Tag Archives: Radio

Environment

Bitumen Sinks & Is Almost Impossible to Clean Up

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By Roy L Hales

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Prior to his election as Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau promised that the National Energy Board hearings on the proposed Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion would not go forward. We need a new review process, which both focuses on science and seeks social license in the areas where projects like this are being suggested. That changed after his election. The hearings resumed and, sometime before May 20, the National Energy Board is expected to recommend the Trans Mountain project be approved. If the Prime Minister agrees, there will be a seven-fold increase of diluted bitument coming through the most populated area of British Columbia. In anticipation of the proposed pipeline, the province of British Columbia is drawing up legislation for “world-leading provincial spills regime.” This is the backdrop for the ECOreport’s Monday, April 11, program on CKTZ:   Bitumen sinks and is almost impossible to clean up.

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Forests

Calling On BC To Protect Endangered Coastal Rainforests

By Roy L Hales

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A healthy forest, on the west coast of British Columbia, has some trees that are a thousand to two thousand years old. Many different species of plants and flowers are closer to the ground. There is a variety of wildlife, and fish in the streams. This is disappearing from British Columbia and Sierra Club BC is calling on BC to protect endangered coastal rainforests.


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Energy, Finances

$50 Billion For Electricity BC Does Not Need

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By Roy L Hales

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British Columbia’s regulatory accounts have been receiving a lot of attention lately. Business Vancouver compared them to a shell game, in which expenses are deferred to the future so that the government can report “profits.” Vaughn Palmer writes that the province has “cumulative long-term obligations amount to $102 billion, with Hydro accounting for the bulk of them.” The item that really caught my eye was $50 billion for electricity BC does not need.

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Environment, Indigenous Nations

Will The Feds Intervene On Site C?

By Roy L Hales

The controversial Site C Dam project was rejected twice (back in the 1980s and 90s), before Premier Christy Clark’s government decided to go over the heads of provincial agencies like the BC utilities Commission and Agricultural Land Commission. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government  issued the necessary permits to start construction during the last Federal election. As Treaty 8 gave local First Nations use of the land this project will submerge, it seems likely that a treaty is being broken. Despite all of this, BC Hydro began what many view as the environmental destruction of the Site C Peace River Valley. Since then a new Canadian government has been elected. They spoke of the need for social license and promised a new era of respect for indigenous peoples. Will The Feds Intervene On Site C?

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