Save Our Rivers Action

B.C. Urged To Slow Green Power Development

December 21st, 2009

(Article From The Vancouver Sun, December 17, 2009 – By Scott Simpson)

A broad-based cluster of environmental groups is urging the British Columbia government to exercise more caution in the development of new green electricity resources.

VANCOUVER — British Columbia needs to take a closer look at the effect new renewable electricity development will have on communities, business and the environment before it commits to increasing the size of the sector, environmental groups said Thursday.

A report prepared for 25 environmental groups says B.C. needs to restore public confidence as well as demonstrate that plans to develop power for export will work to the benefit of the province.

“Many British Columbians — including those deeply concerned about climate change — harbour concerns about how renewable electricity is currently planned, promoted and developed in B.C.,” says a six-page report released Thursday.

“They want to see renewable electricity projects, but they want to be confident that those projects are planned and developed in a way that limits impacts and maximizes benefits for British Columbians.”

The report was co-authored by the David Suzuki Foundation, Pembina Institute, Watershed Watch Salmon Society and West Coast Environmental Law.

The report is aimed at both the government and members of a Green Energy Advisory Task Force announced last month by Premier Gordon Campbell to recommend new policies for green power development and opportunities to export renewable power to the United States.

Blair Lekstrom, Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, said he welcomed the report and encouraged the authors to submit it to the Task Force, which is due to report back to government in January.

The report says Crown corporation BC Hydro should no longer be barred from competing with private sector power developers to build new renewable energy projects.

Recommendations including designation of ecologically sensitive areas as off-limits to green power development, support for community and first nations power projects, and halting plans for power exports until the environmental benefits can be proven.

Watershed Watch executive director Craig Orr said the report authors believe it’s important that renewable power not be developed in B.C. to serve as a crutch for U.S. jurisdictions that primarily rely on electricity generated from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal.

“The whole system of developing clean energy is just a mess right now. There are huge numbers of changes that need to be made to increase public participation, democratic environmental standards. We just don’t know what advice is being given by the green task force.”

Orr said B.C. conservation groups are in broad agreement that the government’s strategy is “seriously flawed and needs a major overhaul.”

Lekstrom said he had time for a brief review of the report and said he is “supportive” of some of its recommendations.

“I would encourage them to make sure, if they haven’t already, to put that submission forward to the task force,” Lekstrom said. “The best thing we’ve got in B.C. is the ability to work together, from all the groups, bring all the sides together and try to find some issues we agree on.”

NDP energy critic John Horgan noted that representatives of two of the paper’s co-authors, Suzuki Foundation and Pembina, are members of the task force.

“Even those groups whom the Liberals assumed were in lockstep with the idea of green at all costs … are saying ‘Hold on a second, it’s not that simple,’ ” Horgan said.

“I think it speaks to the need, not for a two-month discussion with a selected audience over Christmas, but rather a broader discussion about where we are going with energy policy.”

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun