Save Our Rivers Society is pleased to present this new 8-min video featuring conversations with two of Canada's top fish biologists, Dr. Gordon F. Hartman and Otto Langer - both former senior scientists and managers at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans - on private river power in BC.  The two esteemed scientists - both known for standing on principle, even when inconvenient - discuss their multiple grave concerns about the ecological risks of the Campbell government's private river power gold rush.  They cover topics from the impacts on fish & wildlife from "run of river" power projects - each concluding that they are categorically not "green" - to addressing our inadequate environmental review process, and the "endless growth paradigm" in our society, in order to become truly sustainable. 

Both men have long careers in biology, management, academia and consulting, and have consistently spoken up to save fish.  Dr. Hartman was famously one of the "dissident scientists" who blew the whistle on Alcan's flow regimes for its proposed Kemano Completion Project on the Nechako system.  He and the other brave scientists were instrumental, along with a few solitary media figures - namely, Rafe Mair and Ben Meisner - in turning the tide of public sentiment against the calamitous KCP in the mid-1990's, thus saving large numbers of salmon and other species. Otto Langer, similarly, has spoken out in some challenging situations, taking his former employer, DFO, and the BC government to task for not protecting fish - especially when it comes to salmon farms on BC's coast and gravel extraction from the Fraser.  Both of these courageous scientists caution against this "irresponsible and reprehensible" private river power program, which has seen close to 700 of BC's most precious rivers claimed by private companies to make power for the US market.

"It's green alright.  Because green is the colour of money." - Dr. Gordon F. Hartman

Watch video - high resolution
Having trouble streaming the high-res version? Watch video - medium resolution

One of Canada's foremost experts on aboriginal law, Jack Woodward, of Victoria-based Woodward & Company, discusses the groundbreaking victory at the BC Supreme Court by the Chilcotin Nation, and the ramifications of this precedent on future resource extraction in BC (especially private river power).  The Chilcotin case, for which Woodward served as Lead Counsel over a record-setting 18-year hearing, further established the undeniable existence of ancestral title and rights for BC's indigenous peoples over their traditional territories.  As Mr. Woodward explains, this precedent has major implications for the Campbell Government's private river power "gold rush."  The interview provides  a fascinating look at BC history in this, the 150th year since the colonization of our province - formerly referred to as "the Indian Territories" - due to the first gold rush, in the 1850's.  Mr. Woodward notes that not much has changed with today's liquid gold rush to privatize BC's rivers and energy - as little respect is still being shown for the proper negotiating authorities and protocols, customs, heritage, natural food supply, and environment of the First Nations on whose land the vast majority of these private power projects are situated or proposed.

Watch excerpt of interview with Jack Woodward (4 min)
Watch full interview with Jack Woodward (38 min)

Save Our Rivers Society presents this latest installment in the "River at Risk" documentary series, which introduces British Columbians to some of the hundreds of our rivers with licenses or applications for disastrous private river power projects. In this 10 min. episode we take you to the Slocan Valley - in BC's spectacular Kootenays - to meet a biologist, community organizer, and group of kayakers all joining forces to save their beloved river from a private power project.

The project, proposed by Vancouver developer Harold Kalke, would divert a significant amount of the river's flow through a 2.7 metre-wide pipe for 3.5 km.  The kayakers, as part of the Endangered Creeks Expedition, have been paddling rivers and creeks all throughout the Kootenays  - among the 80 or so in the region threatened by the Campbell government's private power gold rush - taking pictures and video to raise awareness about this agenda that will deprive British Columbians of control over our water and energy security.  Featuring action-packed whitewater footage!

Watch video - high resolution
Having trouble streaming the high-res version? Watch video - medium resolution

 A Global TV news story:

To see a larger version, click here.

Watch the latest in Save Our Rivers' new video series, "Rivers at Risk," on the mighty Ryan River in the agricultural valley of Pemberton, BC. The Ryan is slated to have a significant amount of its natural flow diverted through a 10 KM-long, 5 metre-wide tunnel for a massive 145 megawatt private river power project proposed by Regional Power Inc. Farming families going back generations here in "Spud Valley" are concerned the project would increase flood risks from the wild, powerful Ryan - and that heavy environmental impacts like road and tunnel building, and the proposed 26.5 KM transmission line would damage eco-tourism and fish and wildlife values. They are also very concerned about the dangers of handing over our watersheds for private power - namely the loss of control of our water and energy security.

Watch video - high resolution
Having trouble streaming the high-res version? Watch video - medium resolution

Save Our Rivers Society is pleased to present a new film by POWERPLAY producer Damien Gillis, teaming with Save Our Rivers official spokesperson and longtime wild salmon advocate Rafe Mair. The film, "Glendale Grizzlies: In the Absence of Salmon" is a preview of a forthcoming series, S.O.S.: The State of Our Salmon, that will discuss the importance of salmon for our environment, economy, and cultures - as well as examining historic impacts on our wild salmon, culminating in fish farm devastation on the coast, and new threats on the horizon, including the pine beetle and private river power projects on potentially hundreds of our rivers and streams.

Watch Video (Flash - low resolution)
Watch Video (Flash - high resolution)

The collapse of our wild salmon should be both a federal and provincial election issue - at the top of the agenda. Losing our salmon and the indigenous communities who depend on them would represent one of the greatest political failures in Canadian history - for all levels of government. Ask your candidates in the federal, municipal and provincial elections where they stand stand on fish farms and protecting our wild salmon, rivers and environment.

As esteemed fish biologist Alexandra Morton - along with partners from the eco-tourism and commercial fishing industries, and a large group of supporters - takes on the province's right to regulate and license fish farms in the BC Supreme Court, the Grizzlies in the Glendale River are starving amidst the collapse of a once prolific salmon run. These grizzlies, who come to the Glendale River in Knight Inlet - home to more commercial fish farms than any other place on the coast - could expect up to a million salmon to return to this river less than a decade ago. This year there will be fewer than 10,000, leaving the bears to feed on sedge grass and what little marine critters they can find under rocks - in lieu of their staple salmon diet. If there was any doubt that our salmon are in grave danger - and that fish farms continue to play a significant role in their devastation - it should have been erased by now. The evidence is too compelling - thanks to the tireless efforts of the salmon's protectors, people like Alexandra Morton, and a growing movement of indigenous peoples, commercial fisherman, tourism operators, local politicians, conservationists, and citizens of coastal communities who have seen what the loss of salmon is doing to their economy, environment and society.

A film by Markus Radtke and Earle Peache of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

Click to view Flash video

Prepare to be Shocked

Save Our Rivers Society encourages all British Columbians to take seriously Gordon Campbell's threat to our security and democracy. A litany of troubling revelations across BC are reflected in the words of Tsawwassen homeowner Tina Ryan, "How can they do this to us? It is unfathomable," and in the words of another Tsawwassen resident: "We want democracy back."

Who is helping native mothers in rural Northwest BC as they stand in front of Shell Oil and Gordon Campbell as they protect their Sacred Headwaters; or the people of Kitimat who have fought in court for years against Campbell breaking our public contract with Rio Tinto Alcan to make aluminum from our river, the Nechako, to them using it for their own private power sales, completely and utterly at the expense of British Columbians? The battle the families in Tsawwassen are waging is all of our battle. They bravely face spying, harassment, injunctions, the threat of jail, environmental hazards, and, ultimately, exposure to cancer risks, at the hands the Campbell government. The community of Tsawwassen has banded together, as the community of British Columbia must now do - to support them and all of our communities around BC.

Please pass this video on to others.

Running time 27 minutes

Flash video

QuickTime video

Dr. Richard Hebda of the Schools of Earth and Ocean Sciences and Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria and a respected, published author and presenter on climate change speaks about carbon sequestration in BC forests, and the risk of land developments which may disrupt this and release significant amounts of greenhouse gases.

Dr. Hebda talks about "small hydro" projects about 17:45 into the video. He says, "Each of those projects needs to be evaluated in terms of the context of carbon stewardship."

Documentary film by Tom Prior, Mountain Pass Productions, about public opposition to proposals to put a river privatization project in Glacier Creek in the Kootenays.

Click to view: QuickTime movie
Flash video