A press release from the Purcell Alliance for Wilderness:

Yesterday, an open house in Meadow Creek, B.C. presented by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office and Axor Group, Inc. of Montreal, proponent of the proposed Glacier/Howser hydroelectric project 100 km. north of Nelson, was transformed into a public meeting at the insistence of local residents. At this meeting, Simon Gourdeau, project manager for the Glacier/Howser hydroelectric project announced that they are giving up on their East Creek license.

"This is a huge victory for us!" exclaims Gary Diers of the Purcell Alliance for Wilderness. "We have been getting mixed messages from Axor about their East Creek plans for some time. East Creek is the jewel in the southern inland rainforest and this buys the creek more time." There is still some confusion as to whom the license is being transferred to. Eric Schindler, spokesperson for Pro Terra, insists that the company return the license to the government and that the government cancel the license altogether.

While there are environmental and political constraints in exploiting East Creek for hydroelectricity, it remains economically feasible to do so. Thus, there remain concerns that the creek could still be developed. The one item that Gourdeau, Schindler and Diers all agreed upon at the meeting is that East Creek will continue to be vulnerable to industrial development until it is protected in a park. Diers says, "We need to remain vigilant and continue to work for full park protection for East Creek."

Contact Gary Diers, Purcell Alliance for Wilderness, 250-366-4455, gadiers AT yahoo.ca

A response to With Power Generation, There Is No Such Thing As the Perfect Choice, by Christy Clark, published in The Province on June 24, 2007:

BC Liberal and Province columnist Christy Clark predictably ignored the Ashlu economics and impacts to the environment in her column. Instead, she chose to attack the Wilderness Committee for "opposing major development."

When small hydro, run-of-river projects were promoted 10 years ago, there were no dams and reservoirs planned. Now the term "run-of-river" is being used incorrectly, since all but three of the first 600 licensed small hydro projects have both dams and reservoirs, adding to environmental displacement and damage. That was never in the original plans and environmental assessments are only an inadequate 30 days long now.

Following instructions from the provincial government, BC Hydro has streamlined the process for private hydro contractors to hook to the grid and sell power from small projects of less than 10 megawatts. The BC Liberals claim that this is to make us self-sufficient in electricity by 2016. No such plans are actually in place and BC Hydro will keep buying dirty coal and nuclear power, at night when it is cheap, from US and Alberta utilities.

Story by Scott Simpson in The Vancouver Sun: Customers pay more for B.C. energy plan: study

"British Columbia's pursuit of energy independence is backfiring on BC Hydro customers," according to the first line of a Vancouver Sun story on June 16. A feature by Scott Simpson on D-1 of the Saturday Business BC section says that BC's plan for independent power is "not well considered" according to a respected economist. The main premise however is that importing cheap but dirty power at night wasn't being considered, just in terms of its negative economics.

BC Energy Plan alters new hydropower benefit from 100% to 3%. Aboriginal people have long contended that altering any society without consent is genocide. Young Canadians are very angry about the theft of the water resources in BC.

Excerpt: "A natural attraction is being destroyed while B.C. spends millions encouraging visitors," said Gordon Planedin, 75. "The licence plates say Beautiful B.C. It's just stupid. In July and August, [the waterfall] will be a joke . . . It will be be a trickle."

"Everybody is appalled. Americans tell us they have screwed up their rivers and we shouldn't."