Call for private power moratorium
March 23, 2009 by CVNews
Filed under BC government, Canada government, Energy, Environment, Local news
Press release –
On Thursday March 26, join thousands of British Columbians in standing up for BC’s rivers. On that day, thousands of people from around the province will be contacting their MLA and the Premier calling for a moratorium on river privatization.
In 2002, the BC government banned BC Hydro from developing new sources of green power, decreeing that all new hydropower must come from private companies. This has lead to a gold rush mentality, with private operators staking almost 600 creeks and rivers throughout BC. Each one of these projects involves building river diversions, dams, powerhouses and many kilometers of roads and transmission lines.
The BC government’s rush to develop private power has resulted in a chaotic situation where cumulative environmental impacts are ignored, regional planning is non-existent, our energy security is jeopardized and local governments have been silenced.
Thousands of people have taken action to protect their rivers and streams throughout British Columbia. People have written letters, attended information meetings, and told their family, friends and neighbours about the threat of private river diversions to BC’s waterways. Now it’s time for all of us to speak up together.
The Wilderness Committee has launched a campaign called “10,000 Voices for BC Rivers.” We’re calling for a moratorium on private power projects until they are regionally planned, environmentally appropriate, acceptable to First Nations, and publicly owned.
We like our rivers wild and our power public, and we hope you do too.
Go to www.tenthousandvoices.org and sign up for our mailing list. We’ll keep you up to date on the 10,000 Voices project, tell you about other people taking action on this issue, and give you a reminder leading up to March 26th to take action.
If you’d like some of our 10,000 Voices flyers, an action kit for holding a small event, or just want more information, please feel free to email , or call toll-free 1.800.661.9453 (or 604 683 8220 in the Lower Mainland).
Let’s find out how powerful all of our voices can be.
10,000 Voices for BC rivers
A campaign to keep BC’s rivers wild!
www.tenthousandvoices.org
CVNews related links:
Norm Macdonald MLA
Columbia River – Revelstoke
www.NormMacdonald.ca
norm.macdonald.mla@leg.bc.ca
1-866-870-4188
Office of the Premier
www.gov.bc.ca/premier/
premier@gov.bc.ca
Phone 1-800-663-7867 and ask for 250-387-1715
The Council of Canadians
Action Alert on Navigable Waters Protection Act amendments
“The amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act … will give the Transport Minister the power to push through a number of projects including some run of the river and micro hydro-dams projects from environmental oversight.”
Jim Abbott, MP
Kootenay Columbia
www.jimabbott.ca
abbott@cyberlink.bc.ca
contact form
1-800-668-5522
Independent Power Producer (IPP) Run-of-the-River Technology FACTs:
Independent Power Producers pay 3 times more social benefits to government than BC Hydro does. BC Hydro pays only $8 per MWh as profit and taxes to the government (2008) while most of that power is produced by dams that have permanently altered the Columbia River and Peace River basins with cumulative environmental impacts. To meet our current energy shortage, BC Hydro wants to build yet another dam (Site C) at 3 times the cost per MW, compared to low-cost low-impact private run-of-the-river technology.
Private power IPPs pay $25 per MWh in taxes, water license rental fees, and community benefits to the government. Half of that is paid to the local government as property tax, while BC Hydro pays no local property taxes for 25 billion dollars of assets that it owns.
A small 10 MW run of river plant pays about $1,400,000 a year to various levels of government, most of it to the local government. BC Hydro pays only $440,000 for the same amount of power to the Province, and none of it to the local government.
No IPP run-of-the-river project is on a salmon bearing reach of a stream, and the environmental impact is minor if any. Run-of-the-river technology can co-exist and share the habitat with fish and other wildlife. IPPs do not build dams – but low weirs or taps on a steep stream that has little or no resident fish. The impact is far less than dams built by BC Hydro, logging, mining, oil and gas, coal, real estate development, transportation, pulp and paper, pipelines, utility telephone and cable poles, etc. And unlike mining, oil and gas, coal, transportation and real estate – run of river technology is sustainable, renewable, clean and significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.greenenergybc.ca/Assets/PowerPloy_Intro.wmv
http://www.greenenergybc.ca/Assets/PowerPloy_Chapter_01.wmv
http://www.ippbc.com/EN/media_room/frequently_asked_questions/
http://www.ippbc.com/EN/media_room/fact_sheets_and_issue_sheets/
What you seem to be saying is that IPPs will put more money in the hands of government. That does not necessarily (in fact probably won’t) result in increased social benefits to the public at large.
Secondly, you seem to be saying that there is a ’shortage’ of electricity because of our energy-guzzling southern neighbors.
For the good of the whole (humanity and the planet) we should be looking at cutting back our energy-guzzling habits rather than just producing more to fill our endlessly wasteful ‘needs’.
My read of this is the it is all about profit for developers, with benefits flowing only to developers and their friends, not to the public. In other words, IPPs are stealing our natural resources from us.
Why should we hand over control of our waterways when we get nothing in return except higher energy prices?
Thank you for your interesting analysis of the down stream benefits of IPP’s. It is refreshing as a cool breeze over a creek bed full of water to read some facts rather than fiction of the opposition to every thing groups.
You might have mentioned as well however, that those companies which are able to navigate the wiers and rapids of the system, that they never get to own the creek or the water. In other words, the fear mongering of privatization of the waterways is a big bunk. They end up owning the boat that floats in the water, which is the processing plant for the generation of power, but they don’t own the water, the stream, or the river. They lease the rights to use the water.
Is that not correct? And even at that, it is only for a period of time and then has to be renewed? Yes ? No ?
It also appears that those that oppose, have lost touch with what an IPP really is: – an opportunity to keep brown outs and power shortages out of our province. It’s an opportunity, for those that jump the water hoops, to contribute to the reduction on our current provincial dependence on coal fired generating plants from which we import what, 15% of our current supply of power ? That, in and of itself would appear to me to be an excellent reason to allow and encourage IPP’s.
But then, that is my opinion. I’m sure those that oppose will oppose and oppose.
Dear David,
Any sensible province would meet its own needs first before exporting electricity. There is no shortage for meeting BC’s electricity needs, only a ’shortage’ to export.
No one owns anything here anyway. It all belongs to the Crown (and/or possibly First Nations) and what we call ‘ownership’ is just a package of rights. It is all relative in a feudal system (which ours still is).
Some have raised a serious concern that if the rights acquired by IPPs are then sold to American companies, that under NAFTA they would then become entrenched — meaning that even when they expire BC would have no choice but to renew. There would be no backing out once it starts. We all know that the little fish (IPPs) will get gobbled up by bigger ones (multinationals). So the concern about privatization is real and justified.
If BC Hydro were doing the development, I would probably not be writing this.
If BC wanted to set up a citizens’ hydro co-operative in which everyone had the same equity, I also might not be writing this.
But I am writing this because we, the public, are purportedly the ‘owners’ of those rivers and creeks, and the BC government has a fiduciary duty to us in that regard, which it is breaching. Call it breach of public trust. Call it theft. Either way we lose it, IPPs get it, and we get nothing in return.
I support ethical business where profits are made by adding real value, but I cannot support profits got by raping and stealing from others. It is an important difference.
Absolutely correct, we the people do own the rights to the rivers and by ways. We the people do own the mountains as Crown Land.
Absolutely wrong when you say we get nothing in return for IPP’s. I cannot believe you could be so very wrong.
We get employment, we get power, we stop a major contributor to green house gasses from coal fired generators, we get a long term power source set up as an environmentally sound system as is possible in our province. AND, we get a hugh amount of monies which are then used to provide hospital expansion in our town of Invermere. We get roads and schools from taxes collected. You are so very wrong is any manner stating we get nothing in return.
A citizens hydro co-operative? What sort of foolish, self serving, socialist tripe might that silly idea be? I’m sorry, Mi Kai Lee, but from my and many other’s perspective, that would be an absolute joke. Your union friends and single focus group apparently, are steering you in a very wrong direction.
The people of this Columbia Valley deserve facts, not your fear mongering. And unfortunately, that is all you have been offering. Nothing substantive or viable has been shown as an alternative to supplying our increased engergy requirements.
If you as a single focus group or political party were able to offer substantive and workable and financially stable solutions and alternatives, then society might view ideas as being reasonable and workable. So far, nothing has been forthcoming other than protect my poor union job, stop the world for ever. STOP STOP STOP so I can get off.
Yes, we would get employment – but not all the profit would flow back us, the owners, in the form of employment. Much, if not most, of it would go into the hands of developers and government. Employment is by definition selective and does not benefit all, or even most of us.
You equate income for government with benefits to the public, but that is largely not so. Only a tiny percentage of government expenditures directly benefits the public, and those benefits are not controlled by the public.
Compare this to the way it was originally done, where many municipalities owned their own generating stations. There was no profit other than the electricity generated, and it was used locally. A few towns and smaller places still have this. Municipally owned and controlled IPPs where the power is used locally is, in my opinion, a good idea. Who controls the benefits is what matters.
You are also right — we get power. It always comes at the expense of some damage to the environment, whether it’s spewing carbon dioxide or diverting creeks. However, we use way more electricity than we need to, and have neglected good old-fashioned conservation as a solution. There is much room to reduce unnecessary ‘needs’ for electricity and to trim our energy-consumption footprint. That is probably a greener solution than IPPs.
If additional power generation capacity is truly needed, and if IPPs are the greenest way to go, then they should be owned and controlled by the people through local municipalities or local hydro-electric co-ops, as they were in the beginning. That is a financially workable and stable long-term solution.
Mi Kai Lee says: “My read of this is the it is all about profit for developers, with benefits flowing only to developers and their friends, not to the public. In other words, IPPs are stealing our natural resources from us. ”
Wrong – private developers pay $25 a MWh to government, while BC Hydro pays only $8 a MWh. So obviously IPPs are making a huge contribution to society – 3 times more than BC Hydro. There is no profit in this business. Only normal profits are made. IPPs have to get a BC Hydro contract through a very competitive tender, before they can build a project.
BC Green, I think you missed my point.
It does not look to me like IPPs would contribute anything of their own to society. All that extra money you talk about is already our money, that we would pay IPPs for electricity, and then according to you they would give it back to ’society’.
Problem is, it would not come back to the little guy who buys electricity. It always goes into the pockets of those at the top of the pyramid. So it cannot be said that it would come back to everyone, or even most of us, because it would not.
All we will get is higher prices to fund that lovely ‘contribution to society’ that you make believe is something good.
Really, we would be paying higher prices to line the pockets of special interests, not ourselves.
You cannot sell a dead horse — at least not as a horse.
Again, Mi, you have missed the point completely in how governements and business and benefits work for citizens.
Governments give incentives to businesses so that businesses can earn a profit. When they earn a profit, they are able to employ people who pay mortgages and food bills. When a company makes a profit, they are taxed on monies made. Those taxes are used for the betterment of all in a society. That includes both you and me and my grand mother. All of the above is called the ” Domino Effect “.
The ” little guys” – your words – that buy electricity get no benefit ?? Oh contrer. You have lights, you have traffic lights, you have a stove that works and a furnace that heats. You have coin in your pocket and there to buy your TV.
The little guy as you call us, gets lots of benefits through our political and economic systems in which you so obviously don’t want to participate.
This includes the construction guys that build the facility and the power lines, the people in the offices of different vetting agencies who process all the paper work and permits necessary to make positive things happen. Every one benefits from commercial activity.
Please learn basic economics if you would Mi.