Keeping our fingers crossed

CBC – June 28, 2016

Enbridge Northern Gateway seeks 3 year extension

Without permit extension or construction start, Northern Gateway done by end December

By Betsy Trumpener, CBC News Posted: Jun 28, 2016

Time is running out for Enbridge Northern Gateway.

Approvals for the controversial pipeline project require construction to start by Dec. 31, 2016.

But those permits appear likely to expire — before any pipelines are built.

"Clearly, we're not focused on construction schedules and a construction start date," said Catherine Pennington, Senior Manager and ‎Director of Community Partnerships at Northern Gateway Pipelines in Prince George.

Enbridge wants time to 'build relationships'

"We've been focussing almost exclusively on building relationships with indigenous communities and we really need the time," said Pennington.

Pennington said Enbridge is busy trying to build local support to "build a better project."

"Really, right from the beginning, Northern Gateway should have done a better job of building relationships with indigenous, First Nations, Metis and Indigenous communities, particularly on the west coast, " she said.

Pennington also said Enbridge needs more time to "receive clarity on some outstanding legal and regulatory issues."

But opponents of Northern Gateway oppose an extension.

Enbridge's time is up. It's pretty clear communities have said, 'No.' — Nadia Nowak, Sea to Sands

'Enbridge's time is up'

"Enbridge's time is up," said Nadia Nowak, a community organizer with the Sea to Sands group in Prince George.

"It's pretty clear communities have said no to this project. We don't think they deserve any more of our time or energy,' said Nowak.

Nowak is one of more than 2,000 people who have mailed or faxed in letters of public comment to the National Energy Board as it considers Enbridge's extension request.

More than 2,000 people weighed in

"The response has been quite extraordinary," said Sarah Kiley, a communications officer with the National Energy Board. "We've received well over 2,000 letters of comment...to let us know what we should consider."

If the extension request is turned down, the Northern Gateway Project could be finished before it gets started.

"The certificates attached to this project would expire and the company would no longer have the approvals it needed to construct the project," said Kiley.

Now the National Energy Board — and ultimately Justin Trudeau's federal cabinet — will decide if the sun is setting on Northern Gateway or if Enbridge will be granted an extension to December 31, 2019.

It ain't over 'til it's over...

Leave those signs in place!

Earlier this year, I speculated about perhaps taking down the sign I have posted at the bottom of our driveway - talked about breaking out the champagne. Well, I'm thinking again.

The Friends of Morice-Bulkley (FOMB) recently sent out this call for action - it seems even more important now that Christy Clark and Rachel Notley are talking electricity/pipeline deals. 

Dear Supporters,
The FOMB Steering Committee recently wrote a letter to federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau, urging the federal government to enact a legislated oil tanker ban on the north coast of BC. See our letter below.
We understand that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's call to formalize a moratorium on crude oil tankers has elicited strong push-back from oil executives and business. We need to make our voice heard also.
Please add your voice to ours in one of these ways:

• write the Honorable Minister of Transport Mr Garneau at marc.garneau@parl.gc.ca
  
• sign an on-line letter at Dogwood's website  http://www.tankerban.ca/
  
• or pick up and mail a Friends of Wild Salmon tanker ban postcard. Postcards can be found at Mountain Eagle Books, Oscar's Source for Adventure and the Local Supply Company.

Sincerely,
FOMB Steering Committee

Sample letter

Honourable Minister of Transport Marc Garneau

330 Sparks Street
Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0N5

April 4, 2016

Dear Honourable Minister Marc Garneau,

We are a conservation group in a Skeena watershed community that has a deep connection to our wild salmon, both for economic and quality-of-life reasons. The Skeena River is the second largest wild salmon producer in Canada and an international destination for sport fishing tourism.

We commend the federal government’s commitment to protecting the North coast of British Columbia from oil spills with a tanker ban and call on the government to make it a permanent, legislated oil tanker ban. The voluntary ban, which had been in place since the Exxon Valdez oil spill, was completely disregarded by the previous government when they approved Enbridge Northern Gateway tankers traveling from Kitimat to ports in Asia. 

It is even more important the ban be given the force of legislation now the science clearly shows that diluted bitumen can’t be cleaned up with conventional oil spill response technology. The U.S. National Academy of Science published a comprehensive study of the fate and behaviour of spilled diluted bitumen (dilbit) last December, citing evidence from the Kalamazoo and Mayflower dilbit spills. The multi-disciplinary panel of experts concluded that conventional spill response technology and plans are unable to effectively deal with dilbit. 

The 27^th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was last month. The spill devastated the community of Cordova, Alaska and left Prince William Sound with an oily legacy that persists to this day. The Exxon Valdez oil spill continues to be a sobering reminder that accidents happen, clean-up is impossible, and the environmental and economic impacts last for decades. The oil that couldn’t be removed from shorelines still persists, and is still toxic, an ongoing source of contamination implicated in the failure of Prince William Sound herring stocks to recover and the slow recovery of other impacted species.

Throughout the north Pacific, salmon are already stressed by warm waters due to climate change and this was particularly evident in 2015. Salmon runs in B.C. did not collapse in 2015, but the fish were smaller than usual and the warm rivers had disastrous consequences for sockeye salmon in the Columbia River, with 97% perishing on their upstream migration. There were also substantial losses of sockeye in the Fraser River due to warm water in 2015.

If we want salmon in the future, we are going to have to protect wild salmon populations in rivers such as the Skeena and Nass on the North coast of British Columbia. Coastal First Nations have already banned oil tankers in the waters of the Great Bear Rainforest. A federally legislated oil tanker ban will respect coastal First Nations and provide binding legal protection to this coast and wild salmon economy.

Sincerely...

Here's what the The Globe and Mail reported in the article linked at the beginning of this post: 

Meantime, Enbridge is still pushing ahead with plans for Northern Gateway, which was approved by the NEB in June, 2014, with more than 200 conditions attached. Ms. Notley had said during the provincial election campaign she was adamantly against Gateway for an array of reasons but was open to reviewing Kinder Morgan’s plans. Now, she says she is no longer irrevocably against Gateway.

“I’m not completely closed on it, no, and I will say that my opinion on this has evolved and changed a little bit over time,” the Premier said. “So there are some serious concerns about it we have to hear … The NEB itself came up with over 200 conditions, and those need to be addressed. So it’s a bit of an uphill battle when you compare it to Kinder Morgan, which has effectively been functioning for 50 years with very few problems – not none but very few – one wonders which is the easier way to go.”

Lelu Island and LNG

We have so much to be thankful for in the Skeena River watershed - especially to those working so hard to keep it intact. Check out the video from the Salmon Summit recently held in Prince Rupert and then help spread the word about the Lelu Island declaration.

 

 

We're running out of coffin nails

Ruling could affect more than Northern Gateway

 B.C. government told it must consult First Nations and can’t rely on federal environmental approval

It may be time to take down the sign at the bottom of my driveway - and open the champagne. Except for Site C and LNG terminals...

We're still here...

To "celebrate" the anniversary of the Joint Review Panel's decision to give permission to Enbridge to proceed with its plans to build the Northern Gateway pipelines, Friends of Morice-Bulkley and the Wet'suwet'en chiefs are hosting an event to celebrate healthy rivers and wild salmon and to send out a friendly reminder that the opposition has not gone away. Saturday, June 13, 2015 from 12 - 2 in Bovill Square in Smithers.

Plus, if you enjoyed Jennifer Skin Wickham's poem in an earlier posting, you might want to check out the interview I did with her on my Smithers Community Radio show In the Shadow of the Mountain about a month ago.

The Elephant in the Room

It's been pretty quiet here for the past few months because I've been doing a book tour for my latest book, Shafted: A Mystery, helping launch a great book of poetry, Second Growth, by Fabienne Calvert Filteau and trying to keep track (and failing) of all the LNG pipeline proposals in the northwest. (Check out the Madii lii camp on the Suskwa and the No More Pipelines website for ways in which people are resisting that boondoggle.)

But I had to take the time to thank John Vaillant for his article The Gorilla on Burnaby Mountain in today's The Tyee. And of course thanks to The Tyee for being another voice in the room along with that elephant.

Vaillant argues that Canada should take a lead on alternative energy rather than subsidizing fossil fuel industries and subverting our democratic values to support their projects.

Engussi Wedzin Kwah by Jennifer Wickham

Thanks to our new library director, Wendy Wright for telling me about Jennifer Wickham's amazing poetry in I'm a Real Skin - the Smithers library has a copy, you can buy it at Mountain Eagle Books in Smithers, and you can source it from Jennifer's webpage. 

Jennifer has given me permission to post her poem about the river many of us call the Morice or Bulkley.

She is my healer
a  consoling friend
a life giver, a grandmother
a sister to the ancient ones
she heard the songs and touched the skin
of the Original Wet'suwet'en
sacred knowledge in every drop,
but we forgot
we try to listen with our ears
time has made us deaf to her
there's too much background noise.
the smog is in our souls

shhhhhh.....can you hear her cry for you?

I need a job, I need a new car
I just bought a new eco-friendly travel mug from *fill in the blank*...
It's funny right?
The love of my life is not my cell phone
a flat screen tv or my shoes

Engussi Wedzin Kwah!

I don't need to tell you how beautiful she is
how her clear blue/green sparkles in the sun
or how her glacial currents take your breath away
and jump starts your soul and very cell in your body
how her voice sings you alive
this isn't that kind of love poem

Let's get back to listening....

What are the names of your rivers?
Can you hear them inside you?
Let's resurrect those words together
ALL our words, all at once
I want to feel all those hard and soft sounds
hitting me at the same time
just let me absorb the words of our ancestors
like Wedzin Kwah
but I'm not a river

I am a Wet'suwet'en woman
my purpose is clear

Like ancient protocol and boundaries
I'll show you where the line is
we were born her guardians
warriors watch over Wedzin Kwah