Robin Rowland | Northwest Coast Energy News

Parasites greater threat to Coho, other salmon, increasing mortality: Oregon study

Environment Fishery

A study at the University of Oregon suggests that parasites in fish, including a threatened species of Oregon coho salmon, may have a greater impact on fish health than previously believed. Chronic parasite infection could be increasing the mortality in salmon and other fish species, leading to another factor in declining stocks.

Mike Kent, a University of Oregon microbiologist, who is the main author of the study says: “We’ve known for a long time that salmon and other fish are affected by parasites, so that isn’t new… parasites have been present for decades, they have often been dismissed as a cause of increasing salmon mortality.”

The study, which took place on the West Fork Smith River concluded that heavy loads of parasites can affect salmon growth, weight, size, immune function, saltwater adaptation, swimming stamina, activity level, ability to migrate and other issues. Parasites drain energy from the fish as they grow and develop.

“But we’re now getting a better appreciation that it’s the overall parasite load that is so important,” Kent says. “The higher levels of mortality only show up with significant increases in the parasite burden.”

(Image courtesy University of Oregon)

Kent says the number of parasites affecting salmon in Oregon rivers has been increasing slowly over the years, due to warmer waters and more nutrients in the water that can be a result of logging, agriculture, inadequate bank protection and other land use changes over many years.

“Salmon can actually tolerate a fairly wide range of temperatures, it’s not just the fact a stream is warmer that’s killing them, in and of itself,” Kent says. “We now believe that some of these forces are leading to heavier parasite loads. This could be important in understanding declining salmon populations.”

Parasites that can infect salmon and other fish have complex life cycles, which could include passing through the intestinal tracts of birds that eat fish, then producing eggs that infect snails. The snails thrive in warmer water where fertilizer runoff provides them nutrients.

The salmon eat the snails, completing the cycle.

The impact of parasites on fish health was much more severe in parts of the West Fork Smith River where water moved more slowly and nearby logging and agricultural practices increased water temperature and nutrient loads. Fish in those areas had parasite infestations about 80 times higher than those higher up in the tributary.

The infections impact the salmon’s ability to survive, especially if juvenile fish are infected, that reduces their ability to survive the winter and also affects swimming ability, meaning the juvenile fish are more vulnerable to predators.

“Understanding why certain salmon populations are heavily infected with these parasites, which likely are driven by landscape characteristics, could help in management or recovery planning,” the scientists wrote in their conclusion, “given that our data indicates that severity of these infections are associated with survival.”

The study was done by scientists from OSU and the Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. The corresponding author was Jayde Ferguson, a doctoral student in the OSU Department of Microbiology, and other collaborators included researchers from the OSU Department of Statistics, College of Veterinary Medicine, and Carl Schreck in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. The research was supported by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.The study will be published soon in the journals Aquaculture, Journal of Parasitology, and International Journal of Parasitology.

University of Oregon news release

National Geographic Spirit Bear article bypasses Kitimat, lowering credibility

The August 2011 issue of National Geographic is bringing welcome worldwide attention to the northwest coast of British Columbia and the issue of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and the plan to ship oil sands bitumen to Asia through Kitimat.

There are two articles, “The Wildest Place in North America, Land of the Spirit Bear,” an excellent article which introduces much of the world to the beauty of the white Kermode Spirit Bear and “Pipeline through Paradise,” which unfortunately is a superficial sidebar and in one case glaringly inaccurate.

As might be expected, the initial reaction from the environmental movement was euphoric, beautiful images of the Spirit Bear, the coast and the mountains, a detailed look at the ecology of the Great Bear Rainforest and the white bear’s place in the forest which is little known outside this region. (A couple of years ago, I was speaking to some local aboriginal carvers and engravers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who were fascinated by what little I knew about the Spirit Bear–they had never heard of it).

The second article, “Pipeline through Paradise” has also drawn praise from many people who oppose the pipeline.

As also might be expected, Enbridge was not so happy. Company spokesman Paul Stanway told the Edmonton Journal

“We spent a lot of time and effort with National Geographic, and in the end they didn’t say very much about the information we provided,” spokesman Paul Stanway said.
“They were given extensive information about the safety features we would employ along the pipeline route and the maritime portion….”

In the Prince Rupert Northern View, Stanway also questioned the National Geographic’s editorial process.

The company says that its “not disappointed by what’s in the article, more by what is not said in the article,” meaning that while the National Geographic spent weeks doing interviews and fact-checking with Enbridge, the magazine decided to leave most arguments out of the story.

National Geographic, quite rightly, has the editorial mission of alerting the world to environmental dangers that much of the media either ignore or dismiss as boogeymen. The magazine bases its articles on sound science and, within that parameter, is fair to all sides of an issue. .

It’s unfortunate that the National Geographic’s normally high editorial standards are not present in Barcott’s pipeline article. While “he-said-he-said, tell-both-sides” journalism often obscures real issues, especially in this era of professional spin, Enbridge does have a point, the company is given short shrift in the story with just one quote.

Even worse is one glaring error that will certainly call into question the credibility of the entire article (especially among proponents of the pipeline), where Barcott says “The government has already approved a fleet of liquified natural gas tankers to call at nearby Kitimat in 2015.” an error that may be repeated on the magazine’s maps of the proposed bitumen and natural gas pipelines.

While the arcane approval process of the National Energy Board may be confusing to many in the public, it is the job of journalists to figure it out. It should have been very easy for the National Geographic fact checkers to discover that NEB has not yet approved the export licence for the KM LNG project. In fact, the NEB hearings in Kitimat only began on June 6, 2011. Given the deadlines and printing processes for a high quality magazine like National Geographic, it is highly likely that the article was ready for the presses even before the June 6 hearings began. While the Pacific Trail gas pipeline has had approval by a BC provincial environmental review, (so the map is technically correct but given the article one has to wonder if the accuracy is inadvertant) there could be no terminal at Kitimat (even though it is under construction) nor the “a fleet of liquified natural gas tankers” until NEB grants the export licence and the NEB can, if it wishes, put conditions on the export licence that could govern how those tankers operate.

While it is expected that the NEB will grant the licence, jumping the editorial gun is not recommended for any journalist.

The other critical flaw in the article can be seen in Stanway’s comment to the Edmonton Journal, which permits Enbridge to dismiss the concerns of the people of Kitimat and back along the pipeline route.
(Emphasis is mine)

“We don’t believe tankers going in and out of Douglas channel (between Kitimat and the ocean) would interfere with that in any way, since Kitimat is outside the Great Bear area,” Stanway said.

The background to the National Geographic article is familiar to nature photographers, probably less so the general public. Last year, in early September, the International League of Conservation Photographers, which includes some of the best nature photographers in the world came to shoot along the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest.

Stanways statement is just what I was worried would happen when I first heard about the Great Bear photo project last fall

Here is how ILCP describes why they came

The International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) has teamed up with Pacific WILD, the Gitga’at First Nation of British Columbia, LightHawk, TidesCanada, Save our Seas Foundation, Sierra Club BC, and the Dogwood initiative to carry out a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (RAVE) in the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia. We are focusing our energy and cameras on this pristine region in response to plans by several large multinational companies to build a pipeline for heavy crude oil from the Alberta tar sands across British Columbia to the coast of the Great Bear Rainforest.

The 14-day expedition to the Great Bear Rainforest called upon 7 world-renowned photographers and 3 videographers to thoroughly document the region’s landscapes, wildlife, and culture. The RAVE provided media support to the First Nations and environmental groups seeking to stop the proposed Enbridge Gateway pipeline project (and thus expansion of the tar sands) and to expose the plan to lift the oil tanker ship moratorium.

ILCP was basically piggy-backing on the years of campaigning to save the Great Bear Rainforest, a perfectly legitimate strategy.

Along with a couple of film companies, National Geographic was one of the media sponsors of the trip to the Great Bear which, according to the ILCP website, took place form September 1 to September 12. Another sponsor was the King Pacific Lodge. All the sponsors had legitimate conservation concerns along the coast, but there were no inland sponsors or First Nations involved.

It is perfectly true that the coastal First Nations and the Great Bear Rainforest are the most threatened by any potential spill from a bitumen carrying tanker. As Frank Brown, of the Hielsuk First Nation at Bella Bella, said at the rally outside the NEB hearings in Kitimat last August 31, his people “risk everything and gain nothing” from the pipeline project and the tankers. The coast won’t even get the handful of jobs that will come to Kitimat.

The ILCP trip appears to have an unfortunate, and perhaps unforeseen consequence that is echoed in the National Geographic articles and in that statement by Enbridge’s Stanway “since Kitimat is outside the Great Bear area,” the Douglas Channel, including its estuaries, Kitimat, Kitimat River and the areas to the east all the way back to the Rockies are less important than the Great Bear Forest itself.
Both the ILCP campaign and now likely the National Geographic article are apparently already creating the idea that Great Bear Forest is the only major pipeline related environmental issue in this region.

That was certainly was the impression I got last spring when I attended the North American Nature Photographers Association convention in Texas. Everyone at the conference had heard about the Northern Gateway Pipeline. Most people seemed to know there was a town called Kitimat but they knew little more and knew nothing about Douglas Channel or the wild mountains to the east along the pipeline route. Everyone talked just about Great Bear. While some of the photographers at the NANPA convention affiliated with the ILCP were interested and enthusiastic about a Kitimat or wider BC perspective on the story, one well known and highly talented photographer who was part of the ILCP Rave and had been down in the Great Bear, when I brought up in a conversation Douglas Channel, the Gilttoyees and Foch, rather rudely told me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

Now it is perfectly legitimate and even valuable if the ILCP wants to focus on the Great Bear Rainforest, photographing the remaining pristine regions of the world is their mandate.

It should also be noted that one ILCP associate photographer, Neil Ever Osborne, has spent the summer flying over the route of the pipeline, capturing magnificent aerials.

The long term problem is that National Geographic and ILCP are likely setting the media agenda. Most media organizations, if interested, but limited by shrinking budgets, overworked editors and lazy, greedy management will follow their lead and just report on the Great Bear Rainforest and ignore the rest of northern BC. It’s not just Kitimat that is beyond the Great Bear boundaries, and is being ignored, Haida Gwaii is also outside the Great Bear and could be damaged by an oil spill.

When it comes to journalism, there is no excuse for National Geographic. Although the society doesn’t have the almost unlimited budgets they had in past decades, the National Geographic Society still has a lot more money than most journalistic organizations. If the National Geographic was going to do a story on the Northern Gateway pipeline, why did its reporter stick strictly to the Great Bear area?

Let’s look at the dates. According to ILCP, the Great Bear photo shoot began on September 1 and ended on September 12. The National Energy Board’s first community hearings on the pipeline were in Kitimat on August 31, a fact well known across the region and well publicized by the NEB. Enbridge had scheduled a public meeting in Kitimat on September 22. That meeting was widely advertised in local media across the region and promoted on Enbridge’s website.

I covered the hearings on August 31 and the rally outside. Apart from a couple of activist documentary producers who were filming the hearings, the only reporters who attended were based in here in Kitimat (while First Nations representatives from the coast and inland did attend both the hearings and the demonstration) On September 22, only the three locally based reporters, including myself, showed up for the Enbridge community briefing.

(National Geographic is not only the other media at fault. With a couple of exceptions, reporters from the PostMedia chain and other Canadian media continue to cover Kitimat from their desks in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.)

If the assignment editors at National Geographic had had the vision to widen the focus beyond the Great Bear, or if Barcott had bothered to look beyond the British Columbia coast, he could have come to Kitimat on August 31 for the NEB hearings, the day before the ILCP shoot began or, after the shoot, he could have stuck around for another 10 days for the Enbridge presentation.

At the September 22 meeting, Enbridge officials outlined their plans and their planned precautions. Some local people, people with knowledge of the Channel, and men from the RTA aluminum smelter who asked highly technical questions about pipeline metal and pipeline construction, challenged Enbridge on those plans. Covering either event would have created an article that would have met the editorial objections that Enbridge has raised.

A trip up Douglas Channel, a trip into the mountains the pipeline will cross, a visit to Smithers and the Bulkley Valley, (even if the article didn’t cover all the way east to Alberta) would not left the unfortunate and mistaken impression that the only part of this world that counts is the Great Bear Rainforest.

A little more knowledge of the complexity of the issue, which could have been gained by speaking to NEB officials in August, would not have allowed the error about the approval of the LNG projects to make it into print.

Barcott could not only have seen a lot more of this region. he could have attended the hearings or the public meeting and would have produced a far more accurate, credible and nuanced article.

The last time National Geographic visited Kitimat was in 1956, with a major article when Kitimat was considered a town of the future, 55 years ago. Perhaps, in the interests of journalistic accuracy and credibility, National Geographic should come back before 2066.

Editor’s note: As the result of feedback on this article, I should note that I am not singling out the environmental movement nor nature photographers. While the energy companies directly involved in both pipeline projects are offering various incentives to the communities involved including Kitimat, as a whole, the Alberta oil patch keeps talking about Kitimat as their gateway
and their key to Canadian prosperity. The majority of Albertans pushing the projects will never come here and will never have to deal with the consequences of any problems. The energy industry has to realize that people who live here want good, sustainable jobs and to use the income from those jobs to enjoy the region’s magnificent wilderness. The solution is for a wider viewpoint of the issues from the BC coast to northern Alberta. Whatever position a journalist takes on the issues, don’t keep ignoring the town and port of Kitimat, the apex of the story. (For example, this page was tweeted as I was writing this, a social media site for “professionals” discusses the Kitimat LNG project solely from the point of view of energy industry consultants.)

Canadian Business (Canadian Press) National Geographic calls Northern Gateway a pipeline through paradise

The salmon study controversy. How to write a news release without answering the question

Environment

Fisheries minister Keith Ashfield and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans today issued a news release concerning the controversy over the muzzling of DFO scientist Kristi Miller and her genetic study of Fraser River salmon which suggests a virus may be responsible for the decline of the stock. Although Miller published her study in the journal Science, she was not permitted to speak the media about it.

The DFO news release from this afternoon is a classic example of not answering the actual question while seeming to assure the public that the minister and department are doing their job. DFO also says it supports the department’s scientists, without mentioning that the DFO was originally willing to make Miller available to the media, it was Stephen Harper’s Privy Council Office that said she couldn’t.

You can read the full news release. Response to Media Reports about Science at Fisheries and Oceans Canada

On Miller’s study the news release says:

In fact, the research and report by Dr. Kristi Miller on Pacific salmon was not withheld from anyone; Dr. Miller’s report was published in a broadly circulated science magazine and remains widely available to the media and public through the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website, and as an exhibit through the Commission’s website.

(The Commission refers to the Cohen Commission on the decline of salmon stocks)

The publication of a scientific article in the journal Science is not at question.

What the Privy Council Office did was forbade a prominent scientist the opportunity to explain to the public in layman’s terms the significance of her findings.

Science journalism works like this. The major journals advise the media well ahead of time, under embargo, about the pending publication of major papers. The reason for this simple and supported by both the media and the scientific community. It takes time and effort to craft an accurate report of a scientific paper, whether reporting for a newspaper or the web. Creating an accurate and accessible television item on a scientific paper, a television item that also needs pictures and voice clips is both an art and science. Even in these days of cutbacks, the networks hunger for reporters and producers who can do it in under two minutes. If instead the media has to rush out a story on a scientific article on the day of publication, it is bound to be superficial and inaccurate. This was the process that was short circuited by the Privy Council Office when it, not DFO, muzzled Kristi Miller.

This is the question that the DFO news release ignores.

The news release then raises a smokescreen by saying:

Our scientists have also published hundreds of reports subscribed to by tens of thousands of people throughout Canada and the world. For example, this week, Fisheries scientist Dr. Kenneth Frank released a report about positive signs in the recovery of groundfish stocks off the coast of Nova Scotia. Dr. Frank’s research was published in Nature, the world’s most highly cited science journal, and he spoke to nearly a dozen interested members of the press on his report this week alone.

. While it is true, that the report on the rebound of groundfish stocks is receiving wide attention and as DFO says, Kenneth Frank was made available to the media, a cynical observer would be quick to point out that the Kenneth Frank story is good news for Canada and for the Harper government, while the Kristi Miller salmon virus could be bad news for both the country and the government.

So now it looks that the Privy Council Office is adopting a “good news” agenda. If it’s good, a government scientist can talk to the media, if it’s bad news, bury it.

Finally the government relies in this case, on the “before the courts” excuse it used when the story of the salmon study first broke in Post Media News, referring to Justice Bruce Cohen’s commission of inquiry into the decline of the Pacific salmon stocks.

Moreover, at Justice Cohen’s request, the government has provided almost 500,000 documents and many hours of testimony deemed relevant by Justice Cohen to his inquiry. Dr. Miller will also present her research findings at the Commission in the coming weeks along with several other scientists and officials.

Our government has been very clear that judicial inquiries are not conducted through the media. Evidence that may be relevant to Justice Cohen’s findings should be managed through the commission process.

What this means is that government may use the “before the courts” excuse in the future to muzzle any scientific debate on a controversial issue. In reality, of course, that simply means excluding the public and media from a debate on any subject that would likely be discussed openly at any scientific gathering or congress.

Of course, if the Harper government is in favour of something, then a “commission process” appears to be irrelevant. As has been widely reported, the Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, is ignoring the quasi-juidicial nature of the National Energy Board hearings into the Enbridge Northern Gateway project and the various LNG projects, all potentially using the port of Kitimat, by telling any reporter and any audience that the projects are in the “national interest” when finding the public interest is the mandate of the NEB.

NEB gets ready for BC LNG hearings, first step for second Kitimat project

Energy

The National Energy Board has announced it will hold hearings on the second proposed liquified natural gas project, saying, the hearings will “consider an application submitted by BC LNG Export Co-operative LLC (BC LNG) for a 20-year licence to export liquefied natural gas (LNG)
from Canada to Pacific Rim markets.”

Once again under the NEB’s rules of procedure, the hearings will be limited to granting the export licence, with or without conditions and will follow the so-called “market-based procedure” set up for the NEB after deregulation of the oil and gas industry in the late 1980s.

This application is based on projections that the demand for natural gas in Pacific Rim markets will continue to increase substantially over the next 20 years. In its application, BC LNG is requesting authorization to export up to 1.8 million tonnes of LNG annually.

The Board will consider, among other issues, the export markets and natural gas supply, the transportation arrangements, and the status of regulatory authorizations.

However in an apparent departure from the KM LNG hearings where energy lawyers challenged environmental and social issues as not included in the mandate for those hearings, these ground rules say they are now”

The Board will also consider the potential environmental effects of the proposed exportation, and any social effects directly related to those environmental effects.

The public has until Sept. 11, 2011 to register with the board for full intervenor status, request to make an oral statement or to submit a letter of comment.

Letter from NEB to BC LNG (pdf)

“Call the Americans.” Canadian Coast Guard cutbacks now an issue in the US Senate

The Coast

The controversy over the Harper government’s cutbacks to Canadian Coast Guard resources on both west and east coasts has now become an issue in the United States Senate.

While most of the media attention last week was on Newfoundland, where there are fears not only of moving the search coordination centre from the island to Trenton, and the possible privatization of the entire search and rescue service, the cutbacks on the northern coast of British Columbia have yet to become a national story, even though the conservative government is increasing its promotion of tanker traffic from Pacific ports.

Now the issue has come to attention of Senator Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, who is raising alarm bells in the Senate about the dangers of tanker traffic, the possibility of a spill and the probable inadequacy of the Canadian response to any major shipping accident along the coast.

Cantwell’s main concern is upgrading the ability of the United States Coast Guard to respond to such an accident, “This is a major threat to our region,” Cantwell said at hearing on July 20 of the Senate Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard Subcommittee. “It seems that Canada’s oil spill response plan in the Pacific Northwest is to call the Americans. …Obviously any such spill in the narrow and heavily populated waters of the Puget Sound or Strait of Juan de Fuca would cause tens of billions of dollars in damage and impact millions of my constituents. … I think it deserves a very robust oil spill response plan.”

Cantwell says she secured a commitment from Rear Admiral Paul F. Zukunft, Assistant Commandant for Marine Safety, Security and Stewardship for the United States Coast Guard, to have the U.S. Coast Guard perform an extensive analysis of cross-border readiness and ability to respond to potential spills given the potentially dramatic increase in oil tanker traffic along the U.S.-Canada maritime border off Washington state.

After the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Cantwell pushed a bill through the U.S. Congress that, strengthens oil spill protections for Puget Sound and other U.S. coastal waters. The bill, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 15, 2010, includes provisions that significantly enhance oil spill response and prevention to protect valuable coastal communities and their economies.

Cantwell’s news release says

The legislation expands the oil spill response safety net from Puget Sound out to the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, ensuring that Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca have spill response teams and equipment in place. The bill further reduces ship and tanker traffic in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary; enhances spill prevention efforts on vessels transporting oil; and establishes a stronger role for tribes.

Cantwell also fought to include a provision that requires tug escorts for double-hulled tankers in Prince William Sound. Approximately 600 oil tankers and 3,000 oil barges travel through Puget Sound’s fragile ecosystem annually, carrying about 15 billion gallons of oil to Washington’s five refineries. The Strait of Juan de Fuca also has significant outbound tanker traffic originating in Vancouver and carrying Canadian oil. Prior to the 2010 Coast Guard Reauthorization Bill, American industry only had to position oil spill response equipment in Puget Sound, leaving the busy shipping lane in the Strait of Juan de Fuca unprotected.

Cantwell’s provision extended the “high volume port area” designation west to Cape Flattery. As a result, oil spill response equipment, such as booms and barriers, are now prepositioned along the Strait, supplementing the response equipment already in place in Puget Sound.

An oil spill in waters in Washington state interior waterways could be devastating. According to the Washington State Department of Ecology, a major spill would have a significant impact on Washington state’s coastal economy, which employs 165,000 people and generates $10.8 billion. A spill would also severely hurt our export dependent economy because international shipping would likely be severely restricted. Washington state’s waters support a huge variety of animals and plants, including a number of endangered species, all which would be harmed by a spill.

Cantwell says she was successful in protecting a tanker ban in Puget Sound. Former Alaskan Repuiblican Senator Ted Stevens attempted to overturn the then 28-year-old protections authored by former Senator Warren Magnuson limiting oil tanker traffic in the Puget Sound. In 1977, Senator Warren Magnuson had the foresight to recognize the great risk that oil supertankers would have on the waters of Puget Sound. He put his findings into law and essentially banned supertankers in the Puget Sound by prohibiting the expansion of oil terminals in Puget Sound.

Enbridge, environmentalists agree

The inadequate Canadian Coast Guard resources in the Pacific region bring rare agreement between Enbridge which wants to build the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline and the project’s environmental opponents.

While Enbridge maintains that safety systems it plans would make a tanker accident a rare event, when officials were questioned at last September’s public meeting in Kitimat, they said Enbridge was worried about Coast Guard resources on the west coast. They said that Enbridge’s emergency planning scenarios call for it to take 72 hours for the Canadian Coast Guard to respond with its meagre equipment from Victoria and Vancouver to a tanker accident in Douglas Channel. The Enbridge team admitted under questioning from the audience that the company would urge to Canadian government to call on US Coast Guard resources from Alaska and as far away as California in the event of a major spill, confirming Sen. Cantwell’s statement to the subcommittee that Canada would “Call the Americans.”

Rex Murphy’s rant on search and rescue cutbacks: National Post

Link The Coast

Rex Murphy: A decision so dumb, only a government would make it

Rex Murphy, writing in The National Post is fully justified in his rant Saturday against more search and rescue cutbacks in Newfoundland by the Harper government. Since it involves his beloved “Rock,” my former colleague is at his rhetorical best (and as the northwest knows the BC coast faces equally dumb cutbacks here)

Scarcely had Mr. Harper captured the PM’s job again, this time as a
majority leader in the last election, when one of his ministers came out
with the equally ludicrous decision to move search-and-rescue
operations: Last week, it was announced that the co-ordination centre in
St. John’s (along with one in Quebec City) was slated for termination,
with services relocated to Halifax and Trenton, Ont.

And according to reports circulating this week, the Department of
National Defence’s search-and-rescue services might soon be privatized.
(Currently, the job is done in partnership between DND and the Coast
Guard, which is overseen by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans). If
that happens, there’s no telling where the services would be relocated.

What is in the air in Ottawa? How do such absurd notions take root in
the federal mind? Would they ever take similar steps in regard to, say,
the regulation of Lake Ontario shipping?

Search and Rescue is not some toy service. It concerns life and
death. And considering the tragedies that fret the history of the
province over the centuries, this would not only be a wrong decision,
but an offensive one, as well.

Rex is certainly right on this issue, but wrong about the weather, when he says about Newfoundland being special:

Newfoundland is unique. It stands alone, shrouded in impenetrable mists and answering to the rhythms of its own weather gods. Newfoundland weather is not a little like the world of subatomic physics; a buzz of random and paradoxical probabilities, a thing that may be observed but not measured or, contrariwise, measured but not observed, and not either, ever, from Halifax. It is a wonder and a despair.

The weather along the BC coast has been shrouded in impenetrable mists for most of this summer (if you can call it summer).

The decision by Coast Guard bureaucrats to replace the (70 foot, 21 metre) Point Henry in Prince Rupert with a smaller, (47 foot, 14 metre) open motor life boat and the similar move in Campbell River replace the Point Race was protested up and down the coast, and almost cost Vancouver Island North MP John Duncan his seat in the May election. Duncan, of course, is toeing the Conservative party line now that he is safely back in the Commons.

The decisions on both coasts are equally dumb. The ocean is as dangerous in Newfoundland as on the BC coast.

But Rex spoils his rant with his own dumb ideological conclusion:

My only explanation is that it serves to illustrate this unshakeable
axiom: Some decisions are so dumb that only governments can make them.

Northwest BC has had been the victim of many really dumb decisions by the private, corporate sector over the years and those dumb decisions are responsible for the economic decline of the region (with no help from government). The difference should be that government decisions may be influenced and changed by the electorate. There are no checks or balances on corporate decisions.

So if Rex is right and search and rescue is privatized, becomes some sort of for-profit venture, what dumb decisions are we going to hear from the CEO of SARCAN LLC? Checking someone’s credit score before launching a rescue?

Editorial: Joe Oliver twice dangerous prejudgement

Editorial

Originally published July 22, 2011

Twice in as many days this week, the new Conservative Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, has prejudged the outcome of National Energy Board hearings on both pipeline projects that could be built to the port of Kitimat, the Enbridge Northern Gateway which would carry oil sands bitumen and the KM LNG project which would carry natural gas for liquefaction at a Kitimat terminal.

So we have a minister of the Crown, who will have influence around a cabinet table, once the NEB conclusions are presented to the “Governor in Council,” making it clear that he has already made up his mind on the issues.

The National Energy Board hearings are “quasi-judicial,” that is they have a special legal status and as people who attended the hearings know, special legal procedures, so that the board can fulfill the mandate from Parliament that the board decide whether or not an energy project is in the Canadian “public interest.”

If NEB hearings were full legal proceedings before a court, no cabinet minister would dare to make a public prejudgement. (“It’s before the courts”) But the NEB and oil and gas, of course, are different, the quasi in quasi-judicial opens the door to allow Joe Oliver to say what he thinks, likely before even being fully briefed.

Oliver has already as widely reported, said his government supports the project. “Gateway in our opinion is in the national interest,” he said.

National interest. Public interest. Same thing. A clear message to the (supposedly independent) National Energy Board.

Then today, as widely reported on energy industry tweets (but not so far in the mainstream media) Oliver was interviewed the subscription only Platts LNG Daily and the tweets quote the Platt’s report as saying “Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said that he expects the National Energy Board to approve the 20-year LNG export license sought by Kitimat LNG this upcoming fall. Minister Oliver noted that this license would be the first for exporting natural gas to a market outside the United States.”

The NEB hearings on KM LNG just wrapped up last week. Again we have the minister prejudging the issue.

Could this be a rookie MP and rookie cabinet minister making rookie mistakes (he hasn’t been briefed fully on how his ministry works?), after all according to his official profile on the Parliament of Canada website, Oliver has just (as of this writing) 81 Days (2 months, 21 days) of federal service?

For a rookie, Oliver has had a very high profile in the past few weeks. (In contrast, we’ve hardly heard a peep out of another star Conservative rookie, former cop Julian Fantino, since he took his seat in the Commons).

Given Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s tight control of the cabinet and what cabinet ministers have said during the minority years, it is clear that Oliver would not be making these statements without the approval of the prime minister himself.

First came Oliver’s July 14 interview with Bloomberg,

Oliver, in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News, said he plans a global campaign to challenge “exaggerated rhetoric” about the environmental impact of Alberta’s oil sands. Canada also must build new markets for its oil, which is now shipped primarily to the U.S., he said.

A few days later, Oliver made it clear he wants to streamline the regulatory process, cut out the red tape, as reported in the Calgary Herald

Oliver said Thursday the country needs better regulation of proposed projects considered to be of national interest, including pipelines and natural gas liquefaction and export facilities for the West Coast.
He said he wants to reduce duplication between jurisdictions through a “one-project, one-review” process of projects to grow energy markets in North America and Asia, including Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would ship bitumen from the oilsands to B.C.’s West Coast, and TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport oilsands production to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries.
“You don’t undermine regulatory independence, necessarily, by putting time frames on decisions,” Oliver said. “There’s got to be checks and balances, but I think we can do more to avoid duplication and think about mechanisms to tighten up the time to do fulsome reviews.”

So much for the ordinary people who live along the pipeline routes, most of whom are not familiar and not always able to understand the procedures in hearings that have been the home for years of high-priced energy lawyers from Canada’s major law firms.

Then came the energy minister’s meeting in Alberta, where along with the idea that Enbridge Northern Gateway is in the “national interest” (the spin that Enbridge has been using for the past several months) Oliver agreed with Alberta Energy Minister Ron Lieper’s contention that Canada should become an “energy superpower” with Enbridge as a keystone, as reported in the Edmonton Journal (reprinted in the Vancouver Sun)

Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert said Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway heavy crude pipeline between the Edmonton area and Kitimat, B.C., called a key export link to Asia, would benefit from a national policy.
Northern Gateway is going through National Energy Board hearings starting in January, Liepert said Tuesday at the conclusion of the two-day national energy summit held in Kananaskis Country.
“I would presume before September of next fall that we can work as governments to ensure that the federal cabinet can expedite that decision because, ultimately, it will be a federal cabinet decision.”
Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said the [ministers’ national energy] plan’s collaborative approach “implies agreement to exploit resources in a socially and environmentally responsible way for all Canadians.”
He said that “Asia is a growing market and China, in particular, is the biggest consumer of energy in the world, so we are supportive of the Gateway project because it will open up exports.”

British Columbia did not send a minister to the meeting but officials did sign the final agreement.

Let’s make it clear, the Harper government does have a majority and any government should be free to follow the policies that it believes it was elected to implement. Stephen Harper has pushing the idea of an “energy superpower” for years.

What is not acceptable, however, is for Oliver and the Harper government to treat the LNG hearings that just concluded and the upcoming Northern Gateway hearings as a something the government can ignore because Conservatives already know what the “national interest” is. That is for the NEB panel to discover. Of course, the government is free to disagree, after the hearings and after the final report and recommendations.

Oliver’s prejudgement is not fair to the people of northern and northwestern British Columbia who have genuine concerns about the environmental consequences of the pipelines and the tankers.

Nor is this prejudgement fair to the energy industry (and the stockholders of companies like Enbridge, Apache, Encana and EOG) who have spent millions of dollars for environmental impact studies and millions more in planning to make the projects as safe as their engineers can make it (within the need of those companies to make a profit).

(It should be noted that there seems to be growing support in the northwest for the LNG projects but growing opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway)

Enbridge has identified environmental hazards on both the pipeline route and in the waters of British Columbia and come up with what the company believes are solutions. Those hazards and the proposed solutions were explained publicly at town meetings in Kitimat and documents are available on the Joint Review website.

Those who oppose the Northern Gateway project say those hazard studies and proposed solutions are inadequate.

It is doubtful that Oliver has even had a summary briefing of the problems that Enbridge has identified. Would Enbridge be willing to spend millions of dollars on tunnels and bridges across the mountains of British Columbia and install navigation aides along Douglas Channel and the Inside Passage if the environmental concerns were just “exaggerated rhetoric?’

A lot of people in the northwest region already believe that the Joint Review hearings are a sham, that the Enbridge pipeline will be approved by the cabinet no matter what testimony the board hears both in the community hearings in January and the formal hearings later in 2012 and no matter what recommendations the board panel may make to cabinet. Oliver’s statements this week tend to confirm this belief.

One has to wonder, whether supporters or opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline, if all the money being budgeted for these hearings is being well spent in this time of restraint if the outcome is preordained: the millions of dollars allocated by the government for the hearings, millions more from Enbridge’s treasury, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by intervenors and hundreds or even thousands of dollars scrimped and saved by those who make oral statements. Then there are the thousands of hours of research and study by Enbridge, thousands of hours of research and legal work by the National Energy Board and the Environmental Assessment agency staff, tens of thousands of billable hours by all the lawyers, hours of work by individuals, whether they oppose or support the project, who give up their time to craft an intervention or an oral statement.

It is entirely likely the Joint Review Panel will make every effort to come a to a fair and equitable decision.

The Joint Review Panel has to decide in the interests of all Canadians, which means the interests of northern British Columbia are only part of the decision. The current campaign by Enbridge that the pipeline is a new national challenge to join the country together like the nineteenth century railways, looks like it is aimed at the “all Canadians” mandate of the NEB panel.

Here is where Oliver’s prejudgment of the issues before NEB panels, especially when he said the Enbridge project is in “the national interest” is another blow to Canadian democratic tradition. This shouldn’t be ideological. Once, not so long ago, Conservatism meant respecting traditions, especially the hundreds of years of parliamentary and legal traditions we inherited from Great Britain. Canada then developed a Canadian version of that tradition. As Canadians have seen, Stephen Harper and the cabinet members around him have no respect for those traditions. The NEB hearings, decisions by other independent bodies, appear to be an inconvenience, just as a sitting parliament was an inconvenience at the time of the two prorogations of parliament.

That Joint Review decision, if it is against the pipeline, is not binding on the Harper government, which clearly over the past years has shown a pro-Alberta, pro-oil sands and anti-environment bias. The governor in council, the cabinet, as is well known, is dominated by Stephen Harper, who does not tolerate dissent.

Given the NEB mandate, there is a good chance that the pipeline will be approved, but likely with contingents and limitations that take into consideration the concerns of northern British Columbia.

In the final analysis, after all this, after millions of dollars, lifetimes of work, hours of hearings and deliberation, the decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline and those inconvenient considerations will be made by just one man, Stephen Harper, who is unlikely to attend a single hearing, read a transcript or study the millions of pages of evidence. Joe Oliver’s media blitz in the past two weeks has already shown how the prime minister and cabinet think, the Enbridge pipeline must go ahead despite all the potential dangers. The outcome has already been prejudged. (As noted earlier there is much less opposition to the LNG projects across the northwest, but once again it is clear that the Harper government is prejudging the outcome and the NEB decision on the LNG terminal).

Before supporters cheer and the opponents lament, that very arbitrary nature of a cabinet decision by the current government, dominated by the current Prime Minister, the fact the NEB hearings could likely be seen as a worthless sham, will also likely mean court and possibly other challenges, challenges that could last for years.

Sham NEB hearings, prejudged by the Joe Oliver, Stephen Harper and the rest of the cabinet, will be just as disastrous for the energy companies as it will be for the environmental movement, especially in today’s polarized world where compromise is often impossible.

The energy companies probably do really believe these pipelines are a
new national dream, not a national nightmare and their environmental
safeguards will meet the test. But if the Joint Review hearings are seen as worthless, then statements and policies by the energy companies will also be seen as worthless far beyond the “activists” in the environmental movement.

The pipeline must cross the traditional territory of many First Nations, most of whom have not agreed to Enbridge’s terms and some who say they oppose the Enbridge pipeline. The role of First Nations could also mean, at the very least, many court challenges.

The first accident during the construction process, and there will be accidents, or a tanker accident on the coast, and there will be tanker accidents on the coast, even if unrelated to Enbridge, will mean headlines, demonstrations, questions in the Commons, more time in court.

It would have been better if Joe Oliver, Stephen Harper and their colleagues had kept an open mind on the issue until all the facts, opinions and options had been independently examined by the Joint Review Panel. But as on other contentious issues, unfortunately, the Conservatives appear to have already decided the outcome.

So if events unfold as it appears they will unfold, a decade or more from now, a final decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline may end up in the hands of Canada’s judiciary, an arm that is, for the moment, independent of the government, with a decision coming perhaps after Stephen Harper has retired as Prime Minister, and Joe Oliver has returned to Bay Street.

Then once the case is concluded, all the work done for the Joint Review Panel hearings, will be shipped to Library and Archives Canada in Gatineau, to gather dust until, in another decade or two, someone can write their Phd dissertation on what went wrong.

US proposes handing Alaska halibut allocation dispute to international commission, have charters buy commercial quota

Environment

Editor’s note: With this entry, Northwest Coast Energy News launches its planned expansion of coverage from energy and energy related environment issues to include other environmental and related issues in the northwest, including fishery issues.

For the past year, anglers, guides and outfitters on the British Columbia coast have been concerned about the allocation problems with the halibut fishery, with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans sticking to the original quota system of 88 per cent of the total allowable catch going to the commercial fishery and 12 per cent to the recreational fishery, which includes both recreational anglers and the tourist industry.

There have been parallel problems in the state of Alaska, where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which governs the US fishery, began moves to take away the licences from many of the halibut charter operators on the lower end of the income scale. That move is currently being challenged in a federal court in Washington, DC.

On Thursday, NOAA proposed solutions to Alaska halibut dispute, in effect, handing the hot potato decision on halibut allocationover to the International Pacifc Halibut Commission, suggesting that the Commission decide the split for charter and commercial allocation when making the overall decision on total allowable catch. NOAA has also proposed allowing Alaska halibut charter operators to buy commercial quota, similar to the Canadian proposal from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans last winter.

The key phrase in the July 21 NOAA news release says

The International Pacific Halibut Commission, through which the United
States and Canada jointly manage the halibut resource from California to
the Bering Sea, would determine total commercial and charter catch
limits for southeast Alaska and the central Gulf of Alaska each year
before the fishing season….

Allocations to the charter and commercial sectors would vary with changes in the number of halibut available for harvest as determined by the best available science.

The actual details from the US Federal Register states:

The International Pacific Halibut Commission would
divide the annual combined catch limits into separate annual catch limits for the commercial and guided sport fisheries. The CSP (catch sharing plan) allocates a fixed percentage of the annual combined catch limit to the guided sport and commercial fisheries. The fixed percentage allocation to each sector varies with halibut abundance. The IPHC would multiply the CSP allocation percentages for each area by the annual combined catch limit to calculate the commercial and guided sport catch limits in net pounds. At moderate to low levels of halibut abundance, the CSP could provide the guided sport sector with a smaller poundage catch limit than it would have received under the GHL (guideline harvest levels) program. Conversely, at higher levels of abundance, the CSP could provide the guided sport sector with a larger poundage catch limit than it would have received under the GHL program.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council intended the CSP sector allocations to balance the needs of the guided sport and commercial sectors at all levels of halibut abundance.
Although the CSP allocation method is a significant change from the current allocation method under the GHL, National Marine Fisheries Service believes that the allocation under the CSP provides a more equitable management response

On the issue of buying commercial quota, the NOAA release says:

The catch sharing plan would authorize transfers of commercial halibut individual fishing quota to charter halibut permit holders for harvest by anglers in the charter halibut fishery.
Those transfers would offer charter vessel anglers in southeastern Alaska and the central Gulf of Alaska an opportunity to catch additional halibut, up to specified limits.

The news release goes on to say:

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council recommended the rule to
establish a clear allocation between the commercial and charter sectors
that fish in these areas.

Currently, the commercial and charter halibut fisheries are managed
under different programs. The commercial halibut fishery has been
managed under a catch limit program since 1995. The charter halibut
sector has been managed under a different harvest guideline since 2003,
which gives charter fishermen a number of fish they can catch per guided
angler per day, but does not ensure the overall catch stays within a
definitive catch limit.

The proposed catch sharing plan, which is scheduled to be in place by
2012, is designed to foster a sustainable fishery by preventing
overharvesting of halibut and would introduce provisions that provide
flexibility for charter and commercial fishermen.

Those who wish to comment on the draft policy must respond before September 6.

Link to NOAA news release

NOAA draft rule in US Federal Register

Editorial: Joe Oliver’s twice dangerous prejudgement

Energy
Link to Editorial

Joe Oliver’s twice dangerous prejudgement

Twice in as many days this week, the new Conservative Minister of
Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, has prejudged the outcome of National
Energy Board hearings on both pipeline projects that could be built to
the port of Kitimat, the Enbridge Northern Gateway which would carry
oil sands bitumen and the KM LNG project which would carry natural gas
for liquefaction at a Kitimat terminal.

Louisiana governor announces LNG project; size, cost would rival Kitimat

Energy

The governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal today announced that the state could be the site of what he calls the “one of the first natural gas liquefaction
facilities in North America.”

The facility will be built by Cheniere Energy which already has a terminal at Sabine Pass in Cameron Parish in the state.

Cheniere says it will spend $6 billion to
expand its existing facility, which will be one of the largest capital
investments in Louisiana history.

That means the Louisiana terminal could rival Kitimat in size and potential. The projected timeline for both shows construction and operational startup would happen at the same time.

A news release from the governor’s office says

The new project will create 148 new jobs and retain 77 existing jobs,
with a total compensation and benefits package that will exceed an
average of $100,000 a year. The new jobs will support another 589
indirect jobs in the area and 3,000 construction jobs will be created by
the project at the peak of construction activity. Cheniere will build
its new facility near the Louisiana-Texas border in Cameron Parish to
handle the shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the company’s
international LNG terminal.

Gov. Jindal said, “Cheniere Energy’s
construction of one the country’s first liquefaction facilities at the
Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish is a huge win for our state. This
multi-billion dollar investment will be one of the largest capital
investments in the history of Louisiana, and build on our incredible
record of job creation projects all across the state. Cheniere’s
facility will grow our economy, increase natural gas production and
become a major exchange in continuing to meet the demand for energy
around the world.”

“The construction of Cheniere’s Liquefaction
Project in Cameron Parish will provide key support to Louisiana’s
economy and natural gas industry, which has been transformed by the
development of the Haynesville Shale,” said Charif Souki, Chairman and
CEO of Cheniere. “In only two years, Louisiana’s natural gas production
has doubled as the Haynesville has grown into one of the most prolific
shale plays in the world. Our Liquefaction Project will provide
thousands of jobs in Southwest Louisiana while connecting the state’s
natural gas industry to global markets, making Louisiana the world’s
first dual importer and supplier of LNG. We greatly appreciate the
support that Cheniere has received from the State of Louisiana and the
people of Cameron Parish, who have demonstrated a strong commitment to
our Sabine Pass LNG terminal.”

Cheniere Energy anticipates beginning
construction of the facility in early 2012. Hiring of the new permanent
jobs will begin in 2014 and the facility will commence operations in
2015. The final phase of the project is expected by the end of
2018.Adding liquefaction capabilities will transform the Sabine Pass
terminal into a bi-directional facility capable of exporting LNG in
addition to receiving LNG for regasification.

The Louisiana facility would use gas from the Haynesville Shale which is a Jurassic formation on the Texas-Louisiana border. Shale gas that would come through Kitimat comes largely from northeast British Columbia, especially the Horn River Basin.

Both the Kitimat and Louisiana projects are scheduled to begin main construction in 2012 with operations starting in 2015.

The KM LNG facility would have an initial plant capacity of 5 million metric tons per annum (mmtpa) with potential to expand to 10 mmtpa or more. The Louisiana release does not give a figure for the capacity of the plant.

During the recent National Energy Board hearings on KM LNG’s application for an export licence, witnesses repeatedly stressed there could be potential rival export ports for northeast BC shale gas in the United States, mainly in Oregon or Washington states, if the licence was not approved or the conditions were too restrictive. The Louisiana terminal would not likely be a rival for Kitimat for northern shale gas, although as the witnesses at the NEB hearings always stressed there is no way of tracking the origin of the “molecules” in the integrated North American pipeline network.

Governor Bobby Jindal’s news release