Dear Kinder Morgan: our province is not for sale

At Kinder Morgan’s annual shareholder meeting in Texas this week, oil executives gathered in the heart of the American oil patch to celebrate another year of profits and investor payouts.

It’s a timely reminder of whose interests are really served by Kinder Morgan’s plan to triple the capacity of the Transmountain pipeline. Here’s a hint: it’s not you and me.

So who benefits if the Kinder Morgan pipeline goes ahead? Certainly not BC, which bears all the risk of a new pipeline and increased tanker traffic, and faces a devastating oil spill that could ruin our coast, our communities and our economy for decades to come.  In the long run, not Canada either, as we commit ourselves ever further to a boom and bust resource cycle, and our over reliance on bitumen undermines a diversified, resilient economy.  And not the rest of the world, as we pump billions of extra tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and take another giant step towards the cliff of catastrophic climate change.  The real winner is Kinder Morgan, and people like CEO Richard Kinder – a former Enron executive and one of the richest men in the world.

But BC has a history of standing up against those who would sell off our heritage to the highest bidder. Pipelines and tanker traffic are proving to be a defining issue of the BC election, and opposition to Kinder Morgan’s expansion plan is at an all-time high.

So, Kinder Morgan, British Columbians have a message for you: our province is not for sale.

Never a better time to give ... or win!

You've been thinking about it for awhile.

Maybe it was after we won an order for Victoria to treat its sewage or when we won a legal victory to gain better protection for our orcas.  Whatever the reason, you've wanted to support GSA for awhile because investing in the protection of our oceans is always an important thing to do, and a charitable donation to Georgia Strait Alliance is the best way for you to know our inland sea is being protected.

But we'd like to give you another reason to give - a chance to enjoy a few hours on the waters that you love so much and GSA works all year to protect.

If you make a charitable donation of any amount during the month of May, you will be entered in a draw to win:

• Two tickets for a 2.5 hour harbour cruise aboard the 70' schooner "Passing Cloud".
  
  
• The cruise will depart Granville Island on June 8th at either at 9:30 am or 12:30 pm

Six winners will be drawn and all donations made throughout the month of May will be eligible. We thank OuterShores Expeditions for this incredibly generous donation.

Another bonus for donating now?

Once you make a charitable donation which makes you a member of Georgia Strait Alliance, you will get a $3 off coupon to the Vancouver Festival of Ocean Films.

If you register to attend our Annual General Meeting on June 9th at 4 pm in Vancouver, you are eligible for a 50% off coupon to the Film Festival. Membership does have its privileges!

There really has never been a better time to contribute to the health of the Salish Sea - and to the organization that for nearly 23 years has protected its waters and communities so well.

Thank you so much for your support.

Leaders are stepping up to oppose Kinder Morgan's expansion plans

It’s easy to be a cynic when it comes to elections, rolling our eyes at focus-grouped speeches and partisan mudslinging in the run up to voting day. This election, pipelines and tanker traffic are a hot topic, and the list of leaders taking a stand against the Kinder Morgan pipeline project is growing. Last week, we heard stirring words from the Mayors of Vancouver and Burnaby and hard facts from economists and business leaders saying ‘no’ to Kinder Morgan at the West Coast Pipeline Summit. This week, we have seen a growing number of BC political parties declaring their opposition to Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans, surprising many an election cynic and boosting the prospects for the campaign to stop the pipeline.

Image credit: Tsleil-Waututh West Coast Oil Pipeline Summit

Georgia Strait Alliance has been asking our supporters to reach out to candidates of all parties in their riding to find out where they stand on Kinder Morgan, and what they would do about pipelines and tanker traffic if they got elected. We feel that the risk of a catastrophic oil spill that would devastate the beaches, communities and precious marine life of the Salish Sea is simply too great, and safeguarding our coast and our climate demands that we oppose the project. Together with many other organizations, we have been working to encourage BC to say ‘no’ to Kinder Morgan and ‘yes’ to a clean energy future. So indications that leaders are listening to the majority of British Columbians who oppose the Kinder Morgan project are welcome – and help to reign in that election cynicism.

If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to contact your candidates: the more they hear concerns about the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the stronger a mandate the next government will have to take bold action to protect the Salish Sea.

As every cynic knows, talk doesn’t always equal action, so it will be up to us to hold our MLAs to their election promises, and push for the kind of visionary policies that would protect our whole coast forever and make BC a true climate leader.

GSA has lots of exciting activities planned this summer to bring people together to celebrate the Salish Sea and turn up the volume on the Kinder Morgan campaign – stay tuned to this blog for more details!

Dawn Breaks on an Exciting New Vision for our Waterfront

By the time the sun was rising over the city of Vancouver around 7:00 AM on March 28^th, Communities Atlas Coordinator Rebecca Adams and I had been up for hours, making our way across the Strait by ferry to the first gathering of Georgia Strait Alliance’s innovative Waterfront Initiative.  It was an inspiring day, anticipated to be the first of many occasions bringing together representatives from a broad range of sectors to discuss a common vision – the revitalization of the waterfront of Metro Vancouver, and eventually beyond to the entire Georgia Strait region.

Introducing the Initiative: Ruby Berry

The Waterfront Initiative is being developed to address the challenges faced by our urban ecosystems in the face of increasing population density and the tension between the often conflicting needs of users of our waterfront.  Modeled on the highly successful  Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance of New York and New Jersey (MWA), this initiative has been launched by GSA (under the leadership of Ruby Berry), and will be directed by  a multi-sectoral Waterfront Advisory Committee.  The project promises to help address the social, economic and ecological facets of our waterfront, resulting in a waterfront that serves the many needs of the 3 million residents of the Georgia Strait region and allows for growth within a flourishing ecosystem.

Roland Lewis' Inspiring Presentation

The MWA’s founder and CEO, Roland Lewis was the keynote speaker at the March 28^th event, held at the YMCA on Hornby Street in Vancouver.  Representatives from Metro Vancouver, local municipalities, conservation organizations, foundations, labour unions, Port of Metro Vancouver, cultural and science organizations gathered to hear first-hand about MWA’s experience bringing together over 700 organizations to work together to achieve a common vision for the waterfront of New York and New Jersey.  We were inspired by MWA’s approach, as they sought common ground and looked for issues that united often competing constituencies, an approach that fits well with GSA’s own solutions-based focus to addressing threats to the region.  If you were not at the event and would like to learn about Mr. Lewis’ presentation, watch our website for an online version, coming soon.

Participants from a variety of backgrounds were united in their excitement about the possibility of collaborating toward a common vision for Metro Vancouver’s waterfront, and were eager to start the process of figuring out what the initiative will look like for the Vancouver area.  There was a great deal of enthusiasm about the “big tent” approach to collaborating employed by the MWA – membership in MWA is by participation, offering opportunities to a broad constituency with the main criteria being buying in to the big vision.  Through this method, MWA has succeeding in galvanizing the citizens and leaders of the NY/NJ region to change their locality for a better future for all.

The coming months and years promise to be exciting, as the Waterfront Initiative gains structure, develops plans (including measureable goals) and increases its reach.  The resulting transformation of the waterfront of Metro Vancouver into a clean, accessible, productive place holds so much promise.  This vision includes opportunities for recreation, transportation, education and industry, built on a foundation of rich marine life, improved freshwater and natural areas will mean sustainable communities for all of us who live, work and play here.  This may seem a lofty goal, but as seen from the MWA‘s successes, we know that with a lot of work, strong leadership and a lot of collaboration, it is possible.  As one event participant said, it is daunting, but we need to start the process, build relationships, and keep our eyes on the long view.  

Vancouver Island Closed Containment Facility Open for Business!

I had the remarkable experience a couple of weeks ago of witnessing the last stages of construction of a home-grown, land-based, recirculating closed containment salmon farm. The facility is being built to prove the economic good sense of growing salmon in a way that doesn’t threaten the survival of wild salmon.

Namgis Nation is now growing Atlantic salmon in their state of the art facility just outside Port McNeill on Vancouver Island.

On March 18, 2013, 23,000 smolts were delivered to the facility, and will now be in quarantine for 4 months. They are doing well and growing, and are on their own “biofilter” which houses bacteria to clean the water.  Since this is a land-based, closed containment “recirculating aquaculture system”, all environmental conditions can be controlled and more than 98% of the water is recycled.  The small amount of outflow that is produced is fastidiously treated so that there is no chance of transfer of disease or pathogens between the wild and farmed fish. See our Campaign News

It’s a deliciously ambitious project that promises to answer the remaining questions about economic and financial sustainability of current closed containment technology. I say current because this is an actively innovative industry.

It takes a long time to develop a new technology, especially when the industry and government fight so vehemently against it. It’s been a remarkable journey to get to this point in aquaculture history.  One of my pivotal memories is from 2006, at a meeting held by DFO to assess the potential of closed  containment technology for growing salmon. Industry and government representatives scoffed at the possibility, declaring it a doomed enterprise from the beginning. I watched as the entrepreneurs, engineers and inventors in the room became increasingly eager to take up the challenge.  There’s nothing quite so inspiring to an inventor as saying, ‘It can’t be done.’

We’re now seeing the results of that challenge being met in the number of closed containment salmon farms in operation or development around the world. The impetus to push for closed containment technology has always been to solve the problems of the dangers posed by the open net cage salmon farms to the wild marine environment. We’re not there yet. The open net farms are still in the ocean, but we’re getting a lot closer and the argument that there isn’t a viable economic alternative is just no longer credible. For more information about the problems with open net cage salmon farms, see Salmon Farming