VANCOUVER – First Nations protesting the construction of the $9-billion Site C dam in northeastern British Columbia are preparing for their own arrests while they implore Prime Minister Justin Trudeau intervene to stop the hydroelectric project.
Helen Knott of the Prophet River First Nation said in an interview from the protest site that she and six other demonstrators are camped at Rocky Mountain Fort, the former site of a North West Company fur-trading post established in 1794 on the west side of the Moberly River, near Fort St. John.
“You remember that story that the elder told us? Down the way where the Peace River meets the Halfway River?” I asked her, referring to the camp we had over three years ago.
METRO VANCOUVER -- As the federal review of Kinder Morgan’s $6.8-billion Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion nears its end, at least a dozen First Nations continue to say the review is flawed, and they oppose the project over its potential environmental effects.
Those effects, they say, include the risk of tanker spills in Burrard Inlet.
Barring intervention in the review process by the new federal government under Justin Trudeau, these First Nations are prepared to take their fight to the courts.
At the headwaters of the Bridge River in southwestern British Columbia, Bridge Glacier is breaking apart. The lake at the base of the glacier is littered with icebergs. Some are full of cracks and dirt, others pale blue and recently born. Here and there are little bits of ice that are almost gone, the colour of ice cubes in water on a summer day.
Every year, the lake is getting bigger and the glacier is getting smaller. Over the past 40 years, Bridge Glacier has retreated more than three and a half kilometres.
One of the most important reports submitted to the National Energy Board’s review of Kinder Morgan’s proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion has been denied, according to a biologist with one of the hearing’s intervenors.
Provincial regulators are struggling to keep up with a fracking boom that has caused small earthquakes in British Columbia and Alberta and could result in a larger one in the future, one of Canada’s top experts on seismic risks said on Thursday.
British Columbia’s Oil and Gas Commission confirmed this week that a 4.6-magnitude earthquake in the shale gas fields of the province’s northeast last summer was caused by hydraulic fracturing, the industry practice of using high-pressure water to crack rock and extract natural gas or oil.
When it comes to the proposed Trans Mountain expansion in British Columbia, ''confidence is actually growing,'' Kinder Morgan CEO Steve Kean told investors on a conference call Dec. 8.
"We also had, of course, a government changeover up there, and we're in communication with the new government to understand what, if any, additional process will be required,'' Kean said from a boardroom in Houston. ''But we're hopeful that that can be managed within the existing timeframe that we're working with.''
The Tsawwassen First Nation has rejected plans to build an LNG export facility just north of the B.C. Ferries terminal.
In a vote on Wednesday night, 53 per cent said 'no' to allowing the 32-hectare project on the nation's traditional land.
"What would you rather have, more money or a better environment?" asked Tsawwassen First Nation member Nic Gurniak. "No need to do more damage to the environment than has already been done."
