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Ben Parfitt
Big dams and a big fracking problem in BC’s energy-rich Peace River Region
Download 293.5 KB12 pages This short paper describes senior BC Hydro officials’ fears that earthquakes triggered by natural gas industry fracking operations could damage Peace River dams, putting hundreds if…
Fracking has no place near critical dams or reservoirs
Last year, a dubious record was set when a magnitude 4.6 earthquake was triggered near Fort St. John during a natural gas industry fracking operation. The tremor was just the…
Rising hydro bills pushing mills to burn fossil fuel
Premier Christy Clark’s vow to push work at the $9-billion Site C dam “past the point of no return” may be music to the ears of some construction contractors, but…
Site C: Too risky to rely on one river system for BC’s hydro needs
In the face of a prolonged drought, water levels at Lake Mead, the giant hydroelectric reservoir that straddles the Nevada and Arizona borders, are lower than at any point since…
The real reason the BC government is spending $9 billion on Site C
From a lookout high atop a windswept bluff, the scale of work already underway at Site C is daunting. Large tracts of boreal forest logged. Vast amounts of topsoil stripped…
Communities impacted by resource development are fighting back: government should take notice
Whether it’s mining, logging, dams or pipelines, the people living closest to resource industry developments typically face the highest health, economic and environmental risks. Such inequities will only deepen if…
LNG’s threat to water sustainability
One glaring problem with the provincial government’s strategy to turn British Columbia into a liquefied natural gas exporting juggernaut is that it scuttles any chance B.C. has to be a…
BC government should heed the call to consult on forestry changes
British Columbia’s forests represent the single-largest renewable asset that we have, a public resource shared with First Nations across the province. Whatever the fate may be of our non-renewable natural…
A windfall for BC’s five biggest forest companies?
Shortly before the May election, the provincial government withdrew legislation that could have handed de facto control of publicly owned forestlands to a handful of forest companies. The contentious sections…
Return to old-school forest practices to protect BC grizzlies
More than 20 years ago, British Columbia signalled to the world that sustainable development was a concept it took seriously. In the intervening years, the phrase has become so over-used…
Water withdrawal stats run dry
Nestlé will voluntary disclose such vital information, but BC government doesn’t seem interested in asking Here’s a question that our provincial government ought to be able to answer but can’t:…
Does Premier Clark, the great petro pretender, have a Plan B?
In January, one of the world’s most sophisticated deep-sea drilling vessels, the $540-million Chikyu, left the Japanese Port of Shimizu destined for a distant point in the Phillippine Sea. The…
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