Quote: "Starting in 2001, I've been consistently involved in the fish farm issue and have, based on the courageous work of Alexandra Morton supported by a host of scientists, demonstrated beyond any doubt that pink salmon smolts are being slaughtered by sea lice from Atlantic salmon fish farms. While Mark Hume (the Globe and Mail) and his brother Stephen (The Sun) have written occasional articles, where is the investigative reporting we saw when Vaughn Palmer was attacking the Glen Clark government over the "fast ferries" issue?"

Yet another example of the enormous pressure our scientists are under today - which is making it increasingly difficult for them to do their job for our farmland, environment, and society.  Nine senior agrologists are complaining to their regulatory body, the BC Institute of Agrology (farm science) of being pressured for speaking out to protect BC's Agricultural Land Reserve. Featuring commentary from Save Our Rivers Society Advisor Wendy Holm:

'We're Being Muzzled' Say Top Farmland Scientists

Save Our Rivers Society and Rafe Mair recently joined forces with The Wilderness Committee and COPE 378's "Take Back the Power" campaign in a successful tour of three Northwest communities - Terrace, Kitimat, and Prince Rupert - to raise awareness about the BC Liberal Government's plans to give away our rivers to large corporations to produce private river power that is neither green nor needed.  Audiences heard about the the threat this private power agenda poses to our historic public power system, BC Hydro - and the implications for our sovereignty from the loss of our water and energy security.  The Kitimat event was broadcast by CFTK television station, CFNR radio in Terrace played an audio recording of the Terrace event, while Rafe Mair appeared on CBC's Daybreak North show, the most listened to radio program in Northern BC.

CBC Daybreak North: Click to listen to Rafe Mair's interview on Thursday, Oct. 16.

A documentary film by Sam Bozzo: http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/

"In every corner of the globe, we are polluting, diverting, pumping, and wasting our limited supply of fresh water at an expediential level as population and technology grows. The rampant overdevelopment of agriculture, housing and industry increase the demands for fresh water well beyond the finite supply, resulting in the desertification of the earth."
 

It is a commonly held belief that the greatest risks to Canada’s water resources under NAFTA are related to exports. In fact, the more immediate area of public policy concern is not water exports but water use in Canada by firms that are American or have US investors.

Private sector firms issued water licenses by government – be it for hydroelectric generation or for snowmaking – hold NAFTA rights far superior to any rights held by Canadians if those firms are American or have American investors.

Article by Scott Simpson: Heavy Hydro users hit with higher rate

In this Vancouver Sun article, British Columbians are told the BC Utilities Commission has approved a two-tier billing system for residential consumers to promote conservation. What they are not told is that their rates will be going up many more times due to the baffling economics of Gordon Campbell's private energy agenda. Under Campbell's policy, BC's historic public power utility, BC Hydro, is banned from developing any new public power of its own and forced instead to buy ever increasing quantities of costly and needless private electricity - mostly from disastrous private river power projects that will destroy our invaluable watersheds, killing our fish and wildlife and releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

SFU economist Dr. Marvin Shaffer has termed BC's private energy plan as "buy high, sell low" economics, because this new private river power comes at up to 20 times the cost of the public power we develop today from our historic dams - and is much more expensive than the rates Hydro sells power for today to consumers, industry and our neighbours. This can have only two results: one is much higher power bills for consumers and businesses; the other is the ultimate bankrupting of BC Hydro. The public is also told that we need this new private power, when, according to Dr. Shaffer and other experts on BC Hydro, we do not: BC is already self-sufficient and only imports and exports power to make a profit for BC and keep our taxes and rates low.

These new private river power contracts will ultimately bankrupt our last profitable crown corporation, BC Hydro, and deprive us of control over our water and energy - the very things wars are fought over around the world. The ultimate irony with this disastrous, secretive scheme, is that while British Columbians fund the new private power infrastructure, we will wind up owning nothing, being in serious debt, losing our prized public power assets, and being stuck with crushing electricity rates like Californians - more than four times higher than the rates we enjoyed up until Gordon Campbell got ahold of our province and public energy system.

Save Our Rivers Society is proud to present "Up the Mountain," the third episode of POWERPLAY, the groundbreaking series on the theft of BC's rivers and public power system. In this action-packed 15 minute short film we take you to BC's Harrison Lake, in the traditional territory of the Douglas First Nation, under seige from multiple private power projects. The video was originally launched on the heels of the June 19 announcement by Cloudworks Energy Inc. - presently holder of more private river power licenses or applications than any other company in BC - of four new proposed projects in the region (click here to see list and info). And, as this Vancouver Sun article states, Cloudworks is now set to receive $35 million of federal funding for "renewable" energy projects for a new mega-project involving six separate diversions around Harrison Lake (Harrison Lake hydro project to get federal funds, by Gordon Hamilton, or click here for a PDF.)

"Up the Mountain" is the story of my recent journey with Joe Foy and Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee to Harrison Lake to get a look at a number of private power projects - some proposed, some already well underway. After much confrontation with the private power promoter, Cloudworks Energy Inc., and their contractor, Peter Kiewett and Sons (caught on film), we managed to get up a public road on a public mountain to document the incredible environmental damage these projects inflict on our public rivers. Must-see footage for anyone who has been subjected to the myth that these projects are "green" or somehow provide a net environmental and public benefit.

To watch "Up the Mountain", a 15 minute documentary, click here.

Enjoy--and forward widely!

Damien Gillis
Producer, POWERPLAY series

Power Play is a compelling and fast paced account of the decades-long struggle to wrest control of electricity from public hands. Sharon Beder's riveting analysis ranges from early machinations in the history of American political power, to struggles by local communities in south Asia to stem the environmental damage being wrought by multinationals energy providers.

As electrification spread across America and the world in the fist half of the twentieth century, private corporations went in hot pursuit of unprecedented profit from millions of new fee paying customers. Blocking their path was the widely held view that electricity met an essential need and that it should be regulated if not owned outright by the public. The electricity companies fought back hard, buying up newspapers, politicians and radio stations -- and flooding the schools with free, pro-industry school books. Attempts by municipalities to retain public ownership were decried as "Bolshevism." It was the dawn of modern corporate public relations, and a major chapter in the history of an industry at the very heart of modern life.

Setting the stage brilliantly for understanding recent deregulation and the accompanying energy debacle, "Power Play" is an essential guide to the contemporary industrial, environmental and political landscape.

Article by Rafe Mair in The Tyee: Don't Feed the Americans!

Excerpts: "The Campbell bunch has misled us all. On the need for power issue, they point to the amount of power imports during the year without telling you that sometimes that's because Hydro can make a hell of a good deal by importing power from Alberta and selling it to great profit below the line; other times they import power because it is, at that moment, cheaper than the cost to make our own."

"The environmental consequences of independent power producers (IPP) are horrendous. Far from being neat little mom-and-pop organizations, many of them propose putting up to 95 per cent of a river through tunnels more than nine kilometres in length. No fish can pass this sort of barrier. While companies may say they can transport migrating fish around these obstacles, please understand that even if they could do that, the fry going downstream would be ground to mush by the turbines."

Article by Rafe Mair in The Tyee: End of Public Power in BC? That's where the Liberals are taking Hydro.

Excerpt: "The irony here is that the Tsawwassen victims of BCTC transmission lines are financing their own poison as their government feeds those lines by giving away their rivers and streams to private companies who alter their flows to generate power."