Here we go again. The Nisga’a First Nation wishes to partner with LNG producers to build a plant in the Nass Valley to produce LNG. Two gas pipeline projects have received regulatory approval to provide feedstock of 1.7 to 2.0 billion cubic feet of “natural” gas per day. Proponents declare $55 billion of economic impact. I’ll say.
Here’s fossil fuel economic impacts: the town of Lytton burned down, thousands of B.C. residents fleeing their homes for safer places, farmers’ crops burning and withering on the vine, salmon streams baking dry, hundreds of residents dying of heat stress, billions of sea creatures cooked and other instances of the world-changing before our eyes. $55 billion will be chump change next to our expenditures to repair damages to a climate-changed province.
A study supported by the BC Oil & Gas Commission proved the methane leakage from gas wells is more than twice as much as measured formerly. Methane is a huge contributor to the greenhouse effect and we should be treating “natural” gas with the same regard as coal – a dirty fossil fuel. Supplying the enormous amount of gas for the Nass project would mean intolerable amounts of fracking in our beautiful northern lands and huge releases of methane to our already overburdened atmosphere.
It is most unfortunate that because our First Nations were deprived of their own natural resources, they elect to align their interests with those who choose to create even more climate damage. As the summer of 2021 perfectly illustrates, our energy needs need to come from sources that do not destroy our climate.
Dan Kells
North Saanich
