Oh, Canada! We Hope You Rescue US!

Ottawa considers anti-tanker legislation

Quentin Casey
Telegraph-Journal
Published Monday September 10th, 2007
Appeared on page A1

ST. ANDREWS - The federal government is pondering legislation that would forbid massive liquefied natural gas tankers from entering Passamaquoddy Bay, the site of two potential American LNG facilities, Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson said Sunday.
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Speaking on the eve of a diplomatic forum here, Thompson, whose New Brunswick Southwest riding is home to fierce local opposition to the projects, said numerous federal departments are currently in discussions.

"Regulatory action is something that we have considered that's underway now. What that will be I can't answer now," he said, noting the involvement of Transport Canada and Fisheries and Oceans.

"We will use every legal and diplomatic means to defend our position."

That position centres on preventing LNG tankers from entering Head Harbour Passage - a channel that runs between Campobello and Deer islands in Passamaquoddy Bay.

Canada considers it internal waters, but it is also the only route available for tankers to access proposed LNG terminal sites in nearby Maine.

Thompson's comments came after a meeting with a local opposition group, Save Passamaquoddy Bay, and Canada's new Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier.

Bernier, in St. Andrews for a gathering of ambassadors to Canada, was briefed on the reasons behind the resistance.

Locals fear the destruction of the fishery and tourism industries, while the federal government has cited unspecified threats to the environment and to public safety.

Proponents insist the waterway can be safely navigated.

"I'm a new minister (but) it's the same position," said Bernier in brief comments made to reporters. "This passage is internal waters and it's very important for us (to) protect our people, the environment and the industry here. It's a very important position. The prime minister has been very clear."

In a recent meeting, Stephen Harper reiterated to U.S. President George W. Bush that Canada will not allow tankers into the waterway, known for its narrow entry, strong currents and fog.

In February, Canada displayed its formal opposition in a letter from Canada's ambassador in Washington, Michael Wilson, to the chairman of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The commission is assessing the two LNG applications.

Janice Harvey, co-chair of the Save Passamaquoddy Bay group, said she was pleased with the meeting, though time did not allow for Bernier's scheduled boat tour of the bay.

"Our message to the new minister is that this is the time to wrap this up - to finish things off. Because we had the opportunity to brief him early in his mandate, it means it's now high on his agenda," she said.

"I think he's a minister we're going to be able to work with very well. He sees some urgency in this."

Harvey 's group says the scenic nature of the Bay and local industry will be displaced if the tankers arrive.

"Not everywhere needs to be industrialized," said Harvey, who has long called for a legislative ban. "Heavy industry, like LNG, is incompatible with what we have."

Their meeting lasted about half an hour and Thompson's personell briefed Bernier in advance.

"It's great to have him here on the ground and hear it from us," Thompson said.

"Canada is a sovereign nation that has taken a position and we would expect the developers to respect that position. It has been articulated in a very strong, forceful way and it's a position we're not going to back away from. I hope they're listening."

Echoed Harvey: "At some point we would think the developers would get the message. So far we haven't seen that.

"They are ignoring Canada's position, Who knows when it will stop?"
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If They Don't Care About Dead Iraqis, Why Should They Care About Washington County?

Elizabeth B. Duncan: Weighing the importance of ecosystem and development
Monday, August 27, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

The Earth is a sphere with no beginning or end, no margins, no dividing lines, one continuous ecosystem. The air moves above the land unimpeded, picking up and dropping out gases and debris and depositing them elsewhere — birds riding on its currents. Water moves upon the land over the whole Earth, all connected. Currents mix and mingle its contents — animal and plant life as well as every imaginable gaseous, liquid and solid material put there by humankind. The water picked up by evaporation is deposited on dry land by condensation to run into the sea again from mountain tops and valleys.

Humankind, striding around in this reality, throws imaginary lines into, over and under this scene, dividing it up into jurisdictions which are subdivided into smaller and smaller units. The jurisdictions have little to do with the continuously interconnected round Earth, having been established by force within this species, the killing of others of its kind, its wars and subsequent rulings of behavior, i.e., what humans can and cannot do to and in its smaller jurisdictions.

Comes now more proposed human intrusion into the air, land and water of a small area at the intersection of three large jurisdictions: Canada, U.S. and the Passamoquoddy nation. For 200 years this area has been under continuous assault by the invaders from Europe. Now, even before the "go-ahead" is given to any of these proposals, we know that 90 percent of the original fisher is gone. The right whales are close to extinction yet still attempt to feed and raise their young in this small area despite being rammed by large ships, entangled in nets and ropes wherever they go along the coast, encountering human wastes, poisons, garbage and sonar. The same is true for all the other wildlife there, other whales, dolphins, seals, birds, all these way down in numbers. The shorebirds in particular close to extinction — no place to land, eat, raise their young in peace, the last remnants protected only by inadequate buffer zones around prime habitat.

Five industrial entities are seeking footholds where the water meets the land around and in the Passamoquoddy Bay of Maine, two seeking to capitalize on the 28-foot tides with turbines placed in the water. Three others wanting to build unloading, storage and pipeline facilities for 900-foot-long LNG tankers that would follow a torturous path around Head Harbor on Campobello Island, Canada, across the largest whirlpools on this side of the Earth thence up the St. Croix River. The path into the unloading depots would not be the end of the massive intrusion into the natural order. Pipelines to Baileyville from Perry, Robbinston (Mill Cove) and Red Beach across Perry, Pembroke, Charlotte, the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge (home of several endangered species) across three endangered salmon rivers would be just the beginning of the destruction of the natural order. The existing pipeline that these entities seek to tie into would have to be expanded to accommodate this increased volume of gas from Baileyville all the way to the Massachusetts border, even if only one of the three were built.

Each entity has been making its case before 10 to 15 national, state and local jurisdictional bodies making a total of 50 plus proceedings that concerned local citizens are trying to keep up with. And that’s just in the United States. Similar things are going on in Canada. We are now in the third year of this exhausting roundelay.

Each jurisdiction is careful not to exceed its mandate, so the testimony and information it will accept is limited, a multiplicity of authorities each with tunnel vision purposely wearing blinders, a patchwork with no one required to look at the whole, the reality of Earth.

If a wise decision is to be made, it must be on the basis of the effect on all life, the entire ecosystem, all the countries. Will this project enhance life in the area, degrade it, or have no effect on it?

Without an answer to that question, we won’t know whether or not this is an exercise in futility.

Elizabeth B. Duncan of Monroe lobbied on open-government and environmental issues in Georgia for 20 years.

Wow! Stephen Harper Shows a Spine!....

PM to bush: no tankers
Politics Harper uses summit to strengthen Canada's opposition to U.S. ships using Passamaquoddy Bay as an LNG route

Rob Linke
TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Thursday August 30th, 2007
Appeared on page A1

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper has reiterated in a private meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush that Canada will not let massive tankers carry liquefied natural gas through tricky Head Harbour Passage.
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The channel, which Canada considers internal waters, runs between Campobello and Deer islands in Passamaquoddy Bay. It is on the only route LNG tankers could take to and from two terminals proposed for sites nearby in Maine.

Harper raised the issue at their private Aug. 20 meeting during the Security and Prosperity Partnership summit at Montebello, Que., during an afternoon session crowded with issues such as Afghanistan, trade and U.S. requirements for Canadian travellers to carry passports.

Harper had raised Canada's objections to the tankers directly with Bush at least once before, said a spokeswoman for the prime minister.

"The president is aware of Canada's position on this issue (and that) we will continue to oppose this initiative," Carolyn Stewart-Olsen wrote in an e-mail.

Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson, whose New Brunswick Southwest riding is home to fierce local opposition to the tankers, said Harper was reminding the president "we haven't lost sight of it.

"It indicates how important this is to us and to the prime minister, that he raised it at this high level.

"You can't go any higher than that."

In Opposition two years ago, Thompson called Head Harbour Passage "the most dangerous waterway to navigate on the entire East Coast" as he repeatedly pressed Paul Martin's Liberal government to block the tankers.

The government was still studying its options when the Conservatives took power.

Canada first expressed its formal opposition last February in a letter from Canada's ambassador in Washington, Michael Wilson, to the chairman of the U.S. federal energy regulator.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is assessing applications for two LNG terminals along the Maine coast.

Quoddy Bay LNG has chosen a site near Eastport, Maine., across from Fairhaven, Deer Island.

Downeast LNG seeks approval for a site near Robbinston, Maine., directly across from the seaside resort town of St. Andrews, N.B.

Citing unspecified threats to a sensitive environment and to public safety, the Canadian government said it would use "all legal and diplomatic means" to prevent the tankers from entering Head Harbour Passage en route to those terminals.

Canada takes the position that the passage has the status of internal waters over which it has exclusive jurisdiction.

The U.S. State Department agrees the passage is Canadian, but sees it as a territorial sea in which commercial ships enjoy the right of innocent passage under international law.

Experts in international law have offered conflicting opinions in the last year, with an American professor in Hawaii siding with the Canadian opponents and a Canadian professor in British Columbia agreeing with the Americans.

The dispute over the passage's status predates the LNG controversy by several decades. It played a role in Canada opposing its use by oil tankers en route to a proposed oil refinery in the 1970s. The refinery was never built.

The channel is about 600 metres wide at its narrowest point and is known for high tides, strong currents and frequent, unpredictable fog. One of the world's largest whirlpools, the "Old Sow," forms in the channel each day.

Still, the LNG proponents maintain Head Harbour Passage can be safely navigated by LNG tankers under certain conditions, and cite sophisticated simulations performed last year in Rhode Island to back their case.

Charlotte County environmentalist Janice Harvey, one of the leaders of Save Passamaquoddy Bay-Canada, a group opposed to LNG terminals, was encouraged to learn Harper had spoken to Bush.

"This tells me it's still a front-burner issue for the prime minister," Harvey said Wednesday.

"Time is very limited at these summits and I'm sure they think very hard about what issues deserve to be raised."

Local opponents argue the tankers pose an unacceptable risk to public safety should a leak or spill result in a fire, and that they threaten the local economy, which is largely based on fishing, aquaculture and tourism.

Thompson said he hopes to brief Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier soon on the issue. Bernier, whose department is taking the lead role, was shuffled into his new post earlier this month.