Ten Timely Questions About Our Rivers and Electricity

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

-- "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas

This verse so neatly sums up our carelessness with time when we're young and are promised so much of it. When you reach a certain age, however, wastes of time take on new importance. It seems to happen so suddenly! One day you realize that when people talk about something happening in 2015 or 2010 you just might not be around for the event. You find that your patience when being unduly delayed far more frustrating than you once did when most delays were inconsequential in the big scheme of things.

Well, in that context I and more than 300 others wasted about four hours in a meeting held last Tuesday by the Environmental Assessment Office to set terms of reference for the environmental assessment process for Plutonic Power's massive private power project on Bute Inlet.

This private scheme is proposed by Plutonic Energy, which is controlled by General Electric, in which multi-billionaire Warren Buffett has a large interest. I speak for Save Our Rivers Society, which, far from being well-funded as alleged, depends on timely month-to-month donations from generous ordinary citizens to meet its obligations. We are, as they say, in tough.

A plan without public approval

There are two points to bear in mind.

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.

Back to the Powell River hearing on the massive Bute Project. The hall was jammed. There were three general groups there: the Plutonic Energy people, those who supported what Plutonic was doing (mostly contractors who would get the business); First Nations; other folks (about 90 per cent of the whole) with questions that never would be answered.

The woman who chaired the meeting, who somehow reminded me of my dear old Sunday school teacher, declared over and over again that the meeting was not on the merits of the proposal but strictly to address the terms of reference for the Environmental Assessment Office by whom she is employed. Notwithstanding the chair's ruling, Plutonic, their supporters and a First Nations chief were permitted to extol the virtues of this project as long as they liked while those who opposed were quickly shut down. (It did not go unnoticed that the chair and Don McInnis, president of Plutonic, were on a first name basis.)

The meeting went on and on and on with ordinary citizens wanting to deal with the issues, not the terms of reference. They took the rather obvious position that a project ought to have been dealt with on the merits before any environmental assessment process kicked in. Despite valiant efforts by Ms. Chairperson, it became vividly obvious that following this process simply rubber stamped the project.

Ten ways to make people mad

The "ordinary folks" got angrier and angrier as the meeting dragged on -- this anger considerably aggravated by the Plutonic supporters and Plutonic itself being permitted to shill their project to their hearts' content.

It's useful, I think, to summarize just what issues make up these private power projects:

1. Why the lack of real consultation?

2. Where's the proof that we need more power and, if we do, are there alternatives?

3. Experts tell us -- so does BC Hydro, for that matter -- that with conservation, upgrading present facilities and adding generators on existing dams plus taking back the power we're entitled to under the Columbia River Treaty, we have no need for many years for more power. So why are going down the privatization route?

4. Why is BC Hydro not permitted to create any new power?

5. Why are we giving away to large corporations the hundreds of millions of dollars BC Hydro puts into the public purse every year to help with schools, hospitals and the like?

6. Why is BC Hydro forced by the government to enter contracts for energy with private producers which cost Hydro more than they can sell it for -- buy high, sell low is a strange policy especially for a capitalist government!

7. Why are we approving intermittent power, which only can be produced during the spring run-off?

8. What will be the effect of NAFTA? Will it mean that any American company with rights on a river has all rights, including the right to export it?

9. Will it mean that as long as the American company uses the river, it can ignore the time limit in the lease? The answer to each is probably "yes."

10. Why are we disabling BC Hydro so that it must go broke under the proposed policy?

Pretending to lend an ear

These and others are all questions that go to the root of the matter. If there had been public hearings dealing with these issues, I submit that the public outrage might even have caught the attention of the somnolent mainstream media.

When Premier Gordon Campbell took away from local government the right to pass judgment on power projects, he high handedly took from the people the right to be heard and thus participate in the process in a real way. The effect was a denial of justice, meaning that all who attended last Tuesday's meeting in Powell River were wasting time that we folks of a certain age can ill afford to give up.

I think I can create a new political maxim. If the public is denied the right to be heard in one place, it will insist upon being heard in another.

And this is exactly what happened last Tuesday night in Powell River and what will continue to happen as the environmental assessment exercise in futility takes its dog and pony show around a province being ravaged by private power plants that have no consent of the public.

Related Tyee stories:

• Plutonic CEO calls for energy export plan
• Hydro developer bids on big piece of 'green power corridor'
• Who's Behind 'BC Citizens For Green Energy'?
  Group with BC Liberal ties slams gov't critics, pushes private power, nuclear.