A year after Imperial Metals’ (TSX: III; US-OTC: IPMLF) Mount Polly mine released 25 million cubic metres of waste into British Columbia’s Fraser River watershed after its tailings dam broke, a new report claims that the rate of serious tailings dam failures is increasing.
FORT NELSON, BC / Treaty 8 Territory, Sept. 7, 2015 /CNW/ - Fort Nelson First Nation (FNFN) has won a major legal challenge against the BC government and Nexen Inc., an upstream oil and gas company. The first long-term water license granted in the Horn River Basin for shale gas fracking has been cancelled, effective immediately, by the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB).
The license, issued to Nexen in 2012, authorized the company to pump millions of cubic meters of water from Tsea Lake, a small lake in FNFN territory, each year until 2017.
Proposed LNG projects are under pressure as prices are stuck in the US$7-US$8 per million British thermal unit range, compared to the US$11-US$12 needed long-term to make project economics work.
The window to build liquefied natural gas projects in Canada and elsewhere has closed amid a global supply glut, says global energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
A new LNG project envisioned for Vancouver Island would accept natural gas via an underwater pipeline that would weave from Washington State through the Gulf Islands, according to a proposal released Tuesday.
The liquefied natural gas project, which already has the backing of the Malahat First Nation, was announced last month. The proponent, Steelhead LNG Corp., has retained Williams Cos. Inc. to build the 128-kilometre pipeline – starting with a 53-km segment in Washington State and then extending 75 km underwater.
The surprise windstorm that bashed the most densely populated areas of British Columbia on Saturday and created the largest single outage in BC Hydro’s history was largely unforeseen until it was almost upon Metro Vancouver.
Although Hydro was prepared for heavy rainfall and perhaps even flash flooding over the weekend, it had little warning that high winds — with some gusts as high as 115 km/h — were imminent, said Wayne Martell, BC Hydro’s regional manager of distribution.
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en spokesperson:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RCMP provocation of Indigenous land defenders denounced
VANCOUVER (August 27th, 2015) – The Indigenous Unist’ot’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation in northwestern BC are on high alert about a likely impending large scale RCMP mass arrest operation on their territory. The RCMP have made a number of visits to the Unist’ot’en as well as other First Nations leadership regarding the Unist’ot’en community’s active exercise of their Aboriginal Title and Rights to protect their lands from oil and gas development.
At least two earthquakes in British Columbia over the past year – including one last week – are among the largest ever caused by natural gas fracking in North America and were both strong enough to force temporary shutdowns of operations.
But while the province’s oil and natural gas ministry as well as the shale gas industry have both played down the severity of fracking-induced quakes – insisting they are rare and present no threat to people or buildings – experts caution much is still not known about just how strong a fracking-induced earthquake could be.
The National Energy Board is postponing the Kinder Morgan hearing until further notice because Steven Kelly, the board’s most recent appointee, is a consultant who worked on the Trans Mountain pipeline file.
The NEB announced the news late on Friday, stating the oral summary arguments, which were set for Aug. 24 in Calgary and Burnaby in September, are now postponed and Kelly’s evidence will be stricken from the hearing records.
CALGARY, Aug. 21, 2015 /CNW/ - The National Energy Board (NEB) hearing panel for the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project (Project) is postponing oral summary arguments, previously scheduled in Calgary on Monday August 24 and in Burnaby from September 9-30.
The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission is investigating the cause of a 4.6 magnitude earthquake earlier this week that triggered the shutdown of a major fracking operation just a few kilometres away.
The earthquake struck on Monday afternoon, some 110 kilometres north of Fort St. John, and was felt in Charlie Lake, Fort St. John and Wonowon.
The earthquake's epicentre was just three kilometres from Progress Energy's fracking site, which the company immediately shut down, even though their activities have not been linked to the quake.
