British Columbia

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.

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.

A Vancouver Observer investigation has prompted hearings about whether the RCMP and CSIS broke the law by spying on environmental groups.

Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI-NYSE) bills itself as “the largest midstream and third largest energy company (based on enterprise value) in North America.” Enterprise value is a fancy term for the market value of the whole company — it’s an estimate analysts like to use to measure how much a buyer would have to fork over to purchase the entire enterprise. Think of it as equity plus debt minus available cash. Last December, it would have cost $144 billion (US) to buy KMI, now it's 20-per-cent cheaper; KMI’s selling price is $115 billion (US).