Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on the recent discovery of a disease fatal to fish in Atlantic farmed salmon in Clayoquot Sound. (May 16, 2012)

For the first time in nine years Atlantic salmon farmed in British Columbian waters have tested positive for a virus that can be rapidly fatal to them, but is endemic in wild Pacific salmon and largely a low risk.

Mainstream Canada announced today that fish at its Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino tested positive for Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN). The virus is harmless to humans, but attacks the kidneys and spleen of salmon and can lead to rotting flesh and organ failure. IHN has been present in the waters of B.C. for hundreds of years and wild salmon have developed a resistance to it, though young salmon and sockeye can be vulnerable to it, according to fish virologist James Winton.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will arrive at the farm tomorrow for testing as Mainstream waits to see if and how many of the roughly 500,000 farmed fish on site will have to be culled.

"This year now turns out to be a very bad year for IHN virus and we still don't completely understand why," said Winton, on the phone from Seattle where he works for the U.S. Geological Survey. "A lot of the sockeye were coming back with higher percentages and higher amounts of the virus, so it's not surprising that we're seeing a cycle again in some of the farms.

"Atlantics - they haven't evolved with this virus so they're sort of susceptible to all strains of [IHN]."

Mainstream spokeswoman Laurie Jensen said the virus may have been passed on to the contained salmon by a wild fish species passing through the area and that IHN is "a fact of farming and husbandry."

Mainstream operates 27 farms in B.C., and 17 of those in the Tofino area. Those 17 are conducting IHN tests of their fish Jensen said.

If IHN is discovered, a company must call in the CFIA as well as Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Read this editorial from Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun on the debate over the risks posed by increased oil tanker traffic on BC's coast (May 16, 2012)

Listen to the rhetoric generated by questions about the risk from supertankers carrying an additional million barrels a day of heavy oil through B.C. waters and one might be persuaded that a conspiracy of Luddite dunces advocates a return to mud huts and riding donkeys to work.

Huh? How does asking for an unbiased evaluation of risk mutate into an assumed automatic veto of the use of oil?

The point is not whether we should or should not use oil - it's whether the risks of using a particular oil resource in a particular way under particular circumstances may or may not out-weigh the claimed benefits.

Proponents of these pipelines naturally minimize the risks. And why wouldn't they present the best possible case for their projects since they want them to proceed? But that doesn't mean that B.C.'s public - which ultimately will pay the costs for cleaning up any major spill while the foreign-owned proponents pocket the bulk of profits and pay them out of the country - should swallow such assertions at face value.

Nor does it mean that subjecting such schemes to rigorous scrutiny is some kind of betrayal of Canadian society.

There is risk. And there is risk. Jaywalking downtown at 3 a.m. carries significantly less risk than jaywalking on the free-way during rush hour. One risk might be acceptable, the other looks like stupidity. Among the issues emerging from the present pipeline debate is the question of whether the risks cited by the proponents are the actual risks and potential liabilities.

Proponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, for example, postulate a worst-case spill of limited size that occurs in sheltered waters during the calmest summer months.

Critics reasonably ask what the consequences - and costs - of a spill would be were a super-tanker to break up during winter on the exposed outer coast, where winds, tides and currents have the capacity to distribute heavy oil over a vast area.

Critics reasonably wonder whether the assessment of risks, both environmental and economic, and who bears the brunt of them, takes place in an unbiased forum given the official demonizing of those expressing doubt.

The principal demonizer - our federal government - has now arbitrarily rewritten the rules to both redefine the criteria for environmental assessment while usurping the final decision-making power from the body intended to do so at arm's length.

The province has not even sub-mitted its position to the Joint Review Panel on this incredibly important subject. Instead, it has surrendered to the federal power its right to hold an independent environmental review in the interests of British Columbians.

Yet the risks could be far greater than those framed in the documents filed by the proponents.

Check out this new cartoon from Gerry Hummel. Christy Clark says she isn't taking a position on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines - but as we revealed this week, this BC Liberal "neutrality" is a myth. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is quite conspicuously throwing everything but the kitchen sink at opponents of the pipeline, causing the mainstream media to begin questioning his tactics.

It seems like every time BC First Nations draw major press coverage on their opposition to Enbridge, the company comes up with increasingly wild claims about how much support they have from First Nations.

Today, amidst Enbridge's AGM in Toronto, the company is doing damage control in the face of pressure from some of its prominent investors with regards to the proposed Northern Gateway pipelines. NEI Investments has filed a motion asking the company to respond to risks posed by First Nations opposition to the project. According to NEI manager Jamie Bonham, "...[I]f the company cannot provide a compelling rationale that refutes the risks that we've identified, then the prudent course of action would be to put the project on hold." Meanwhile, Vancity is mulling purging Enbridge stock from its mutual funds for the same reason.

But according to Enbridge executives quoted in the mainstream press today - including this must-listen interview with Rick Cluff on CBC's Early Edition - these concerns are overblown and a whopping 40 to 50-plus percent of First Nations "along the pipeline corridor" have or will have signed onto revenue sharing agreements with the company by month's end.

But there's good reason to be skeptical of Enbridge's claims of First Nations support for its controversial project. Last December, the day after the historic anniversary of the "Save the Fraser Declaration" in Vancouver - whereupon over 60 First Nations signed onto the document or reaffirmed their commitment to oppose Enbridge (with another 70 nations in BC and Alberta standing with them in solidarity) - Enbridge rolled out Elmer Derrick.

The now infamous former treaty negotiator for the Gitxsan First Nation had made an unauthorized deal with the company for a whopping $7 million over 20 years to share in revenues from the pipeline in exchange for supporting Enbridge's plan. The mainstream media - particularly Postmedia - bought the ruse, hook, line and sinker, with the Vancouver Sun making it front page news before later backpedaling on the story (though a number of key stories on the issue from this embarrassing chapter for the paper are conspicuously no longer available online).

A few other points worth noting on that deal before moving back to the present day: According to the calculations of a colleague, based on the number of Gitxsan spread throughout three villages in Northeast BC and off-reserve, that $7 million worked out to about $3 per person per month over 20 years - barely enough for a cheap can of salmon each...which I suppose would have come in handy when Enbridge destroys their traditional salmon runs with a spill from its pipeline (of course it would have to be Russian or Alaskan salmon).

It also turned out the Gitxsan's territory doesn't actually sit along the pipeline route, which added to the frustration of the nation's neighbours whose territories the pipeline would bisect and who firmly oppose the project. The deal was quickly discredited by the larger Gitxsan community and hereditary leadership, and subsequently formally annulled. Mr. Derrick and two of his colleagues lost their jobs with the Gitxsan Treaty Society over the debacle, but Derrick has since been rewarded with a plum Harper Government appointment to the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

Now, as the Yinka Dene Alliance leads a delegation of BC First Nations to Enbridge's AGM in Toronto - the culmination of a cross-country whistle-stop tour by train - the company is boasting it has loads of support from First Nations. An Enbridge representative told CBC's Rick Cluff this morning, "Over 40% of First Nations along the proposed corridor have entered into agreements with Enbridge to take a position, to take a stake in project." Enbridge Gateway VP Janet Holder went a step further, telling the Globe and Mail that by the end of May she expects most concerned First Nations to have bought into the deal, stating, “It will definitely be a majority.”

Which nations? They won't say.

What exactly do these deals really look like? They imply they're all actual revenue sharing partnership deals - but can we be sure they aren't mixing protocol and impact benefit agreements in there? Of course, we may never know.

How many nations along the Tanker Route? It's reasonable to infer from the company's carefully worded statements that it has the support of First Nations "along the pipeline corridor", that they have none along BC's precious and perilous coast. The Coastal First Nations - such as the Gitga'at of Hartley Bay and the Heiltsuk of Bella Bella, to name just a couple - remain steadfastly opposed.

Given the fact that the Gitxsan - the only nation Enbridge has actually touted by name - were in fact not technically "along the pipeline corridor", how many of these dozens of allegedly supportive nations would actually have the pipeline passing through their territories? According to the Globe and Mail, Enbridge defines the "corridor" and eligible aboriginal groups as any "first nations and Métis groups that claim territory within 80 kilometres of its route." (emphasis added).

How many of these nations are on unceded territory within BC (as opposed to treatied lands in Alberta)? This is an enormous distinction, in legal terms and on a number of other fronts.

When the company says it's offering these nations a "10% stake" in the project, what exactly does that mean? Enbridge is conveying the false impression that it's giving away this stake, when in fact it's loaning the nation or helping to arrange the financing for it to purchase a "stake" in the project. That's another big distinction often missed by the mainstream media.

Again, I have to come back to the one deal we actually know about - the illegitimate one cut by Mr. Elmer Derrick. $7 million over 20 years. We hear all about the hundreds of billions of dollars of value the Enbridge pipeline would bring to Canada's economy. How do you get to a measly $7 million from that? Are all these deals as awful as the one they were actually prepared to brag about?

And the most important question of all: How does this First Nations "stake" in the pipeline help to limit Enbridge's liability in the event of an inevitable oil spill?  Will they dump 10% of the cleanup costs on affected nations? Or will they leave them holding the bag altogether? Long after Enbridge has done its damage, First Nations will still be there, left to deal with the mess. Just ask the people of Michigan.

If I'm mistaken in any of my questions or conclusions, I urge Enbridge to correct me where I'm wrong. That would preferable to having to read between the lines of the company's increasingly boastful and vague statements - and the often misleading interpretations of them by the mainstream media.

Read this editorial from the Globe and Mail, which argues that the Harper Government should stop its campaign of smearing environmental groups who oppose the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines and alleging criminal activity on their part, such as "money laundering". (May 7, 2012)

Environment Minister Peter Kent’s unsupported accusations of “money laundering” involving foreign and Canadian environmental charities are part of an apparent campaign of the Conservative government to smear and intimidate groups opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline.

Mr. Kent’s accusation in Parliament and media interviews, and the pattern they are a part of, suggest the government is improperly taking sides between the environment and business – trying to discredit those who raise environmental concerns in a public-hearing process mandated under federal law.

This pipeline may well prove a financial boon to Canada, but there are legitimate environmental concerns that need to be heard, including the danger of oil spills in environmentally sensitive waters. The pipeline will take bitumen from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., before it is loaded on ships bound for Asia. Business and the environment do not exist on two separate planes, where one matters and the other doesn’t.

The Environment Minister has accused unnamed environmental charities of criminal activity, and yet provides no specifics, except to point to the work of Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton. “There is political manipulation,” she said. “There is influence peddling. There are millions of dollars crossing borders masquerading as charitable foundations into bank accounts of sometimes phantom charities that do nothing more than act as a fiscal clearing house.” There is paranoia, there is partisanship, there are wild allegations. But evidence? No.

Read full editorial: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/ottawa-should-cease-and-desist-its-smear-campaign-of-environmental-groups-opposing-northern-gateway-pipeline/article2423344/

Watch this Global TV report on a developing slick of bunker c fuel in Grenville Channel near Hartley Bay, BC. The provincial government downplayed the spill today in the Legislature. (May 3, 2012)

Watch 3 min video: http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/fuel+slick/video.html?v=2230597754&p=1&s=dd#video

Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision-led Vancouver City Council took another bold step yesterday in their increasingly outspoken opposition to Texas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan's plans to increase dramatically oil tanker traffic through Vancouver's harbour. The vote, which passed with all but one in favour - NPA councillor George Affleck - is the latest move by municipal leaders against Kinder Morgan since the company formally announced the intention to twin its existing Trans Mountain Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to its Westridge Terminal in Burnaby. The existing line carries 300,000 barrels of bitumen a day, whereas the new line would add an additional 550,000 - slightly more than the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline to Kitimat.

The result, as the motion filed by the mayor suggested, would be a five-fold increase in oil tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet and South Coast region from the 2010 level of 71 tankers.The motion also noted, "It is estimated that even larger tankers will be required to take the increased volume of oil to foreign market, increasing the risk of a large oil spill, and requiring extensive dredging of the Vancouver Harbour and/or Fraser River."

Watch Ben West interview here (story continues below)

The motion called for the creation of a bylaw that "would require pipeline operators and oil tankers using Burrard Inlet, Vancouver Harbour and/or the Fraser River to indemnify the City of Vancouver and existing local industries through appropriate liability insurance at a level equal to the projected amount of clean up operation costs, and loss of business compensation for a worst case scenario oil spill."

In the interim, it also decreed that "the Mayor write to Prime Minister Harper expressing the City of Vancouver's strenuous opposition to any increase in oil tanker traffic, or measures that lead to increased oil tanker traffic, as it poses an unacceptable and unmitigated risk to Vancouver's economy and environment."

Council's bylaw follows on the heels of the Vancouver Parks Board's vote earlier this week to formally oppose Kinder's pipeline and tanker plans and vocal comments from Robertson in the media, vowing to do everything in his ability to foil Kinder's plans to turn Vancouver into a shipping port for the Tar Sands.

Council heard from Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation - on whose traditional territory the pipeline terminus and tanker terminal are located. The North Vancouver nation has come out in strong opposition to the project, reiterating its position Wednesday at City Hall. Other interveners included Ben West of the Wilderness Committee (see above video), Tarah Stafford of Tanker Free BC and West Coast Environmental Law's  Rachel Forbes.

Watch video of discussion of motion

Read full motion - "Bylaw for Liability Insurance Requirements for Oil Tankers and Pipelines that could Spill into Burrard Inlet or the Fraser River"

I'm down in New Zealand at the moment, filming for a feature documentary involving the unconventional gas industry - particularly the increasingly controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" - which I've been working on for the past year with a fellow Canadian filmmaker.

Why New Zealand?

We came here to follow the main subject of our film, a young First Nations man from the heart of the Canadian (and one could argue global) fracking industry. Caleb Behn worked for a number of years as a lands manager for several First Nations, addressing both of the major shale gas plays in Northeast BC, where the two sides of his family come from - the Horn River Basin near Fort Nelson and the Montney Shale formation, which extends beneath communities like Hudson's Hope, Dawson Creek and several hundred kilometres East across the Alberta border.

After years of frustration attempting to respond to the deluge of paperwork inundating his offices over proposed seismic testing, well sites, water extraction and disposal, toxic flaring, access roads, security gates and fences and myriad other incursions onto his traditional territory and way of life, Caleb decided to lawyer up. He felt a legal background could help him more effectively represent his people in dealing with industry, so he has been studying at UVic Law for the past several years.

For his final term he decided to venture down to another Victoria University - this one in Wellington, New Zealand - to learn from Maori people facing similar challenges from the oil and gas industry down here.

Maori and concerned citizens in New Zealand have been dealing with the oil and gas industry for a long time; but Caleb's timing couldn't have been more appropriate, as it is just in the past several years - and particularly the past few months - that fracking operations have really been ramping up. And the parallels between the two countries, as we have been learning quickly, are positively striking.

Perhaps most interestingly, a Canadian company I'd never heard before this week - one TAG Oil, based Vancouver of all places - is on the cusp of a major expansion of fracking operations across the North Island of New Zealand, where Caleb is studying and we're doing most of our filming.

Yesterday, Caleb was invited to speak about his people's experiences with the Canadian unconventional gas industry at a packed community forum in the town of Napier, in the Hawkes Bay region on the West Coast of the North Island (watch the national news story on the event here). It was an eye-opener for us to hear from other speakers of the mounting concerns amongst New Zealanders about this Canadian company, which has been operating mostly in the Taranaki region on the other side of the North Island - both onshore and offshore. The company has formed joint ventures with Apache Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of Texas gas giant Apache Corp.

Just in the past several months, TAG Oil has been pursuing "aggressive" (their own words) expansion plans, with seismic testing and exploratory drilling in the Hawkes Bay region where the forum was being held. The community gathering heard from a farmer named Sarah Roberts - who has been referred to us by a number of people as the "Erin Brockovich of New Zealand" (a title she wears reluctantly), for her wealth of knowledge on the emerging industry and her principled stand against it. Sarah made the journey across the island from Taranaki, where her farm has been under siege from TAG Oil's operations. She described to us how the company is flaring fumes over her and her neighbours' dairy farms (milk is New Zealand's biggest export and, along with tourism, the cornerstone of its economy). She also told us how some local farmers have been convinced to take "produced" (the industry's term for contaminated) water from them and dispose of it on their fields a s "fertilizer".

Both Sarah and Caleb's words resonated as a warning to the people of Hawkes Bay of the dangers to come if TAG OIl and Apache Canada are able to expand their operations into that region as they are now planning. Following yesterday's meeting I did some googling on TAG Oil - astonished that I'd never come across this company which is a key player in the emerging New Zealand unconventional gas industry. While its headquarters are located not a kilometre from my home in downtown Vancouver, - at 885 West Georgia St. - in its 10 year history it has focused almost exclusively on New Zealand. It appears as though the relatively small company secured its foothold by obtaining leases and permits here, then reaching out to the larger Apache Canada to provide the capital and industrial muscle to exploit these resources. TAG, Apache and other shale gas companies clearly have big designs on this small island state in the South Pacific.

And yet, there's clearly a movement afoot to turn the tide on the industry's expansion. A Maori leader from the Taranaki region Caleb spoke to the other day evinced with tears that it may be too late to save her territory from the impacts of oil and gas development, but that she hoped in sharing her people's experiences with other New Zealanders, she could help protect them from the same fate. The people of Hawkes Bay took careful note of Caleb and Sarah's words for the same reason.

The audience also heard from a young, ambitious Green Party MP and Energy Critic, Gareth Hughes, who has been travelling the country of late, drumming up support for a moratorium on fracking while the government conducts a parliamentary review of the industry.

Already the city of Christchurch has recently passed a local moratorium and other communities are considering following suit. We will be traveling to the South Island in a few days to speak to the people who were instrumental in that strong stand against the industry's planned expansion into their region.

Read this story from Business in Vancouver reporting on the recently-announced 45-day public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Site C Dam in Northeast BC. (April 11, 2012):

Six open houses will be held to provide information and garner feedback on the proposed Site C dam – but if you want to attend in person, you’ll have to travel to northern B.C. or Alberta.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and BC Environmental Assessment Office released Tuesday the draft environmental impact statement (http://www.eao.gov.bc.ca/pcp/forms/Site_C_form.html) for the proposed $8 billion, 1,100-megawatt hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.

A 45-day public comment period on the impact statement has been scheduled. Written comments will be submitted between April 17 and June 1. Comments can be mailed or submitted online.

A series of open houses has been scheduled for the first two weeks of May:

• May 1, 3 to 8 p.m., North Peace Cultural Centre, Fort St. John;
• May 2, 4 to 8 p.m., Hudson’s Hope Community Hall;
• May 3, 4 to 8 p.m., Pomeroy Inn & Suites, Chetwynd;
• May 8, 4 to 8 p.m., Sawridge Inn & Conference Centre, Peace River, Alberta;
• May 9, 4 to 8 p.m., Best Western Dawson Creek, Dawson Creek;
• May 10, 3 to 8 p.m., Ramada Inn, Prince George.

If approved, the Site C dam is expected to take a decade to build. It would be the third in a series of dams on the B.C. portion of the Peace River.

The project includes a 1,050-metre-long, 60-metre-high earthen dam, an 83-kilometre-long reservoir, a 1,100-MW generating station and two 77-kilometre transmission lines running along an existing right-of-way to connect to BC Hydro’s grid.

The biggest environmental drawback to the plan is that it would require the flooding of 5,340 hectares of prime agricultural land. (See “Damned if we do: Site C revisited” – issue 1142; September 13-20, 2012.)

Read article: http://www.bivinteractive.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5642:site-c-dam-public-hearings-set-for-northern-bc-&catid=14:daily-news&Itemid=46

30 year-old William Housty's powerhouse presentation to the National Energy Board's Enbridge hearings in his community of Bella Bella. William describes the history, language and culture of his people in fascinating detail - and how the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and Tar Sands supertankers transiting the waters of his people's territory would destroy their traditional way of life. A must-watch!