It can hardly come as a surprise to anyone that governments – like corporations – employ spin to portray their actions in the best possible light (and to cast their opponents in the worst possible light). Nor is it news that many corporations – and the PR companies they employ – operate a revolving door for helpful politicians. So, should it come as any surprise to learn, as Joyce Nelson reveals in the current issue of Watershed Sentinel, that Peter Kent was appointed as a senior lobbyist by PR giant Hill & Knowlton while he was running as a Conservative candidate in 2008?

Within the next four years, BC Hydro, once as good a power utility as there was in the world, will be broken up. It is, you see, presently bankrupt by private corporation standards, and only keeps, barely, afloat because it can and does go to us the taxpayers and consumers for more money. This will end because the taxpayers/ratepayers will be tapped out. Just what form the break-up takes, we'll have to wait and see, but as sure as God made little green apples, she's a goner.

Read this story from The Globe and Mail on the staggering level of regulatory non-compliance amongst small private power operators in BC. (May 2, 2013)

Internal government documents show a startling number of compliance issues with British Columbia’s independent power producers and say the province does not have the staff to monitor the projects.

A memo circulated within the Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations ministry says 90 per cent of projects as of September 2011 had incidents and non-compliance with environmental requirements.

“The frequency of ‘incidents’ and (minor or otherwise) ’non-compliance’ is high,” said the memo, obtained by the Wilderness Committee using freedom of information laws.

Of the dozens of independent power projects that had been built at the time, 45 per cent had permit or legislative non-compliance, said the email memo, written by the section head of water allocation for the ministry’s South Coast region.

Others had incidents that occurred during construction or during commissioning and operations, ranging in severity from potentially stranding fish during water diversion to failing to leave behind enough water in diverted rivers and streams.

“We have not had sufficient staff resources to monitor permit condition compliance,” said the memo.

That meant the department had not been reviewing weekly environmental-monitoring reports submitted by the project proponents who were required to self-report incidents, he said.

Nor had they been reviewing annual environmental-monitoring reports. Rather, they were limited by staffing to the final five-year summary reports, which consistently deviated from approved monitoring programs, said the memo.

It was a “critical issue,” the memo said.

As of the beginning of April, BC Hydro had 55 electricity-purchase agreements with independent hydro power producers and 35 agreements for hydro projects in development.

Vivian Thomas, spokeswoman for Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, said all of the recommendations in the memo have been or are being acted upon.

The province, Clean Energy BC and Fisheries and Oceans Canada are working on updating guidelines for ramping rates — the rate of discharge from a dam — and the province has developed a document that sets out guidelines on a number of issues, she said.

The province has an active monitoring and inspection program, Thomas said, and requires companies to submit complete information before issuing a water licence.

“The vast majority of compliance issues referenced were administrative in nature, i.e. late submissions of required monitoring reports,” Thomas said in an email response to questions.

Compliance information for last year was not available, but Thomas said the ministry is developing a database and tracking tools.

“Post-licence monitoring is an identified priority of the province, and resources are allocated accordingly,” she said.

The internal documents detail fish kills and enforcement recommendations at several of the hydro power projects, including Lower Mamquam and Ashlu projects near Squamish, and the Upper Clowhom and Lower Clowhom projects near Sechelt.

Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee said the situation could only have grown worse in the past 18 months, with cuts to the federal Fisheries Department and legislative changes that have eased environmental oversight federally.

“You’re seeing an industry that’s largely not playing by the book,” Barlee said.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bc-power-producers-have-high-number-of-compliance-issues/article11691031/

Independent economist and Common Sense Canadian contributor Erik Andersen's open letter to the leaders of BC's four major political parties on the eve of the May 14 provincial election. "On the evidence there seems no case for the development of Site C. Hydro is financially crippled because it not only produced fictional narratives about future demand, but worse, acted on these exaggerations with tens of billions in contractual long-term obligations with IPP’s. Secondly, to knowingly build a new generation facility that needs to sell at $100,000 per GWhr or more in order to break even - when the regional demand for electricity is decidedly weak and expected to remain so for a long while, is absurd."

Read this story by veteran political commentator Mel Rothenburger on Rafe Mair's recent presentation in Kamloops and the various political and energy issues raised therein. (April 25, 2013)

It’s hard to know whether to be more afraid of what the politicians are telling us, or what Rafe Mair is telling us about the politicians. Rafe was in town the other night and he hasn’t lost a step since he was the Socred MLA for Kamloops and a cabinet minister back in the days of Bill Bennett.

He and documentary filmmaker Damien Gillis were here to ring mostly non-partisan alarm bells about the environment and the myths of political bookkeeping. Gillis gave a good talk but Rafe was the highlight, delivering an old-time tub thumper to the Council of Canadians crowd.

He railed against pipelines, fish farms, fracking and the “sham” of balanced budgets. “We’re not talking risky here,” he said of oil spills. “We’re talking certainties.” And “They’ll never give us enough to make up for what they take.” And, “People just simply won’t believe what’s going on.”

None of this cheered me up a week and a half into a campaign that has mostly featured Christy Clark and Adrian Dix in a bizarre standoff over money.

Clark, whose party has bloated B.C.’s debt by billions of dollars, warns us about the perils of debt and sings the praises of LNG while Dix makes more promises than a leopard has spots and suddenly becomes a Kinder Morgan skeptic.

It’s a campaign that has moved from the confusing to the picayune, the banal and the irrelevant. For instance, there’s the question of who can get more people to a rally. After 350 showed up for a clambake in Surrey featuring Dix and federal NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, Terry Lake and Todd Stone tweeted a chorused pshaw. “Are you kidding me? 350 people for @adriandix and Tom Mulcair in Surry (sic)?” it read. “We had more for @christyclark in #kamloops.”

Well, no, actually, I estimated 250 to 300 for Clark’s appearance at the ISC but does anyone other than Lake and Stone really care?

Even more important, at least in the opinion of the Liberals and NDP, is whose signs include the name of the party leader and whose don’t. At this writing, the Conservatives have no signs at all, and the Greens have everybody beat — they don’t even have candidates here.

Read more: http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20130425/KAMLOOPS0304/130429925/-1/kamloops0304/rothenburger-politics-of-the-picayune-take-over

Read this story from The Kamloops Daily News on Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis' recent presentation in the community, titled "WATER + POWER: The Future of BC's Energy, Environment and Democracy." The event drew a crowd of a hundred to the Desert Garden Seniors' Centre Tuesday night. (April 24, 2013)

B.C. isn't confronted with just two pipeline proposals but a matrix of energy-related developments crisscrossing the province and amounting to an unprecedented drain on finite water resources, Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis told a gathering on Tuesday night.

That means voters need to familiarize themselves with B.C.'s position in what they referred to as the "carbon corridor" vision for Western Canada.

"I think we're literally at a watershed point in our province," Mair said, adding that the course of events in recent years has changed his views. The former Kamloops lawyer, MLA, author and radio commentator has been collaborating with Gillis, a documentary filmmaker.

They maintain an online environmental journal called The Common Sense Canadian, based on their belief that mainstream media are not telling the full story of B.C.'s systematic environmental degradation.

And they've hit the campaign trail to spread their message to Interior residents in the run-up to May 14.

"I'm not here shilling for any political party," Mair said. "I'm campaigning because I'm an old man and I think we're literally at a watershed point in our province."

With this election, voters have a last chance to alter the course of the province's energy developments — including pipelines, the proposed Site C dam and independent power projects — to ensure that economics don't undermine the essential quality of life, he said.

Gillis said there has been little mention of the full costs of the vision for liquefied natural gas development in B.C.'s northeastern corner, touted as a long-term solution to provincial debt.

"We believe there are a lot of holes in this theory and also a lot of tradeoffs," said Gillis, whose family farmed in the Peace for a century before it was flooded in 1966. "It's going to be a boondoggle. It's going to be highly subsidized and it's not going to work."

Hydraulic fracturing used to extract the gas poses environmental risks, uses vast amounts of water and is energy-intensive on its own, he said. He showed clips from Fractured Land, a film he's producing on the issue, suggesting strong community resistance to the energy agenda.

Read more: http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20130424/KAMLOOPS0101/130429938/-1/kamloops/power-projects-said-to-undermine-future

As we head into a provincial election on May 14, in which economic policy and fiscal acumen will be a central focus, independent economist Erik Andersen and Dr. Sandra Hoffman offer this financial report card on the reigning BC Liberal Party's record. After promising "responsible, accountable management of your public resources and tax dollars", the Liberals under Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark have boosted BC's total debt and other hidden "taxpayer obligations" to a whopping $170 Billion. In the last eleven years, the provincial debt has increased by a factor of 5 times, or to a per capita amount of about $40,000.

Read this story from The Alaska Highway News on one of the farming families in the path of the proposed Site C Dam on the Peace River, named by the annual Outdoor Recreation Council as this year's "most endangered river". (April 9, 2013)

The Peace River is the most endangered river in B.C. and Site C’s potential approval in the next year or so is mainly to blame, according to the Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C (ORC).

The group solicits reviews and nominations for B.C.’s most endangered rivers from 100,000 members across B.C. The news release declaring the Peace this year’s dubious winner sites widespread opposition, including unanimous First Nations disapproval, and an $8 billion total cost with no domestic need for the power the dam would generate.

“The reason the Peace is on the list is threefold,” said the organizations chair of rivers, Mark Angelo.

“One, the dam is going to have extensive impacts, there’s no question about that. It’s going to impact wintering animal habitats, sacred cultural sites, recreational values, class one agricultural land.

“Secondly, we got so much feedback – nominations on the Peace literally dominated the feedback this year. Clearly it’s evident there is a lot of opposition by those closest to the river who would be the most affected. Aboriginal communities are very much set against the project. That was clearly evident in the responses we got.

“Thirdly if you look at the most recent BC Hydro energy forecast, we are in a surplus position in this province. BC Hydro is predicting a surplus of at least several years, if not more. The need for the dam for domestic power has vanished. So I think if you look at the BC Hydro energy forecast, the impacts of the dam, the rampant opposition and the fact that we received a huge number of responses from your region, clearly the Peace deserves to be in the number one position.”

However, Dave Conway, a spokesperson for BC Hydro, said that the demand for electricity will go up over the next few decades.

“Site C is required to help meet the future electricity needs of the province,” he said.

“BC Hydro’s current forecast shows electricity demand increasing by approximately 40 per cent in the next 20 years, driven by a projected population increase of more than one million residents and economic expansion. Subject to approvals, Site C would be a source of clean, reliable and cost-effective electricity for more than 100 years.”

Angelo said the need for the energy that was given years ago as justification for the project has disappeared.

“Several years ago we were being told we clearly needed Site C for domestic power. If you look at BC Hydro’s forecast, just in 2013 we’re talking about 5,200 kilowatt hours of surplus. If you look at 2015 you’re talking about a surplus 5,500 kilowatt hours. We’re in a surplus for quite a while to come so there’s clearly no need for the Site C dam. If you look at how people justified the dam several years ago, those needs simply are not there.”

BC Hydro’s argument that the power is required for future liquid natural gas projects is unfounded, Angelo added.

“LNG is still very uncertain,” he said. “A lot of (the interest) is based on current premiums and there’s pressure from a lot of the Asian markets to lower premiums substantially. So there may not be as much value in LNG in five years as there is currently.”

Andrea Morison, spokesperson for the Peace Valley Environment Association, agreed. She said BC Hydro customers and taxpayer should not be on the hook just for over $8 billion to subsidize the LNG industry – let alone, Morison added, the fact that dam projects often go significantly over budget.

“Christy Clark – about a year ago – said it would take 100 per cent of Site C to power just one proposed LNG plant and just a couple weeks ago she stated point blank she’s in favour of Site C because we need it for LNG,” Morison said.

“That tells you right there we need it to support the LNG industry, but there’s no statement going along with that saying the industry is going to pay for the dam. It’s a Crown corporation, so the ratepayers are going to pay for it.”

She added the ranking by the ORC shows people in the province really care about the issue.

The period for submission of written commentary on the project closed April 4. A joint review panel of three people is expected to be appointed this summer by the federal and provincial governments.

Ken Boon, who lives on property in the valley that would be lost to the proposed flood area of the reservoir created by the dam, said he has made submissions to the ORC in previous years as well as this year.

“The kinds of things we talk about are the vast cost of it, the burden it would be to the ratepayers of B.C. and basically the environmental train wreck it would be,” Boon said.

Read more: http://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/article/20130409/FORTSTJOHN0101/130409935/-1/fortstjohn/in-the-danger-zone

I was recently asked by a reader what it is I want, presumably in the way of government. I want a government committed to the preservation of farmland - not one that gives it away in Delta and destroys it the Peace River country. I want a government that is committed in fact to the concerns of First Nations. I want a government that does not spend public money on party business. I want a different attitude than expounding tenets of the Fraser Institute where help for people is given grudgingly and then only because they must; I want a government that looks after people because it is the right thing to do.

Yesterday, I joined several thousand British Columbians in submitting my comments to the environmental assessment process for the proposed Site C Dam in northeast BC. While it will likely take a few days for the most recent submissions to be registered on the government website for the process, judging by early indications, this was one of the largest-ever responses by the BC public to an environmental assessment - a clear sign of how much this issue matters to British Columbians. The Sierra Club and civic engagement driver LeadNow teamed up to facilitate online submissions and are reporting over 3,400 comments filed by yesterday's deadline...Herewith my own letter to the Review Panel.