Our friends at the Citizens Concerned about Coalbed Methane (CCCBM) in Fernie, BC, point to a very interesting editorial that appeared in the Monday, November 6, 2006 online edition of the Vancouver Globe and Mail . . .
VANCOUVER -- When 400 people took to the streets of Smithers recently to protest against proposed coal-bed methane development in the Bulkley Valley, it was a signal of deep unrest in the heartlands.
Smithers, for those who haven't been lucky enough to visit, is a picturesque little town where the people are relaxed, openly friendly and clearly in love with the magnificent landscape that surrounds them. They hike, they ski, they hunt and they fish in the great salmon rivers that flow out of the Hazelton and Skeena Mountains.
The people in the Bulkley Valley appreciate how important resource development is. They see logging and mining trucks daily on the highway that runs through town. Pull up a chair in a coffee shop in Smithers and there is a good chance someone at the next table will have muddy boots on.
These are hard-working folk, in touch with the land, who are the epitome of the heartlands with which this government likes to identify. And when they get mad enough to spill out into the streets, you can bet something has gone wrong with government outreach.
Opposition to a government proposal to open the area to coal-bed methane drilling -- which extracts gas from coal beds and produces huge volumes of waste water containing salt and metals -- has been building for the past year. So has the sense that the people of the Bulkley Valley aren't being listened to by Victoria.
Read the full text at the CCCBM site . . .
Posted by nfpa at November 7, 2006 08:24 AM