Photo by Stephen Thomas.
Halifax-based Council of Canadians organizer Robin Tress spoke at a screening of the film To the Ends of the Earth on March 1.
The screening was sponsored by the Sierra Club Canada Foundation – Atlantic and featured a post-film panel discussion with Tress, Dalhousie University Biology Department professor Lindy Weilgart, wind energy company Black River Wind Ltd. co-founder Peggy Cameron, and Dalhousie University Elder in Residence Billy Lewis.
Tress highlighted our opposition to the Alton Gas Storage Project.
That project would create storage facilities for natural gas by drilling three wells in underground salt caverns. The wells would be used to store natural gas to hedge against higher natural gas prices in the winter. The project would also include two 12-kilometre pipelines. One would be used to pump water from the Shubenacadie River estuary to flush the salt out of the caverns (to make way for the gas to be stored) and the other for transporting the resulting salt brine mixture into storage ponds that would be built beside an estuary in Fort Ellis (and then discharged back into the river).
The project is opposed by the Sipekne’katik First Nation and the Millbrook First Nation who have highlighted that it is a violation of the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1752 between the Mi’kmaq and the British Crown.
Tweets by @StephenJWT tell us:
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“Under no circumstance will I let #StopAltonGas happen. Join us in shutting this down. We’ll have a party when we win” – @RobinTress -
“The #StopAltonGas project is an open door for #Fracking, #LNG and propping up fossil fuels in NS” – @RobinTress
And Lewis, a Mi’kmaq Elder originally from Millbrook First Nation, stated:
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“We need to rely on ourselves to get this done.” -
“The River will always win. Don’t mess with Mother Earth.” -
“There’s been an awakening. Keep working together and keep your eye on the prize.”
As noted on the website for To the Ends of the Earth, “[The film] follows concerned citizens living at the frontiers of extreme oil and gas extraction, bearing witness to a global crossroads. They call for human ingenuity to rebuild society at the end of the fossil fuel era.”
The Council of Canadians Delta-Richmond chapter screened the film this past November 15, the Kelowna and Brandon-Westman chapters showed it on February 12, and the Victoria chapter on February 23. Other chapters will also be screening the film in the coming months.
To see a trailer for the film, please click here.
