Did you hear about the oil spill near ISKUt river on Nov 16?

Did you see this in the Main Stream Media in the lowermainland, I did not and wonder why this information is apparently seen as non-news by us in the south of BC. Your guesses are as good as mine.

FUEL SPILL NEAR THE ISKUT RIVER - NORTHWEST FUELS written by Rivers Without Borders and posted in the Terrace Daily online

Highlights Spill Risks to Pacific Salmon

Salmon and hydrocarbons don’t mix. That’s common sense, but with pipelines, mines, hydroelectric projects, new roads and increased industrial traffic proposed for northwest British Columbia, there’s a growing risk of industrial accidents and oil and gas spills in the region. A recent fuel spill near the Iskut River highlights that risk. The spill also reveals that both provincial and federal governments have gutted their environmental protection agencies, and are not adequately prepared to meet the growing threat to water quality and salmon habitat.

The spill occurred on November 16, 2011. There was no government or industry press release about the spill, and Rivers Without Borders only recently heard about it from people working in the region. Subsequent calls to government officials and other interested parties revealed more details. Here’s what happened: a loaded fuel truck and trailer bound for AltaGas’ Forrest Kerr hydroelectric project, west of Bob Quinn, lost control on a steep hill and crashed against a rock wall at kilometer 12 on the Eskay Creek road, spilling 9,300 litres of winter diesel near the Iskut River. Chemicals such as benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene are hazardous components of diesel spills. Investigators at the scene believe the diesel drained into cracks in the rock, possibly straight into groundwater. No fuel has been recovered.

The spill is currently “under investigation”. In B.C., that’s not reassuring. Even though there are no immediate threats to human health, and hydrocarbons have not yet been detected in water, here are four things revealed by an investigation into the Forrest Kerr fuel spill, which should concern everyone in the region:

1) The B.C. Government Doesn’t Have Your Back - Due to provincial government cutbacks, there’s only one Environmental Emergency Response Officer, based in Smithers, for the entire region of northwest BC. That means that from Atlin to Haida Gwaii to Burns Lake – an enormous area – one single person is tasked with responding to spills on behalf of the province. Given the amount of proposed new industrial projects in northwest BC, unless the province hired Superman, they didn’t hire enough people to do the job.
2) The Federal Government Doesn’t Have Your Back – When it comes to spills of hazardous materials such as oil and gas, Environment Canada is responsible for handing out fines, prosecuting environmental violations, and enforcing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This is the same ministry that just cut 60 scientists from its staff. A Globe and Mail article pointed out that in a recent seven year stretch, across the entire country, Environment Canada nailed down only 32 convictions, less than five a year. Either Canada is a place where industrial accidents, and environmental violations, almost never happen, or the government is willfully blind and not interested in looking.
3) In Northwest B.C., The Liability Is Likely To Fall On The Little Guy - Potential liability for a spill like the Forrest Kerr fuel spill falls on the company, in this case Northwest Fuels, that had “care and control” of the fuel at the time of the accident. That’s the ‘polluter pays’ principle, and it sounds good in theory. In practice, it means a local contractor, based in Terrace, is on the hook for hiring a private consulting company to do environmental monitoring, and for potential clean up and remediation costs. At the same time, the large Calgary based corporation, AltaGas, which contracted Northwest Fuels to do the job, bears no legal responsibility for the spill. Future accidents – and there will be future accidents – will likely have similar outcomes: the financial burden of a cleanup will fall on small business owners in northwest British Columbia, not on the corporations that will construct and operate the giant mines and hydroelectric projects.

4) Wild Pacific Salmon Are In Danger – Mines, pipelines, and other industrial projects are planned for northwest BC, and the Forrest Kerr fuel spill is likely just the start of things to come. If these projects go ahead, watersheds with vast roadless areas, clean water, and pristine salmon habitat will be intercut with new roads and industrial infrastructure. For salmon, it’s the Death of a Thousand Cuts.

The degradation of salmon habitat in rivers like the Unuk, Iskut, and Stikine will be inevitable, and the threat of water contamination from a fuel spill will always be there. Norm Fallows, the BC Environmental Emergency Response Officer based in Smithers, said that in northeast BC, which has been hammered by gas drilling activity, there’s “a spill every day,” and, “anything less then 5,000 litres is considered not worth checking out”. A similar situation may be coming to the northwest corner of the province, and that would be a real shame: salmon can’t handle swallowing a fuel spill a day.

The Spin continues

I read two interesting accounts today about what Andrew Frank said. The first  was from the Wall Street Journals MarketWatch, which started with this statement"ForestEthics has sent a statement to supporters confirming the veracity of Andrew Frank's claims that the Government of Canada targeted the environmental group.  In an email sent to supporters yesterday afternoon (January 25), ForestEthics co-founder, Valerie Langer confirms the veracity of Andrew Frank's claims"

The second report was Straight.com, which started with this statement "An environmentalist claims that Stephen Harper's office threatened to revoke Tides Canada Foundation's charitable status, but the group's CEO says that this comment is "inaccurate".

Interesting spin being put on this issue by these two sources. The Straight is interested in the effect that muzzling of this charity will have on other charities,  and wonders what other groups the government will go after. This article ends with the following statement:
"If Frank's whistle-blowing allegation is correct that the Prime Minister's Office threatened Tides Canada, then one wonders who might be next on the government's hit list.

We all know that Stephen Harper can't be trusted to play fair with anyone he perceives to be an enemy. Maybe it's time for the NDP leadership candidates and Liberal Leader Bob Rae to propose a long-term solution to prevent prime ministers from throttling registered charities for partisan political purposes. The best way to do that would be to craft legislation to create an independent charities commission."

The Wall Street Journal article discusses the letter in light of the governments contempt for freedom of speech and  ends with this statement "Andrew Frank's original open letter ( http://www.scribd.com/doc/79228736/Whistleblower-s-Open-Letter-to-Canadians  ) to Canadians has been read more than 55,000 times since Tuesday morning (January 24), sparking an online movement to reveal the truth and hold the government to account for its contempt of the most basic rights of Canadian citizens, including freedom of speech and freedom of expression"

Silencing the critics

 Mr. Harper does not like those who speak against him and who question his decisions. Are you an enemy of Canada if you oppose the Northern Gateway plan. Harper seems to think so and has taken steps to silence his critics. The following is interesting reading:

Prime Minister’s Office Tries to Silence Pipeline Critics; Labels Environmental Group“Enemy of the Government of Canada” and “Enemy of the people of Canada.” For the full letter follow the link

 A Whistleblower’s Open Letter to the Citizens of Canada

 

My name is Andrew Frank. I grew up in a small town in the Okanagan valley of BritishColumbia. My granddad taught me how to fish. My father was a well‐respected lawyerknown for his unwavering integrity, and my mother was a favourite kindergarten teacher. Both have always impressed upon me the importance of telling the truth.Today, I am taking the extraordinary step of risking my career, my reputation and mypersonal friendships, to act as a whistleblower and expose the undemocratic andpotentially illegal pressure the Harper government has apparently applied to silence critics of the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil tanker/pipeline plan

UK must rethink its unfailing support for Canada's fossil fuels

Steven Harper continues to reshape Canadas image in the world.

The Canadian government's desperate responses to tar sands opposition should be a cue for Britain to stop doing its bidding in Europe. This waspPosted on  16 January 2012 16.46 GM in the Guardian written by Kelly Rigg

If it's true that desperate times call for desperate measures, the Canadian government is acting like a junkie in need of a fix.

As public hearings on the proposed Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline proposal got underway in British Columbia last week, natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, lashed out at "environmental and other radical groups" and "jet-setting celebrities." In an open letter, he accused them of being the stooges of foreign special-interest groups, opposing tar sands development in order to undermine Canada's national economic interest.

The letter was so far off the mark, one can only conclude that the government is becoming unhinged over the growing opposition to tar sands development. This should be a cue for Britain to reconsider its unfailing support for Canada on this issue in the European context.

To read more go here\

I find it difficult to believe that people believe that Enbridge will be in a position to safegurard the lands they pass through. On Monday morning on CBC Rafe Mair raised the fact that there is an oil spill on average every two years along the BC coast, and that is without the new tankers that will come as a result of thenew pipeline.  The following story about how Enbridg has worked with the First Nations in the north bears some reading.

How Enbridge Sawed Off Good Relations with BC First Nations ()for the full story click on the link)

Killing Haisla's sacred trees just one way firm has undercut dealings with aboriginals on Pacific Gateway route.

By Geoff Dembicki, Today, TheTyee.ca posted Monday January 16th

More than five years ago, in a patch of coastal rainforest not far from the mouth of the Kitimat River, what was supposed to have been a quiet land survey turned into a public relations nightmare. 

The purpose of the survey was to scout locations for an upland terminal and tank farm site, part of the infrastructure needed to stretch a 1,172 kilometre steel pipeline from Alberta's booming oil sands to B.C.'s ragged north coast.

The Calgary-based pipeline company Enbridge had contracted the job to an international engineering and consulting firm named AMEC, which, in 2006, sent survey members into old-growth forest dense with Sitka spruce and Western red cedar.

Covered by thick moss and ferns, this area, about 700 kilometres north of Vancouver, is literally a living museum of First Nations history.

Scattered throughout the forest are deeply notched tree trunks where Haisla peoples once stripped bark for their baskets, or took planks to build their homes.

Carbon-date these culturally modified trees, Haisla leaders say, and you can establish native land claims dating back hundreds, even thousands, of years.

 

Sometime during their expedition, AMEC workers chopped down 14 of these trees, irreplaceable artefacts in a culture largely built on oral histories. (A company spokesperson declined to explain why.).....

What followed over the next five years was a blueprint for how not to engage with native communities, an incident that to this day remains unresolved.

The picture that emerges, and from several milestones like it, is a decade-long First Nations consultation process fraught with errors and missteps. 

And with historic public hearings on the $5.5 billion Northern Gateway pipeline just begun last week on Haisla territory, some observers think Enbridge may be in a much more precarious legal position than most people are aware.  

Canada open for business but closed to criticism

An interesting article on the position taken by the Harper Cons by Nathan Lemphers, which appeared in a column in Troy Media on Jan 12

 

While calling foul over environmental "ideology," Oliver ignores the ideological underpinnings of his own government

January 12, 2012
ALGARY, AB, Jan. 12, 2012/ Troy Media/ - Apparently Canada is open for business but closed to criticism, no matter how constructive. This is the clearest conclusion that can be drawn from Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s open letter to Canadians, in which he attacks advocates of responsible oil-sands development as “radicals” and dismisses the concerns of thousands of Canadians who want to have a say in the decision of whether to build Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

The $6.6-billion project would run two parallel pipelines carrying diluted bitumen and condensate along a 1,177-kilometre route linking the oil sands in Alberta with the remote port of Kitimat on the northern B.C. coast. The pipelines would traverse hundreds of salmon-bearing rivers and streams, the mountainous and landslide-prone terrain, the Great Bear Rainforest, and the territory of more than 50 First Nations.

Federal government isn’t listening
The joint review panel public hearings that have just begun aim to determine whether the project is in the interest of Canadians.

But recent statements from the Harper government indicate it is not interested in listening to the concerns of more than 4,000 Canadians who have signed up to speak at the hearings. Forget the democratic process and ignore the obligations of due diligence and harm prevention inherent in Canada’s environmental review process – as Oliver states, “For our government, the choice is clear.”

In fact, the minister’s letter makes one wonder if he spends any time at all listening to those Canadians who care about environmental protection and responsible resource development. Dismissing opponents of this project as “ideological” and opposed to all major projects, Oliver ironically ignores the ideological underpinnings of the Harper government’s consistent efforts to pit economic growth against environmental protection. 

The two objectives don’t have to be mutually exclusive. The Pembina Institute has long argued for responsible oil-sands development – and we’ve done our due diligence to map out 19 policy solutions that could move Canada closer to that goal. But rather than fulfill its duty to ensure environmentally responsible oil-sands development, the Harper government has preferred to engage in the “bait and switch” PR manoeuvres of the “ethical oil” crowd.
A pipeline rupture along the mountainous interior B.C. route and a supertanker spill in the waters off the Pacific Coast are two significant risks associated with this project. The government’s refusal to acknowledge and address those risks – let alone demonstrate how it would propose cleaning up the potential damage and compensating the British Columbians whose livelihoods would be affected – is irresponsible.

Canadians deserve a government that is willing to listen to their concerns about our current course of energy development and take those concerns seriously. Interfering in due process (particularly for a project of this magnitude, and one in which so many Canadians have a legitimate interest in the outcome) risks more than the integrity of our natural resources – it undermines the basic principles of a democratic society.
The government has also been outspoken in its criticism of “foreign intervention” in the Gateway hearings – that is, input from environmental advocates outside Canada. But a quick bit of number-crunching by Environmental Defence shows that the government is overstating the case: Of the 216 interveners registered to participate in the hearings, not one represents an environmental group from outside of Canada, while 10 represent multinational corporations.

Forty First Nations from B.C. and Alberta make up the largest single block of registered interveners, and of the 4,522 people registered to make 10-minute oral presentations at the hearings, 79 per cent are British Columbians.

There certainly may be room to improve the efficiency of the regulatory approvals process for energy projects in the future. But standing up for Canada means ensuring that energy developers don’t profit from extracting our resources and degrading our environment while Canadians are stuck paying for the cleanup bill. This is quite contrary to the Harper government’s apparent desire to bulldoze any opposition to the government’s oil-sands-development agenda – especially when that opposition emerges from within our borders.
Minister Oliver states that, “Our regulatory system must be fair, independent, consider different viewpoints including those of Aboriginal communities, review the evidence dispassionately and then make an objective determination. It must be based on science and the facts.”

We couldn’t agree more, and can’t help but point out the troubling disconnect between the minister’s call for a “dispassionate” and “objective” approach and his government’s blatant political interference in the process.

Consider the risks
Remember the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last summer? The fact is, such a disastrous spill could easily happen here, too. Canada’s environment commissioner recently warned Parliament that pipeline regulators were being too lax in their efforts to ensure safety, pipeline integrity, and environmental protection. And our research into the risks of transporting oil-sands crude by pipeline along the Gateway route shows that neither the Canadian government nor the project’s proponent, Enbridge, is prepared to deal with the consequences of a worst-case-scenario spill.

Canadians are right to be concerned about the costs and risks associated with this project. The hearings kicking off this week are designed to ensure that the government takes those concerns into account before rushing this project ahead.

Too bad the government doesn’t seem to be in the mood to listen.

Nathan Lemphers is a senior policy analyst with the Pembina Institute, a national non-partisan sustainable energy think-tank.

Source:  Troy Media

Natural gas is flowing in BC--to Asia

BC Mary on October 8th posted a link to the fourth page of an article in the Globe and Mail written by David Ebner and  Nathan Vanderklippe, which I have copied below. The article examines the issues around Kitimat and the problems with pipelines, electricity, etc in providing Asia with Naturral gas first, but I think once gas is approved the approval for oil coming out of the North of BC will not be far behind.

These problems have been solved according to the newstory and apparently have been supported by all of the major players in the area including the first Nations. So watch for a pipeline to be build  and gas to be exported soon from our north. I wonder how the environmentalists take will be on this issue?

 Electrical power will be a big question for Kitimat. Existing BC Hydro infrastructure is inadequate, especially if Shell follows Apache. A third serious name is also looking at Kitimat – Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, a top LNG exporter. This year Petronas paid $1.1-billion for a 50-per-cent stake in Montney shale gas fields in northeastern B.C. that are controlled by Calgary-based Progress Energy Resources Corp.
Pipelines are yet another issue. To feed gas to Kitimat LNG, a $1-billion, 465-kilometre pipeline, Pacific Trails, is required to link to existing pipelines near Prince George in the province’s northeast, the home of the gas. Owned by the Apache-EOG-Encana venture, it would traverse a route roughly similar to the proposed Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline, which is vehemently opposed by almost every single first nation along its sketched path.
But for gas, first nations have taken a pragmatic position. Fifteen first nations, using $35-million provided by the province, will take an equity stake and are set to receive roughly $550-million over 25 years from the pipeline profits, an average of $1.5-million annually for each nation.
“It’s not the default position of first nations to oppose,” said David Luggi, chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council. “We want to participate in the economy but there are limits. Oil will spill. It’ll end up on the water, whether on the coast, or our rivers, our lakes. I’m not saying gas is completely safe but it won’t pollute like oil would.”
There are hints support could be fragile. Around the northeast BC gas fields, some concerns among first nations have percolated. The fear is controversial fracturing technology – the explosive technique that unleashes shale gas below ground. It has sparked wide public concern and has led to temporary development halts, from France to Quebec and New York state. Any shift in B.C.’s openness to shale gas could have severe consequences for LNG plans.
“We’re certainly not going to promote something that’s harming any of our neighbours,” says Art Sterritt, director of Coastal First Nations, an alliance of groups on the B.C. coast.
For now, however, the support for gas drilling and exports is expansive. Nathan Cullen, NDP MP for the Kitimat region and a leadership candidate to succeed Jack Layton, backs LNG, as does John Horgan, an MLA on Vancouver Island and provincial NDP energy critic.
“The geology’s night and day. We’re drilling three kilometres in to the ground before we’re doing the fracking,” Mr. Horgan said. He’s concerned about water use but his greater worry is global competition. “We need to get going,” Mr. Horgan said. “We’re not the only people who are awash in gas.”
Kitimat was whipped by the global recession. Rio Tinto Alcan halted a $2.5-billion modernization of its smelter and West Fraser Timber, the country’s largest forestry company, shuttered an aging pulp and paper in early 2010. Thom Meier, general manager at 101 Industries Ltd., remembers when a hydroelectric expansion was suddenly halted in the 1990s. A four-line fax bore the news. “ ‘Cease all operations,’ ” Mr. Meier said. “We know the tap can turn off quickly.”
But these days, a burgeoning confidence pervades the town. 101 Industries recently built an aluminum dock that floats on the water at Bish Cove, where workers disembark to ready the gas export site.
With the Kitimat LNG project on the doorstep, and Alcan’s modernization now moving ahead, Kitimat’s three-decade decline could radically reverse. If Shell joins the action, the region could see its population of about 7,000 double as workers arrive to build the facilities.
Joanne Monaghan, the mayor, jokes that her mantle has become “mayor of boom” – a welcome change from “mayor of doom.”
“When I came 40 years ago, I said, ‘This is a giant that will some day wake.’ It’s waking.”

Hurdles are for

Jumping over.
The hurdles to innovation are similar. Our own personal middle managers are culprits keen to sidetrack creative ideas before they even have a chance to become innovations. There are numerous reasons for this. As we manage our day to day activities our internal  manager may fear that if we follow-up on a brilliant idea we will move into new areas and out of our comfort zone. She/he may not want to deal with the change implicit in implementing the idea. He/She may fear the loss of her own power through as another part of  our brain takes charge of implementing a potentially innovative idea.

This is not to say that all our internal managers are innovation hurdles. Rather that in many of us our internal managers are perceived as hurdles. On the other hand, when we are open to new ideas our internal managers are  conducive to the innovation process, it is a huge benefit to us. But when they are hurdles, that becomes a problem.

Problems Are Challenges
But wait! As we have learned before the innovation process typically starts with a problem. It simply needs to be turned into a challenge so that people can work on solving the problem with creative ideas!

The first step in the creative problem solving process, which is the basis of the front end of any viable innovation process, is to understand better the problem.

The second step in the process, and this is the most important step, is to use the information from step one in order to ask why questions, for example: “why is our internal managers suppressing ideas?” 

The answer might be: “because we have no motivation to push good ideas forward.” That's a good answer. But it's not good enough. Indeed, the best practice is to ask “why?” five times. By doing so, you may discover that you are not rewarding yourself  for new ideas; you believe you are overly pressured to perform routine tasks; and that you believe you may lose face if you back a failing idea. In short, you are not rewarded in any way for pushing ideas forward, even if those ideas are winners, but you believe that you risk consequences if an idea we champion does not work.

In such an environment, any potentially innovative idea starts with a tremendous handicap. Moreover, one can hardly our internal manager for discouraging ideas.

Evaluation Criteria 

The next step in the innovation process is to define the criteria by which you will evaluate ideas. This can be done before or after the idea generation process, but it is usually more smarter to do it beforehand. In this situation, criteria will probably include: viability of implementing the idea, ease of implementing the idea, expected effectiveness of the idea; avoidance of conflict from middle managers, minimal disruption (In some cases, you may actually want to encourage disruption in a new process. But, for all the sexiness of “disruptive innovation” the truth is, most of us do not like their lives to be disrupted)

With this information, it becomes relatively easy to formulate one or more innovation challenges that can be used to generate ideas. For example: “in what ways might we motivate [or 'reward'] ourselves to champion new ideas?"or “in what ways might we encourage our internal managers to start more innovative projects?”

At this stage, you go through the usual idea generation process and get lots of ideas. This done, you can combine ideas and evaluate them using the criteria you have identified. Now, does that not sound like a lot more fun than moaning about middle managers being hurdles to innovation?

Best of all, this process can be used to identify and define other hurdles to innovation as well as generate ideas to solve them. Indeed, the biggest hurdle to innovation is probably allowing hurdles to become insurmountable. But you would never catch a leader thinking that way!

Thoughts on the environment

Today on my thought for the day  from my  Buddhist readings I read:

It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. - J. Krishnamurti...

As I read the stories of the disaster that is shaping up in the Gulf I think these words have some meaning, I know there will be quick to lay blame and take up the rally that the people responsible should be punished. There will be time for authorities to investigate latter now is the time for people to help.

In BC the government of the day appears to be at least thinking of allowing oil rigs off the North Coast, and perhaps this is a wake up call to them to not move in that directions. In BC there appears to have been an abandonment of the principles of environmental stewardship by both the Federal and the Provincial governments. We have fish farming that appears to write checks to support the government in power so they can ignore the science and destroy our wild fisheries. We have companies who support the government apparently being given free reign in the run of rivers hydro projects that are destroying local rivers and wild live to sell power to our southern neighbours. We have Can West Global Media that controls the Major newspapers in BC and most of the local papers as well as one of the three major TV stations that does not appear to report anything that is anti-government so the majority of the public in BC are not aware of many of the major issues. The Blogs that I read and recommend to you are helping to set the record straight, but I am not a political blogger, I will leave that to the passionate people who I have linked to here.  Boomers took on challenges and fought hard to build a more compassionate society. Over time we became complacent and focused on the task of consuming not caring about others. As our society goes through the normal economic cycles of boom and bust, we are becoming more fearful and as we do we forget what we, at one time stood for. I am hopeful that the boomers will start to reconsider their consumption and start to reconnect to the values we held true in our youth. When we do, look out, we will come back with a roar:-)