THANK YOU!
By Emma Gilchrist
BC Hydro violated its environmental assessment certificate for the Site C dam project, according to a B.C. government report released last week.
The inspection report, from the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, detailed how BC Hydro failed to develop acceptable mitigation measures for an aboriginal sweat lodge and suspected burial site, and cannot legally proceed with a bridge related to Site C highway relocation until it does so. Read more.
By James Wilt
The summer of 2017 was an extraordinarily deadly one for North Atlantic right whales, a species already hovering on the brink of extinction.
Investigations are ongoing into the cause of death of 15 right whales off the Atlantic Coast of Canada and the U.S., although it’s not too soon to point the finger at human activity, Megan Leslie, vice president of oceans for WWF-Canada, told DeSmog Canada.
“I’ve been frustrated by reports that we don’t know what’s killing these whales,” Leslie said.
“We do. We know it’s human activity. There haven’t been necropsies on all of the whales, but the ones where there have been it’s clearly been blunt force trauma from ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear." Read more.
By Carol Linnitt
Troy Moth is an artist and photographer living on Vancouver Island. Moth’s iconic images are featured on art gallery walls and trendy t-shirts alike, famed for their stark, smoky portrayals of landscapes and creatures, of both the human and non-human variety.
Moth recently published a provocative photo of a wild bear slouched in the smouldering landfill of a remote Canadian community. We asked him if he’d speak to us about the image, why it elicits such strong reaction in its viewers and what the apocalypse has got to do with it. Read more.
FROM THE DESMOG CANADA VAULT
By Emma Gilchrist
Residents of Newfoundland and Labrador are preparing for electricity rates to double in the next five years, adding an estimated $150 per month in power costs for the average homeowner, as a consequence of building the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam — and experts warn it could be a cautionary tale for British Columbia.
“There are a lot of parallels between British Columbia and Newfoundland,” David Vardy, former CEO of the Newfoundland Public Utilities Board, told DeSmog Canada. “There’s the same fixation with the megaproject.” Read more.
By James Wilt
A massive open-pit copper mine might not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about solar power.
But the construction of photovoltaic panels actually require a wide range of metals and minerals to build. Nineteen, to be exact, including silica, indium, silver, selenium and lead. Most can be found or produced in Canada.
And as demand for solar panels continues to rapidly increase in coming years — up to a 17-fold global increase between 2015 and 2050, according to the International Energy Agency — significant quantities of these metals and minerals will be required. r34.