Photo: LNG forum in Squamish, Sept. 25
On September 25, the Council of Canadians co-sponsored the My Sea to Sky LNG and Petro-State Politics public forum with Andrew Nikiforuk at Quest University Canada in Squamish, a community located about 75 kilometres north of Vancouver.
The Huffington Post reports, “Squamish is the site of a proposed LNG processing and export terminal of its own — one that would have about one-tenth the export capacity of those proposed further north in the B.C. communities of Kitimat, Prince Rupert, and Terrace.”
The project is called Woodfibre LNG and the terminal would be located on Howe Sound.
“Squamish, [Nikiforuk] said, is on what he called the ‘downstream’ side of the LNG equation [but] locals …need to pay attention to the ‘upstream’ side as well… He likened the LNG exploration and extraction industry in northeastern B.C. to the Alberta tar sands. Both the bitumen extracted from the tar sands and natural gas gained through hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, are difficult and expensive to get at, with enormous impacts on the environment, Nikiforuk said.”
“Even if only six or seven of the 14 proposed LNG terminals are ever built in B.C., supplying them with sufficient amounts of gas will require the drilling and fracking of 50,000 new wells over a 25-year period, he said. Data shows that the average resource recovery rate for fracked wells in northeastern B.C. is between 10 and 20 per cent — the remainder of the gas, including both carbon dioxide and methane, are released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. …That’s saying nothing about the massive amounts of water used and its impact on underground and above-ground water resources, the potential to release radioactive materials and dangerous hydrogen sulfide, and the fragmentation of the land from intensive drilling and fracking.”
Along with co-sponsoring this forum in Squamish, the Council of Canadians co-organized the LNG Pipedreams, Fractured Futures and Community Resistance public forum in Vancouver this past May. In terms of upcoming work, Vancouver-based Council of Canadians organizer Leila Darwish will be at a public forums opposing LNG development in Delta on October 22 and in Comox Valley on November 4.
To watch a video of the Squamish forum, please click here.
The Council of Canadians opposes LNG projects for numerous reasons including they contribute to climate change, consume massive amounts of water, cause ecosystem destruction, often violate the rights of Indigenous peoples, and negatively impact air quality.
