Northern sa国际传媒 residents who are so inclined could fill up a fair chunk of their calendars just going to information meetings about different liquefied natural gas proposals, a Smithers lawyer said this week.
Richard Overstall, a director of a small group called the Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research, outlined the extent of the LNG 鈥済old rush鈥� now underway in northern sa国际传媒
鈥淵ou鈥檝e got some 20 environmental-assessment processes or potential environmental processes going on, each one pretending that none of the others exist.
鈥淭his is virtually impossible for the public to keep up with. In this town, we see almost weekly open houses and notices from the environmental-assessment office.鈥�
The group has a handy chart showing all the liquefied natural gas plants and pipelines that are being talked up.
But Overstall is the first to admit parts of it are inaccurate. 鈥淚t鈥檚 so hard to keep up,鈥� he said in an interview Friday. They count 11 LNG proposals, not counting competing complementary pipeline proposals. (He said the proposed pipeline routes look like a dish of spaghetti.)
Only a handful of the ideas being floated will likely proceed. But the job of sorting them out is proceeding case-by-case, with no overview of the cumulative impact, he told the legislature finance committee.
Governments have any number of review requirements, but Overstall said the cumulative impact of all the proposals isn鈥檛 being addressed.
鈥淓ach company is acting as if none of the other proposals exist. They鈥檙e not talking to one another. They鈥檙e being assessed individually as if none of the other proposals exist.鈥�
He said the sa国际传媒 government recognizes cumulative impact as an issue in other spheres, but not so far in LNG.
The finance committee is touring sa国际传媒 collecting ideas for next year鈥檚 budget. Overstall pitched the idea of a strategic environmental assessment that would look at the big picture.
He said the group is not for or against LNG at this point. It wants the federal and provincial governments to put together an overarching look at all the concepts.
He told MLAs an experience in Australia has some bearing on sa国际传媒鈥檚 current situation. Three different companies built three LNG plants in western Australia, but 鈥渆veryone admitted after they were built that probably only one or at the most two were necessary.鈥�
Overstall said Friday that a strategic look could produce a common energy corridor. That would provide a generally approved idea of where any or all of the natural gas pipelines from the northeast to the coast might run. There could be a similar understanding on the siting of all the LNG plants.
Another member of the research group, Nadia Nowak, warned MLAs about the impact on greenhouse-gas emissions. The government鈥檚 upcoming LNG tax regime should be structured to encourage GHG reductions, by recognizing carbon capture and use of electricity at the plants, rather than gas.
The presentation echoed a letter the University of Victoria鈥檚 environmental law centre wrote in August on behalf of the group.
The law centre wrote to the federal and provincial environment ministers stressing the way each project is being developed and considered in isolation from the others, with ad hoc reactions from governments.
The 60-page brief is consistently dubious about LNG proposals and skeptical of the overall benefits.
鈥淭he risk is that current environmental-assessment processes will miss the forest for the trees. Government and the public are considering individual pieces of overall LNG development, but no strategic assessment is being conducted on the big picture.鈥�
Just So You Know: MLAs also heard about another piece of the LNG puzzle this week: The skills training needed to support the thousands of jobs to be created by the projects.
College of New Caledonia faculty told the committee that two welding instructors were laid off this year, ending training in that field.
NDP MLA Mike Farnworth said: 鈥淟ast time I checked ... pipelines are built by welders. So we need welders to build a pipeline in this part of the province, yet we鈥檙e laying off welding instructors. That doesn鈥檛 make sense to me.鈥�
