Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon.
"It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor." -Former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland Mitsuhei Murata to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
It's the most important story nobody's talking about: the continued dire situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, ravaged by a massive earthquake and Tsunami last March.
Judging by the official position of the Japanese Government - which maintains the worst of the catastrophe has passed, declaring the plant now "stable" - and drying up of mainstream media coverage, it's easy to see how most of the world has been lulled into a false sense of security about Fukushima.
But in recent months, increasingly troubling reports from high-ranking Japanese and American politicians, diplomats and nuclear experts have been trickling into the blogosphere and alternate media like the irradiated water still seeping from the plant into the Pacific Ocean. They suggest, in a nutshell, that were another decent-sized earthquake to hit the stricken plant before thousands of highly radioactive spent fuel rods are properly secured, we could see the explosion and diffusion into the North Pacific's winds and ocean currents of 10 times the radioactive material emitted by the Chernobyl disaster - rendering much of Asia, North America and many other corners of the globe uninhabitable for centuries.
No wonder no one wants to talk about this stuff!
The force of such warnings has been muted by the fact that most of these alarms are being sounded by relatively fringe politicos and individuals associated with the anti-nuclear movement - albeit highly respected in their respective fields - and carried largely by alternate media sites.
But that has begun to change. This past week, one of Canada's largest media outlets, CTV News, carried a story titled, "Fukushima Reactor 4 Poses Massive Global Risk", which echoed many of the concerns being raised through other channels. If you read one depressing thing this week, make it this story.
Here's how CTV describes the situation, citing renowned nuclear expert and activist Arnie Gundersen:
Reactor 4 - and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 - still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements. A magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely fracture that pool, and disaster would ensue, says Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education who has visited the site.
The 1,535 spent fuel rods would become exposed to the air and would likely catch fire, with the most-recently added fuel rods igniting first.
The incredible heat generated from that blaze, Gundersen said, could then ignite the older fuel in the cooling pool, causing a massive oxygen-eating radiological fire that could not be extinguished with water.
"So the fear is the newest fuel could begin to burn and then we'd have a conflagration of the whole pool because it would become hotter and hotter. The health consequences of that are beyond where science has ever gone before," Gundersen told CTVNews.ca in an interview from his home in Vermont...
...Highly radioactive cesium and strontium isotopes would likely go airborne and "volatilize" -- turning into a vapour that could move with the wind, potentially travelling thousands of kilometres from the source.
The size of those particles would determine whether they remained in Japan, or made their way to the rest of Asia and other continents.
"And here's where there's no science because no one's ever dared to attempt the experiment," Gundersen said. "If it flies far enough it goes around the world, if the particles stay a little bigger, they settle in Japan. Either is awful."
Essentially, he said, Japan is sitting on a ticking time bomb.
Gundersen is far from the only nuclear expert or public figure who has been raising these concerns. A veteran US Senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden - who recently visited Fukushima - and a couple of Japanese diplomats have also been raising alarm bells.
Japan, with assistance from the U.S. government, needs to do more to move spent fuel rods out of harm's way at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said U.S. Senator Ron Wyden on Monday.
Wyden, a senior Democratic senator on the Senate Energy committee, toured the ruined Fukushima plant on April 6, and said the damage was far worse than he expected.
"Seeing the extent of the disaster first-hand during my visit conveyed the magnitude of this tragedy and the continuing risks and challenges in a way that news accounts cannot," said Wyden in a letter to Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan's ambassador to the United States...
...Wyden said he was most worried about spent fuel rods stored in damaged pools adjacent to the ocean, and urged the Japanese government to accept international help to prevent further release of the radioactive material if another earthquake should happen.
The senator expressed concern on his website that all that was standing between the spent fuel ponds and another Tsunami was "a small, makeshift sea wall erected out of bags of rock." Wyden called for the spent fuel rods to be moved to safe storage more quickly than the 10-year time frame laid out by the Japanese Government under its Fukushima remediation plan.
Dr. Robert Alvarez, a former top advisor at the US Department of Energy, confirmed the fears of Wyden and Gundersen when asked by Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumura to review the situation at Fukushima. Alvarez responded:
The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl accident. (emphasis added)
Another Japanese diplomat, former Ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal Mitsuhei Murata has also joined the chorus of concern over reactor 4, writing in a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, "It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor." (emphasis added)
Experts in communicating environmental themes to the broader public tend to stress the importance of providing people with hope and tangible actions they can take to help resolve the issue at hand. Perhaps that's one reason I've resisted covering this story up until now. I confess, every time I read about the dire situation at Fukushima, I can't help but feel depressed and powerless to affect a situation that threatens to destroy everything I hold dear: my wild salmon and marine ecosystems, my coastal home, the health and welfare of my family and community, my whole country and the very planet as I know it. If we take to heart the warnings of people like Senator Wyden, Dr. Alvarez, Ambassador Mistuhei - or even if at minimum we apply the Precautionary Principle to the situation, which seems well-warranted - then we have to acknowledge the very real possibility that nothing short of the fate of human civilization and the natural world hang on the teetering frame of Reactor 4.
Is that melodramatic? So what if these fears prove overblown in the end? This is one situation where I don't mind being labelled a Chicken Little, for the chance that the danger was real and my actions helped in some way to mitigate it.
By all accounts, solving the problem is an extraordinary undertaking requiring enormous funding, highly specialized equipment and incomprehensible danger for the brave Japanese workers required to carry out the job. Which is why the International Community - and Ron Wyden's own government, who have yet to act on his concerns - must heed these calls to get off their buts and start pitching in. Of course, that requires Japan's acknowledgement of the problem and receptiveness to outside help, yet its leaders remain in full denial mode.
The combination of the scale of this looming disaster - which is beyond anything contemplated by humanity since the Cuban Missile crisis - the relative lack of profile and perceived collective credibility of the small number of messengers bearing these unwelcome tidings to date (though these are some highly credible people), and the lack of coverage by the mainstream media have all contributed to the paralysis currently afflicting the powers that be vis-a-vis Fukushima.
Yet, just today, the Wall Street Journal too chimed in on the emerging story. While the brief article, titled, "Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 4 Spent-Fuel Pool: Safe or Not?", presents the official line parroted by Japanese vice-minister for reconstruction, Ikko Nakatsuka - namely, that recent efforts to fortify reactor 4 have rendered it relatively safe - the paper retained some healthy skepticism, concluding: "But just how big an earthquake could Unit 4 withstand before it collapses? That’s one of many questions from reporters that Mr. Nakatsuka and the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency’s seismic safety unit evaded or wouldn’t answer."
Thanks to the efforts of the above politicians and nuclear experts, the story is beginning to break through in the mainstream media, forcing the Japanese at least to appear to step up their efforts. What is required now is for this issue to gain enough prominence in the mainstream media and, consequently, the public consciousness, to compel a unified political effort to move those bloody fuel rods to safety before another earthquake topples them and takes us all with them.
It is my hope, in talking about this thing no one wants to contemplate, that I'm doing my small part in inching the world closer to the action necessary to avert a crisis of unthinkable proportions. And perhaps if you take a moment to share this story and others you come across with your social media network, friends, colleagues and family - and write your political representatives and media - we can help build the movement required to keep our air and water clean, our children's future preserved.
I'm all for prayer in these situations...but action's preferable.
Read this important story from CTV.ca on the ongoing perilous situation at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant - where the containment of highly radioactive spent fuel rods hangs on two badly structurally damaged buildings susceptible to collapse from another earthquake, carrying potentially unthinkable consequences for much of the world. (May 19, 2012)
More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.
The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.
Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements.
A magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely fracture that pool, and disaster would ensue, says Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education who has visited the site.
The 1,535 spent fuel rods would become exposed to the air and would likely catch fire, with the most-recently added fuel rods igniting first.
The incredible heat generated from that blaze, Gundersen said, could then ignite the older fuel in the cooling pool, causing a massive oxygen-eating radiological fire that could not be extinguished with water.
"So the fear is the newest fuel could begin to burn and then we'd have a conflagration of the whole pool because it would become hotter and hotter. The health consequences of that are beyond where science has ever gone before," Gundersen told CTVNews.ca in an interview from his home in Vermont.
Worst-case scenario
There are a couple of possible outcomes, Gundersen said.
Highly radioactive cesium and strontium isotopes would likely go airborne and "volatilize" -- turning into a vapour that could move with the wind, potentially travelling thousands of kilometres from the source.
The size of those particles would determine whether they remained in Japan, or made their way to the rest of Asia and other continents.
"And here's where there's no science because no one's ever dared to attempt the experiment," Gundersen said. "If it flies far enough it goes around the world, if the particles stay a little bigger, they settle in Japan. Either is awful."
Essentially, he said, Japan is sitting on a ticking time bomb.
The damaged Reactor 4 cooling pool was reinforced by workers who went in and "jury-rigged" it after the tsunami, but the structure still contains a massive amount of fuel, Gundersen said.
Reactor 3 has less fuel inside its cooling pool, but it has not been strengthened since the disaster and poses a greater risk of failing.
"Reactor 3 has a little less consequences but a little more risk, and Reactor 4 has more consequences but…a little less risk," he said.
Finding a fix
The solution, Gundersen said, is for the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to immediately begin the process of transferring the fuel rods from the cooling pools to dry cask storage -- a massive and costly endeavour, but one he said is absolutely essential.
To even begin the removal process at Reactor 4, TEPCO would first have to construct a crane capable of lifting the 100-tonne fuel rod canister, since the original crane was destroyed in the disaster last year.
In order to do that, they would have to build a massive structure around the existing pool to support the new crane, which would then be used to lift the fuel rod canister from the water, down to the ground and into a steel and concrete dry-cask.
All this of course, has to be done in a highly contaminated area where workers must wear protective suits and limit their radiation exposure each day, adding time and expense to the process.
Still, with the consequences so high, Gundersen said there's no time to lose.
"This is a 'now' problem, this is not a 'let's-wait-until-we-get-the-cash-flow-from-the-Japanese-government' problem. The consequences of a 7 or 7.5 earthquake don't happen every day, but we know it happened last year so you have to anticipate that it will happen," Gundersen said.
‘Fate of the world' depends on Reactor 4
He's not alone in pressing the Japanese government to adopt a sense of urgency about the Reactor 4 dilemma.
Robert Alvarez, a former top adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy, also expressed concern in a letter to Akio Matsumura, a Japanese diplomat who has turned his focus to the nuclear calamity.
Matsumura had asked Alvarez about the risk associated with Reactor 4.
"The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements," Alvarez said in his response. "If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl accident."
Mitsuhei Murata, Japan's former ambassador to Switzerland and Senegal, has also made it his mission to convince the UN and the world that urgent action is needed.
"It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor," Murata said in a recent letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in which he urged him to back efforts to address the problem.
Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said most major threats have been eliminated and "cold shutdown" status had been achieved in December.
But Noda declined to comment directly on the risk posed by Reactor 4, only telling The Wall Street Journal's Asia edition that it was important to "remain vigilant."
"We have passed a situation where people have to run far away or evacuate," he said. "Ahead of us are time-consuming tasks like decontamination and decommissioning (of the plants). We will proceed with the utmost care."
Gundersen said the remaining challenges at the Fukushima Da-Ichi site are not technological. Everyone knows what needs to be done and how to do it, he said. The challenge lies, rather, in convincing Japan that action must be taken now.
That will require international pressure, as well as international investment, on a grand scale, he said.
"We're all in a situation of having to pray there's not an earthquake. And there's the other half of that, which is pray to God but row toward shore. And Tokyo's not really rowing toward shore right now," Gundersen said.
Read this story from CBC.ca on the quarantining of a fish farm owned by Mainstream Canada in Dixon Bay near Tofino, BC, following the discovery of an outbreak of the lethal IHN virus. (May 18, 2012)
B.C.'s salmon farming industry is on high alert after the discovery of a lethal fish virus at one farm on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has quarantined the farm at Dixon Bay, north of Tofino. Mainstream Canada, which runs the operation, says it will destroy its entire stock of 560,000 one-kilo-sized salmon, to prevent the disease from spreading.
The company says Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) was detected during routine testing May 14.
"This is code red," Mainstream spokeswoman Laurie Jensen says.
IHN attacks the fish's blood, and usually kills the animal within a week of exposure. It can kill up to 100 per cent of the populations that become infected, and it spreads rapidly.
"This is not good news for the fish or for the companies." Jenson says. "We will contain this however way we can."
Jensen says boats and visitors have been barred from the site, while the company awaits results from the National Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory which is attempting to culture the virus from farm samples.
But Jensen says an independent lab has already used samples to sequence the virus, which spreads rapidly if not contained.
"So we are just going to depopulate," Jensen says, adding, "we will lose money. It's in the millions. There's a lot of money at stake, but money is not our issue right now."
Jensen says the company will also have to destroy any equipment that can't be disinfected, such as nets.
Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on the recent discovery of a disease fatal to fish in Atlantic farmed salmon in Clayoquot Sound. (May 16, 2012)
For the first time in nine years Atlantic salmon farmed in British Columbian waters have tested positive for a virus that can be rapidly fatal to them, but is endemic in wild Pacific salmon and largely a low risk.
Mainstream Canada announced today that fish at its Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino tested positive for Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN). The virus is harmless to humans, but attacks the kidneys and spleen of salmon and can lead to rotting flesh and organ failure. IHN has been present in the waters of B.C. for hundreds of years and wild salmon have developed a resistance to it, though young salmon and sockeye can be vulnerable to it, according to fish virologist James Winton.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will arrive at the farm tomorrow for testing as Mainstream waits to see if and how many of the roughly 500,000 farmed fish on site will have to be culled.
"This year now turns out to be a very bad year for IHN virus and we still don't completely understand why," said Winton, on the phone from Seattle where he works for the U.S. Geological Survey. "A lot of the sockeye were coming back with higher percentages and higher amounts of the virus, so it's not surprising that we're seeing a cycle again in some of the farms.
"Atlantics - they haven't evolved with this virus so they're sort of susceptible to all strains of [IHN]."
Mainstream spokeswoman Laurie Jensen said the virus may have been passed on to the contained salmon by a wild fish species passing through the area and that IHN is "a fact of farming and husbandry."
Mainstream operates 27 farms in B.C., and 17 of those in the Tofino area. Those 17 are conducting IHN tests of their fish Jensen said.
If IHN is discovered, a company must call in the CFIA as well as Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Read this editorial from Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun on the debate over the risks posed by increased oil tanker traffic on BC's coast (May 16, 2012)
Listen to the rhetoric generated by questions about the risk from supertankers carrying an additional million barrels a day of heavy oil through B.C. waters and one might be persuaded that a conspiracy of Luddite dunces advocates a return to mud huts and riding donkeys to work.
Huh? How does asking for an unbiased evaluation of risk mutate into an assumed automatic veto of the use of oil?
The point is not whether we should or should not use oil - it's whether the risks of using a particular oil resource in a particular way under particular circumstances may or may not out-weigh the claimed benefits.
Proponents of these pipelines naturally minimize the risks. And why wouldn't they present the best possible case for their projects since they want them to proceed? But that doesn't mean that B.C.'s public - which ultimately will pay the costs for cleaning up any major spill while the foreign-owned proponents pocket the bulk of profits and pay them out of the country - should swallow such assertions at face value.
Nor does it mean that subjecting such schemes to rigorous scrutiny is some kind of betrayal of Canadian society.
There is risk. And there is risk. Jaywalking downtown at 3 a.m. carries significantly less risk than jaywalking on the free-way during rush hour. One risk might be acceptable, the other looks like stupidity. Among the issues emerging from the present pipeline debate is the question of whether the risks cited by the proponents are the actual risks and potential liabilities.
Proponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, for example, postulate a worst-case spill of limited size that occurs in sheltered waters during the calmest summer months.
Critics reasonably ask what the consequences - and costs - of a spill would be were a super-tanker to break up during winter on the exposed outer coast, where winds, tides and currents have the capacity to distribute heavy oil over a vast area.
Critics reasonably wonder whether the assessment of risks, both environmental and economic, and who bears the brunt of them, takes place in an unbiased forum given the official demonizing of those expressing doubt.
The principal demonizer - our federal government - has now arbitrarily rewritten the rules to both redefine the criteria for environmental assessment while usurping the final decision-making power from the body intended to do so at arm's length.
The province has not even sub-mitted its position to the Joint Review Panel on this incredibly important subject. Instead, it has surrendered to the federal power its right to hold an independent environmental review in the interests of British Columbians.
Yet the risks could be far greater than those framed in the documents filed by the proponents.
Check out this new cartoon from Gerry Hummel. Christy Clark says she isn't taking a position on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines - but as we revealed this week, this BC Liberal "neutrality" is a myth. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is quite conspicuously throwing everything but the kitchen sink at opponents of the pipeline, causing the mainstream media to begin questioning his tactics.
It seems like every time BC First Nations draw major press coverage on their opposition to Enbridge, the company comes up with increasingly wild claims about how much support they have from First Nations.
Today, amidst Enbridge's AGM in Toronto, the company is doing damage control in the face of pressure from some of its prominent investors with regards to the proposed Northern Gateway pipelines. NEI Investments has filed a motion asking the company to respond to risks posed by First Nations opposition to the project. According to NEI manager Jamie Bonham, "...[I]f the company cannot provide a compelling rationale that refutes the risks that we've identified, then the prudent course of action would be to put the project on hold." Meanwhile, Vancity is mulling purging Enbridge stock from its mutual funds for the same reason.
But according to Enbridge executives quoted in the mainstream press today - including this must-listen interview with Rick Cluff on CBC's Early Edition - these concerns are overblown and a whopping 40 to 50-plus percent of First Nations "along the pipeline corridor" have or will have signed onto revenue sharing agreements with the company by month's end.
But there's good reason to be skeptical of Enbridge's claims of First Nations support for its controversial project. Last December, the day after the historic anniversary of the "Save the Fraser Declaration" in Vancouver - whereupon over 60 First Nations signed onto the document or reaffirmed their commitment to oppose Enbridge (with another 70 nations in BC and Alberta standing with them in solidarity) - Enbridge rolled out Elmer Derrick.
The now infamous former treaty negotiator for the Gitxsan First Nation had made an unauthorized deal with the company for a whopping $7 million over 20 years to share in revenues from the pipeline in exchange for supporting Enbridge's plan. The mainstream media - particularly Postmedia - bought the ruse, hook, line and sinker, with the Vancouver Sun making it front page news before later backpedaling on the story (though a number of key stories on the issue from this embarrassing chapter for the paper are conspicuously no longer available online).
A few other points worth noting on that deal before moving back to the present day: According to the calculations of a colleague, based on the number of Gitxsan spread throughout three villages in Northeast BC and off-reserve, that $7 million worked out to about $3 per person per month over 20 years - barely enough for a cheap can of salmon each...which I suppose would have come in handy when Enbridge destroys their traditional salmon runs with a spill from its pipeline (of course it would have to be Russian or Alaskan salmon).
It also turned out the Gitxsan's territory doesn't actually sit along the pipeline route, which added to the frustration of the nation's neighbours whose territories the pipeline would bisect and who firmly oppose the project. The deal was quickly discredited by the larger Gitxsan community and hereditary leadership, and subsequently formally annulled. Mr. Derrick and two of his colleagues lost their jobs with the Gitxsan Treaty Society over the debacle, but Derrick has since been rewarded with a plum Harper Government appointment to the Prince Rupert Port Authority.
Now, as the Yinka Dene Alliance leads a delegation of BC First Nations to Enbridge's AGM in Toronto - the culmination of a cross-country whistle-stop tour by train - the company is boasting it has loads of support from First Nations. An Enbridge representative told CBC's Rick Cluff this morning, "Over 40% of First Nations along the proposed corridor have entered into agreements with Enbridge to take a position, to take a stake in project." Enbridge Gateway VP Janet Holder went a step further, telling the Globe and Mail that by the end of May she expects most concerned First Nations to have bought into the deal, stating, “It will definitely be a majority.”
Which nations? They won't say.
What exactly do these deals really look like? They imply they're all actual revenue sharing partnership deals - but can we be sure they aren't mixing protocol and impact benefit agreements in there? Of course, we may never know.
How many nations along the Tanker Route? It's reasonable to infer from the company's carefully worded statements that it has the support of First Nations "along the pipeline corridor", that they have none along BC's precious and perilous coast. The Coastal First Nations - such as the Gitga'at of Hartley Bay and the Heiltsuk of Bella Bella, to name just a couple - remain steadfastly opposed.
Given the fact that the Gitxsan - the only nation Enbridge has actually touted by name - were in fact not technically "along the pipeline corridor", how many of these dozens of allegedly supportive nations would actually have the pipeline passing through their territories? According to the Globe and Mail, Enbridge defines the "corridor" and eligible aboriginal groups as any "first nations and Métis groups that claim territory within 80 kilometres of its route." (emphasis added).
How many of these nations are on unceded territory within BC (as opposed to treatied lands in Alberta)? This is an enormous distinction, in legal terms and on a number of other fronts.
When the company says it's offering these nations a "10% stake" in the project, what exactly does that mean? Enbridge is conveying the false impression that it's giving away this stake, when in fact it's loaning the nation or helping to arrange the financing for it to purchase a "stake" in the project. That's another big distinction often missed by the mainstream media.
Again, I have to come back to the one deal we actually know about - the illegitimate one cut by Mr. Elmer Derrick. $7 million over 20 years. We hear all about the hundreds of billions of dollars of value the Enbridge pipeline would bring to Canada's economy. How do you get to a measly $7 million from that? Are all these deals as awful as the one they were actually prepared to brag about?
And the most important question of all: How does this First Nations "stake" in the pipeline help to limit Enbridge's liability in the event of an inevitable oil spill? Will they dump 10% of the cleanup costs on affected nations? Or will they leave them holding the bag altogether? Long after Enbridge has done its damage, First Nations will still be there, left to deal with the mess. Just ask the people of Michigan.
If I'm mistaken in any of my questions or conclusions, I urge Enbridge to correct me where I'm wrong. That would preferable to having to read between the lines of the company's increasingly boastful and vague statements - and the often misleading interpretations of them by the mainstream media.
Read this editorial from the Globe and Mail, which argues that the Harper Government should stop its campaign of smearing environmental groups who oppose the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines and alleging criminal activity on their part, such as "money laundering". (May 7, 2012)
Environment Minister Peter Kent’s unsupported accusations of “money laundering” involving foreign and Canadian environmental charities are part of an apparent campaign of the Conservative government to smear and intimidate groups opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline.
Mr. Kent’s accusation in Parliament and media interviews, and the pattern they are a part of, suggest the government is improperly taking sides between the environment and business – trying to discredit those who raise environmental concerns in a public-hearing process mandated under federal law.
This pipeline may well prove a financial boon to Canada, but there are legitimate environmental concerns that need to be heard, including the danger of oil spills in environmentally sensitive waters. The pipeline will take bitumen from Alberta to Kitimat, B.C., before it is loaded on ships bound for Asia. Business and the environment do not exist on two separate planes, where one matters and the other doesn’t.
The Environment Minister has accused unnamed environmental charities of criminal activity, and yet provides no specifics, except to point to the work of Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton. “There is political manipulation,” she said. “There is influence peddling. There are millions of dollars crossing borders masquerading as charitable foundations into bank accounts of sometimes phantom charities that do nothing more than act as a fiscal clearing house.” There is paranoia, there is partisanship, there are wild allegations. But evidence? No.
Watch this Global TV report on a developing slick of bunker c fuel in Grenville Channel near Hartley Bay, BC. The provincial government downplayed the spill today in the Legislature. (May 3, 2012)
Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision-led Vancouver City Council took another bold step yesterday in their increasingly outspoken opposition to Texas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan's plans to increase dramatically oil tanker traffic through Vancouver's harbour. The vote, which passed with all but one in favour - NPA councillor George Affleck - is the latest move by municipal leaders against Kinder Morgan since the company formally announced the intention to twin its existing Trans Mountain Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to its Westridge Terminal in Burnaby. The existing line carries 300,000 barrels of bitumen a day, whereas the new line would add an additional 550,000 - slightly more than the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline to Kitimat.
The result, as the motion filed by the mayor suggested, would be a five-fold increase in oil tanker traffic in the Burrard Inlet and South Coast region from the 2010 level of 71 tankers.The motion also noted, "It is estimated that even larger tankers will be required to take the increased volume of oil to foreign market, increasing the risk of a large oil spill, and requiring extensive dredging of the Vancouver Harbour and/or Fraser River."
Watch Ben West interview here (story continues below)
The motion called for the creation of a bylaw that "would require pipeline operators and oil tankers using Burrard Inlet, Vancouver Harbour and/or the Fraser River to indemnify the City of Vancouver and existing local industries through appropriate liability insurance at a level equal to the projected amount of clean up operation costs, and loss of business compensation for a worst case scenario oil spill."
In the interim, it also decreed that "the Mayor write to Prime Minister Harper expressing the City of Vancouver's strenuous opposition to any increase in oil tanker traffic, or measures that lead to increased oil tanker traffic, as it poses an unacceptable and unmitigated risk to Vancouver's economy and environment."
Council's bylaw follows on the heels of the Vancouver Parks Board's vote earlier this week to formally oppose Kinder's pipeline and tanker plans and vocal comments from Robertson in the media, vowing to do everything in his ability to foil Kinder's plans to turn Vancouver into a shipping port for the Tar Sands.
Council heard from Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation - on whose traditional territory the pipeline terminus and tanker terminal are located. The North Vancouver nation has come out in strong opposition to the project, reiterating its position Wednesday at City Hall. Other interveners included Ben West of the Wilderness Committee (see above video), Tarah Stafford of Tanker Free BC and West Coast Environmental Law's Rachel Forbes.
Japan, with assistance from the U.S. government, needs to do more to move spent fuel rods out of harm's way at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, said U.S. Senator Ron Wyden on Monday.
Yet, just today, the 
