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Chief
climber
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Topic Author's Original Post - Apr 4, 2010 - 03:05pm PT
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If this is of interest to you, check out the other Bute and Waddington threads. Hope everyone's having a great Easter weekend.
PB
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Perry, you've probably seen what I'll paste below. I tried searching the ILM website but it's NOT very user friendly....
The last thing the world needs is more bottled water, and all the pollution, plastic, and crap that accompanies it. Not to mention the effect on the local environment from where the water is taken!
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http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/news/letters/story.html?id=63ff6f96-9b5a-4a45-9b37-d5c97346b619
Water rights for our rivers are out of control
Courier-Islander
Published: Friday, February 12, 2010
We are writing to make a few comments on your 'Water, water everywhere' Jan. 29 editorial. In regards to the application by the Da'Naxda'Xwawaetlala First Nations and an unnamed partner to remove 24,750 gallons per day of water from five creeks in Knight Inlet, we say we have every right to be concerned that this is (no pun intended) the tip of the iceberg.
If you check out the Provincial government's Integrated Land Management branch website (http://ilmbwww.gov.bc.ca);, you will see 18 B.C. coastal mainland creek water removal applications for bottled water sales. Aside from the aforementioned ones for Knight Inlet, there are applications by Kwiakah First Nations in Campbell River for five creeks adjacent to Bute Inlet AND also applications by Bill Chornobay from Langley for seven creeks in Bute Inlet with a similar amount of water removal as on the Knight Inlet applications.
Also, the Provincial government has already approved 41 other applications for bottled water from creeks and rivers in other parts of B.C!
Your editorial made some very important points and asked some very good questions about future use of our water resources. We will add a few more facts to be considered and questions which we believe must be answered before any bottled water applications on coastal rivers and streams are approved.
What studies are being done on the environmental impact of such massive amounts of water removal on the fish and wildlife that depend on those streams for survival? Who is doing those studies? As far as we have been able to determine, no one!
At this time, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is encouraging communities to phase out the sale of bottled water. Locally, our Council of Canadians chapter made presentations to the City's Environmental Committee and Council about the negative social and environmental impacts of bottled water.
Now, the Campbell River Sustainability and Water Departments are recommending that City Council ban the sale and use of bottled water at City facilities and events. Why would we wish to encourage the further commodification of our coastal watersheds by setting up a bottled water plant in Campbell River and exporting our water? Why add millions of plastic water bottles to landfills, roadsides and oceans?
Who are these unnamed numbered partnering companies putting up the money for bottled water extraction?
Google one applicant and Bill Chornobay's name comes up. You discover he was until recently the president and CEO of Kodiak Explorations Ltd.: an oil, gas and uranium mining and exploration company. One could surmise that mining companies along the mainland coast would have it a lot easier if they have unfettered and cheap access to power and water sources (read: ruin of the river power generation on Toba and Bute Inlets and swiftly approved bottled water projects to withdraw massive amounts of water from coastal streams).
So far, like the independent power projects (IPP's) being approved left and right by the Provincial government, water extraction for bottled water appears to be getting limited environmental assessment and basically a free ride from the government decision makers.
One can draw the conclusion that the Province doesn't want these applications to come under too much scrutiny from B.C.'s citizens:
1. when bottled water extraction applicants only place public notices in selected newspapers 2. when most creeks where water is to be extracted are unnamed on the ILM website 3. when the Provincial government sets aside only a short period of time for public input and publishes two different deadlines as they did with the Knight Inlet applications. When bottled water applications for Bute Inlet first surfaced last year, we spent days unsuccessfully trying to post feedback on the ILM website which was inaccessible for several days at that time.
We will be forwarding our opposition to these applications to extract bottled water from B.C.'s coastal streams to the Integrated Land Management Branch on their website.
Deadlines for commenting on the Knight Inlet applications are Feb. 13th or 20th so get your concerns voiced as soon as possible.
You can forward your comments by writing:
Section Head, 142-2080 Labieux Rd., Nanaimo, B.C. V9Y 6J9 or email: AuthorizingAgency.Nanaimo@gov.bc.ca
Joanne Banks & Rich Hagensen,
Council of Canadians,
Campbell River Chapter
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Here are some links for Bill Chornobay's (former president and CEO of Kodiak Explorations Ltd., mentioned above) water bottling applications for Bute Inlet.
Interesting that 5 of the 7 applications have been "abandoned". Below are the 2 still under review. The pages have pdfs with a lot more detail:
http://www.arfd.gov.bc.ca/ApplicationPosting/index.jsp?PrimaryStatus=any&keyword=INDUSTRIAL+%2F+LIGHT+INDUSTRIAL&cp=2
http://www.arfd.gov.bc.ca/ApplicationPosting/viewpost.jsp?PostID=10565
[PENDING : APPLICATION UNDER REVIEW]
Client: Chornobay, Bill
Purpose: INDUSTRIAL/LIGHT INDUSTRIAL
Region: Lower Mainland, Surrey
Agency: Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
File: #2410082
Feb 28, 2009
Location: Unnamed Creek (locally Icecap Creek), Bute Inlet
http://www.arfd.gov.bc.ca/ApplicationPosting/viewpost.jsp?PostID=10547
[PENDING : APPLICATION UNDER REVIEW]
Client: Chornobay, Bill
Purpose: INDUSTRIAL/LIGHT INDUSTRIAL
Region: Lower Mainland, Surrey
Agency: Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
File: #2410081
Feb 23, 2009
Location: Unnamed Creek (local name Glacier Creek), Bute Inlet
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Chief
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2010 - 05:14pm PT
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Terry,
Thanks for checking in and adding great information and background to this issue. Talk about a small world and degrees of separation!
PB
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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The notice doesn't seem to have appeared in other papers.
Perhaps the water will be sold to suckers at the new casino in Squamish, below the Chief. Glad that the First People is making a buck, but I wish there were better ways of doing it. And you always have to worry that if any is exported, it sets a precedent for much larger exports. The US would dearly love to take some of our water, however uneconomical it might be to do so, and its past trade practices suggest it will use any available pretext to do so. With no shortage of Canadian accomplices.
An additional circle for Dante's hell, one where those who didn't care about conservation and the environment are sentenced to an eternity of being stoned with bottled water. Embellish the scenario as you like.
There may be a limited need for bottled water, e.g. when local water supplies are temporarily tainted. But tap water in virtually all places in developed countries is as safe or safer to drink, and much cheaper. Bottled water is a phony 'need'. Heaven knows we pick up enough of the empties during the FaceLift, and around the summits of the Chief. Most of the beer cans are of brands that might lead one to stereotype that litterers are redneck yahoos. The bottled water empties prove otherwise.
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Chief
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 4, 2010 - 05:33pm PT
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Blue Gold
The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water
by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke
McClelland and Stewart Ltd.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Maude Barlow rocks!
That lady is a treasure--she won the Right Livelihood award,
the alternative and some say better than the Nobel prize.
She's a goliath trying to protect water for citizens like us.
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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If I remember, perhaps 10 years ago one of the first nations bands made a couple of tanker-shipments of water from Knight Inlet to Vancouver, for botttled water, of course. Fortunately, the project failed.
Bottled water, for most of the western world, is a product that we can do without, imho. And we shouldn't be exporting water to the U.S. (beer's ok).
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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I expect that China would be the potential target market for this water...
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Seamstress
Trad climber
Yacolt, WA
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Apr 13, 2010 - 04:38pm PT
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Excuse me - not all evil originates in the United States. Instead of alienating a lot of people from your cause, how about building a stronger coalition to get what you want?
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Chief
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 13, 2010 - 05:00pm PT
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Seamstress,
Thanks for your contributions to this discussion.
Having started this particular thread I would like to say for the record that I don't see the US as the sole cause of this problem or the only market that might benefit from exported water. The whole world is thirsty for a rapidly dwindling and finite supply of fresh water.
We Canadians don't seem to be able to make the 50% voter turnout at the municipal, provincial or federal levels. Most people can't even tell you who their MLA or MP is. Talk about functional illiteracy and brute apathy!
Respectfully,
PB
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Story from the Globe and Mail on this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/environmentalists-sound-alarm-over-bc-water-bottling-plans/article1899812/
Environmentalists sound alarm over B.C. water-bottling plans
WENDY STUECK
VANCOUVER
Plans to tap dozens of mountain streams on the B.C. coast and then bottle and sell the water have raised concern in environmental groups, which call the proposals “a new dimension in water exploitation” and have asked the province to conduct an assessment that would consider them as a whole.
Under the current system, each licence application is assessed on its own. The bottled water applications are for licences in the Bute, Knight, Jervis and Toba inlets, in an area already peppered with existing or proposed licences for hydroelectricity projects.
“The environmental, social and cultural impacts cannot be commented on meaningfully at the license-specific level, or even at the inlet level,” Andrew Gage, acting executive director for West Coast Environmental Law, wrote in a January 28 letter to provincial regulators about the proposed bottled water licences. “The impacts of any individual licence may well be nominal, but the project as a whole may nonetheless have a significant regional impact.”
But a spokesman for a native band involved in the applications say the proposals are for small, low-tech operations and that multiple applications – even if granted – would not necessarily result in multiple operations.
“Some people are afraid that all of a sudden there will be an armada of skiffs out there,” Frank Voelker, business manager with the Kwiakah First Nation, said Tuesday. “This is absolutely not the case.”
Together with a numbered company, the Kwiakah First Nation – which, based on Indian Affairs statistics, has only 19 registered members – has applied for water licences with the intent of setting up an operation that would use skiffs and a funnel system to collect water from streams, move the water to a barge and, from there, to bottling plants on Vancouver Island or the mainland.
The Da’naxda’xw band has filed similar applications.
The two bands got involved through negotiations with Bill Chornobay, a director of the numbered company and the original applicant for the licences, Mr. Voelker said. According to securities reports, Mr. Chornobay has been a director or shareholder of close to a dozen public companies.
The water licence applications – for about 40 streams – are to remove up to 112.5 cubic metres, or just more than 100,000 litres, of water each day.
In a November memo to the Powell River Regional District, an area planner – referring to the proposal – asked, “is it really necessary to tie up 30 foreshore sites at approximately 2 hectares each, just to ‘ensure continued unencumbered access’ if the sites will not be used regularly?”
Five groups, including the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association, have asked for a more thorough review.
The sheer number of applications and the cumulative impact amounts to a new dimension in water exploitation, Sunshine Coast Conservation Association spokesman Daniel Bouman said in a statement.
Environment Minister Murray Coell has asked the Environmental Assessment Office to determine whether a review is required or recommended under the Environmental Assessment Act, ministry staff said in an e-mailed statement.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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they are selling their soul and that of their land to the devil.
They are selling it to Rush Limbaugh?
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BRS
Social climber
Vancouver
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Apr 17, 2012 - 09:16pm PT
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Bute Inlet,
The post's I have read regarding this area leave out important factors! This area was historically important in regard to BC's future. Mr. Chornobays' idea makes sense!
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