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| NEW & RECENT ITEMS | ABOUT THE GSX | REGULATORY & APPROVAL PROCESS | ||
| LANDOWNER INFORMATION | IMPORTANT DATES | |||
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Subscribe to the SqWALK! Bulletin
Oct 26, 2000 About the GSX Introduction to the GSX Route Map Cobble Hill (Manley Creek) Route Map 
Williams/BC Hydro Georgia Strait Crossing Website Exploratory Drilling off Manley Creek Park May 18, 2000 Announcing Selection of the Manley Creek South Route May 4, 2000 Media Release Backgrounder May 4, 2000 (Word document) Announcement of Williams/Hydro partnership to build GSX Sept 29,1999 TOP Regulatory & Approval Process About the Regulatory & Approval Process Lay Guide to the NEB Environmental Assessment August 8, 2000 Download Citizens Guide to the Canadian Environmental Process (CEAA) August 16, 2000
Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission Landowner Information Cdn Alliance of Pipeline Landowner Associations (CAPLA) June 10, 2000 Introduction to the GSX
BC Hydro has teamed up with an American company, Williams,
to build a pipeline from Sumas, across the northern edge of Washington
State to Cherry Point, under the Strait of Georgia, then ashore on
Vancouver Island in Cobble Hill. It is proposed that it join the
Centra Gas pipeline at the north-western end of Shawnigan Lake.
Thereafter, the gas is to be routed through Centra's natural gas
pipe artery north to Campbell River, Port Alberni, and Duncan, to fuel
three electrical generation plants. In Washington State, the GSX
will also deliver gas to industrial and commercial customers.
There does not at this time appear to be a physical
connection proposed for Sumas Energy
2. The economics of the project are unexamined and
suspect. Evidence of rising demand is unconvincing, but the
radical swings and increases in the price of natural gas will result
in electricity that will likewise have to be sold for uncontrollable
rates. This could place British Columbia's economy in sever
jeopardy, and threaten the livelihoods and well-being of all British
Columbians.
For more information, read the information backgrounder at http://www.sqwalk.com/GSX_overview.pdf,
and browse the Sqwalk website.
Georgia
Strait Crossing Project Team to undertake geotechnical investigations
south of Boatswain Bank, Vancouver Island, May 18, 2000 The Regulatory and Approval Process In Canada, the National Energy Board (NEB) has jurisdiction
and authority to approve the GSX. In the USA, it's the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC). NEB info sessions on the southern Gulf Islands
The NEB held information sessions in late July on
Pender Island (July 18), Salt Spring Island (July 19) and Saturna
Island (July 20). Accounts of those visits were submitted to SqWALK!
by a number of contributors: Island quake CBC Radio 1, Vancouver, August
2, 2000
This souffle is rising - in anger and mistrust On August 23, the Bellingham Herald reported that the woman who was briefly the "face of the GSX" in Washington State, had resigned. She'd been pelted with eggs in a supermarket parking lot, decided the experience was too frightening and unpleasant, and her company withdrew from their arrangement with Williams. Read the Herald article, and have a look at the official GSX public relations brochure that introduced her. SqWALK! does NOT endorse this kind of activism. It is assault. It singles out individuals and victimises them in a way that is humiliating, terrifying and illegal. However, the proponents of the GSX are secretive, aggressive, and so far have been unwilling to establish any real dialogue with the communities through which they seek to push their pipeline. BC Hydro and Williams are using jackboot tactics to obtain access to lands they are not welcome on, hiding information and facts from project critics. This is precisely the kind of behaviour that elicits such enraged public reaction. They address concerns about safety with empty platitudes, when the record is clear - natural gas pipelines are bombs in our backyards. Is it possible to engineer a pipeline to be zero-risk in an earthquake zone, which is what should be the case with the GSX? Of course not. A few eggs are not much, unless you are the unfortunate person who was the target. But they are certainly an indication of how much anger, fear, and mistrust there is of the GSX proponents, Hydro and Williams. From the Fraser Valley, where the public outcry against Sumas Energy 2 has been heard in Olympia and Victoria; to Bellingham where the eggs were thrown, through San Juan County and the Gulf Islands where communities and regional governments alike have registered their concern and opposition to the project; and finally in Cobble Hill on Vancouver Island where virtually every farmer and landowner on the GSX route has signed a document stating their opposition to the GSX, and some have put up signs to broadcast their opposition - there is a powerful public antagonism to the GSX. It won't stop at a few eggs, if the proponents, governments, and review boards (NEB and FERC), don't take the expressions of concern seriously.  Hydro and Williams lay another egg
Hydro and Williams publish a public relations brochure for the Georgia Strait Crossing project. In August, for the first time, they mounted a public relations campaign in Washington State, as well as in Canada. For the American edition, they printed a glowing announcement of their community and project relations person, Kathy Anderson. The Canadian edition contains a listing of information sessions on the Gulf Islands. Info Session on Saturna Island goes very badly
A Saturna Island resident reports that the marine route information
session on Saturna Island didn't go well. All 40 of the residents
who came, were upset and offended at the meeting, and went away angrier
and more frustrated than they arrived. Whidbey Island Orca Pipeline Event, October 18 Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:27:51 -0700From: Jennifer Lail jlail@whidbey.com Subject: Save the Date: Pipeline Event ===== A message from the 'whatnext' discussion list ===== We'll send out more information on this later, but wanted folks to know that Susan Harper of Fuel Safe Washington, and one of the members of Gov. Locke's new Citizens Committee on Pipeline Safety, will be on the island to speak at an event hosted by People for Puget Sound and WEAN on Wednesday, October 18th, 7p at the Freeland Hall. Hope everyone will join us. We should know more about the proposed ORCA pipeline plans then. . . Whatcom County has adopted a moratorium on any new pipeline construction until more is known about the new federal legislation regarding pipeline safety. We may want to advocate for a similar approach here in Island County. -Jennifer **************** Whidbey Environmental Action Network is a non-profit membership-based organization dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the native biological diversity of Whidbey Island and the Pacific Northwest. If you are not already a member, please consider joining! Dues are $30 per year. Members receive our newsletter and periodic action alerts. WEAN P.O. Box 53 Langley, WA 98260 phone (360) 221-7838 fax (360) 221-2161 email: jlail@whidbey.com |
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Koksilah River Crossing This is perhaps two kilometers south of the Koksilah River. Follow the pipe bed north on foot to the river, or drive north (to the last place where the road and the old rail bed come close to each other - you'll have to walk from there), to the river. Point 2 on the map.  You are facing the Koksilah Trestle, a magnificent legacy of the sweat of an earlier time on Vancouver Isla  nd. Can't you hear the metal
shrieking
and the steam engine pounding as the trains roll up the bridge and
over
the river?Now stroll down the trail that goes off from the viewpoint. You will come out at the south end of the CentraGas crossing of the river. This thing, engineered in 1988 or thereabouts, using whatever standards were in effect at the time, is apparently how the gas from the GSX will move north. Those rubber shocks don't instill a lot of confidence, do they, in the face of a modest earthquake. And can't you picture all that steel flexing and stretching? Click on the map and pictures for larger versions. In the large version of the photo on the right, you can see the awesome Koksilah Trestle in the background. |
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Marine Route Info Session Another PR Disaster for GSX Proponents
Hydro and Williams BC Hydro and Williams rolled 15 or more people into the Kerry Park Rec
Centre in Mill Bay this evening (September 20) for the last in their popular
Marine Route series of info sessions.
120 residents of the communities affected by the GSX rolled themselves in.
They all seemed to be pretty angry, skeptical, and opposed to the GSX from the
start.
I won't review the whole session now - it's too late and I'm getting uglier
by the day because of GSX sleep loss. But I did want to let you know that it
did not go well for Hydro and Williams. Of the four public sessions that have
been held in the Cowichan Valley (five, if you count the very first session, at
Arbutus Ridge in February, at which we were mainly shocked), this one was every
bit as unreceptive to the GSX as the others.
Angrier? More opposed? Hard to tell. But definitely a lot of anger and
solid opposition. And like all the other public gatherings, there was not a
single voice of support from the floor.
The message, if a single message could be taken from the meeting by Hydro,
is for Hydro themselves to recommend a panel review of the project. Only then
will the full discussion of environmental impacts, natural gas strategy, energy
policy in British Columbia take place. Better still that Hydro simply withdraw
the GSX proposal, and ask the provincial government to start up a public energy
policy review commission.
The Raging Grannies, a surprise to just about everyone, were a special
treat. And there was a lot of good humour, even if the Hydro and Williams reps
looked like they were being roasted alive.
Arthur Caldicott
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Anderson defends himself VANCOUVER - Federal Environment Minister David Anderson says he can't take a strong stand against the controversial Sumas-Two electrical plant near Abbotsford because of Canada's bad pollution record.
Anderson denies Ottawa has been inactive on issue. Many residents and politicians in the Fraser Valley have been critical of the federal silence. They have challenging Anderson to speak up and take action to protect Canadian air and water quality. Anderson says his critics obviously didn't know his officials have been on the job behind the scenes. "The reason that they think we're being quiet is that they're unaware that we've been working on this since December of last year," he says. "And in fact it was the second of May of this year that we sent out our first series of objections to the American authorities on this proposal." Officials from Washington State are holding hearings on the Sumas-Two project. So far, neither Canadian nor B.C. officials have taken part in the process. However, B.C. Environment Minister Joan Sawicki is now saying she will appear at the hearings. They wrap up at the end of the month. The Sumas-Two project involves a huge co-generation plant in Sumas, Washington, just south of Abbotsford. Critics say it would make the already bad air quality problem in the Fraser Valley much worse. CBC British Columbia, September 22, 2000 www.cbc.ca |
