognize the plain fact that 99.99% of all species on earth since the dawn of life have gone extinct. Our remarkable potential will be buried in a layer of strata if we continue to practice the disassociative faith that we have an eternal contract with the biosphere to exploit without consequence.

Even to this day myriads of elitists continue to subscribe to the dogma that globalization, free trade, and other systems are going to keep them and the rest of us sheltered

Its a joke!

Still

Stump, I agree that if the way you put it holds true, today's enviro is truly faced with a Hobson's Choice :

"If you chain yourself to the bulldozer, you're a scofflaw extremist. If you work within the system, you're a sellout....Some choice."

But my reason for my "diatribe" was to point out that the loss of direction and basic environmental values of today's enviros, a la Tzepora Berman, has an origin that began 30 years ago, when enviros began promoting the belief that FNs - alone among all peoples - had an approach to environmental sustainabiliy, as defined by Suzuki's Wisdom of the Elders. All that was needed, we were told, was to return to the "old ways".

That social prescription meant putting all their eggs in a cultural basket and re forestry, focusing upon preservation of so-called "sacred" forests while assuming that FNs would happily abide by that designation, which they haven't.

While ideologically rejecting the idea of harvesting Old Growth, enviros compromised, and endorsed the joke that "Forest Certification" became, and more recently "Ecosystem Based Management" as seen in the GBR.

There are ways that Coastal forests can be harvested on a sustainable basis, but they do not lend themselves to the large volumes that contemporary logging methods and milling techniques demand.

Another example of where so-called cultural values overrule a common-sense, scientifically-based approach, is the Sea otter. Without this animal, the near-shore ecosystem which once was an extremely productive mechanism - cannot be restored.

Despite the voluminous and incontroverible scientific evidence, and despite the Sea otter as a slam-dunk poster-boy, enviros won't touch this one. Why? Because of FN opposition.

My point then, is simple. Humankind is, and always been, driven by short term self-interest. The recognition of that should require that ALL of us must change our attitudes. Absolving some from that duty because they are aboriginals is NO different than absolving others because they are rich.

And so back to Tzepora and her enormous conceit. Some hold, as I do, that the real job of an enviro is to remind us of basic environmental values, and to hold our feet to the fire when we ignore and abuse them.

The right to "negotiate" and compromise was never given to her - or the big enviros, by the rank and file. To his credit, not even Suzuki, who would be a popular choice for doing so, has succumbed to the temptation to perform such a monumental act of hubris.

Rather, that right was traded to them by Gordo and his buddies in return for "cooperation", just as his relatively recent discovery of aboriginal rights has opened the door for "Progress".

Re Sea otter above

I apologise for forgetting that while the Sea otter issue seems obvious to me, to others, it isn't.

At the risk of oversimplification, here it is in a nut shell.

The Sea otter Controls the abundance of the Sea Urchin, which feeds on the Kelp. Because the Sea urchin is uncontrolled over almost all of our coast, the Kelp is probably less than 10% of its former abundance.

All life is dependant upon the Sun's energy which is captured by plants. Mainly, there are only two "plants" which do this in our waters - the microscopic phytoplankton and various forms of algae such as the Kelp.

Some 95% {I'm not sure of that number) of all life in the sea originates and spends its juvenile life in the nearshore, and it is obvious that without kelp, non-planktivorous fishes etc are deprived their primary food source.

There's lots more, but that's the gist of it.

Is the sky is falling again?

An angry crowd stormed into the First Nations hall in Campbell River Monday. One old man from out of town angrily waiving his metal studded cane over his head demanding to be heard ahead of every one else.

The Campbell River Mirror paper reports it well. First nation elders reduced to tears. Why such disrespect for others?

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_north/campbellrivermirror/news/38923834.html

http://www.prpeak.com/articles/2009/02/04/news/doc4983a981068f1829524755.txt

Read and judge for yourself.