Local organizations, experts fight the gas plant through education
Several dozen people filled the top floor of the Tantramar Civic Centre on Sunday, Feb. 15 to learn about alternatives to the proposed Tantramar gas plant. Attendees could learn from poster boards at various tables, write postcards to N.B. Premier Susan Holt, pick up a button labeled “NO to the Tantramar Gas Plant,” or watch a presentation on energy alternatives.
“We’re just really happy that everybody’s showing up here today,” said Pam Novak. As the co-creator and director of wildlife care at the Atlantic Wildlife Institute (AWI), she helps lead a wildlife rehabilitation facility and education centre on the outskirts of Tantramar, close to the proposed project site. According to Novak, a gas plant would “certainly deflect” the migration routes of moose, bears, coyotes, and several different bird species, as well as disturb fish habitats. “This is the worst possible answer to our energy solution,” she said. “It’s going to affect all our personal health. It’s going to affect wildlife health. It’s going to affect the ground quality and all the water quality.” At the session, Novak told visitors how the gas plant would impact wildlife, handed out pamphlets, and invited children to pet a large taxidermied owl.
In response to the gas plant, AWI helped establish the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition, which brought together “at least 20 organizations right now, plus hundreds of other people,” Novak says. Representatives from many of those organizations, including Seniors for Climate, Divest MTA, and the Stop the Tantramar Gas Plant group, provided information at the Feb. 15 session.
Harold Popma, a retired physician, represented the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), a health-focused climate change organization which is not part of the coalition. Charts laid out on CAPE’s table showed how greenhouse gases can affect different parts of the body, as well as their impacts on health at various stages of life. Popma said he was at the session because of the increased CO2 emissions the gas plant would cause. “We all want more electricity, but we don’t really want to go this particular route.” Renewable energies like wind and solar, he said, have “considerably less” impact on human health.
Representatives of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB) shared information about the gas plant and possible alternatives, including battery storage and renewable energy sources. The organization aims to ensure a “healthy New Brunswick for all New Brunswickers,” according to CCNB’s executive director Beverly Gingras. “We work on environmental issues that are of concern to New Brunswickers.” CCNB had raised concerns about the plant before its location was changed to Tantramar, then helped set up the coalition. It does really bring together a variety of people that are concerned about their environment for a variety of reasons,” Gingras said.
The Conservation Council also participated as an intervenor in recent hearings on the gas plant at New Brunswick’s Energies and Utilities Board (EUB). Since the EUB hearings focused on the project’s economic aspects over environmental ones, the CCNB tried to “show alternatives that can be better for economics as well” as the environment, including batteries and renewable energy.
Another intervenor at the hearings was Gregor MacAskill, a Tantramar resident and economic consultant who represented the coalition. MacAskill said his role was to “challenge New Brunswick Power’s evidence and their rationale for having the gas plant.” During the Feb. 15 session, MacAskill sat next to a sign labelled “ECONOMICS” and explained to attendees economic downsides to the project, including a lack of consideration of alternatives and its cost. Macaskill said the proposed $3.5 billion cost for the plant is a “loose ballpark figure,” and that the “actual dollar amounts remain confidential because it’s part of a contract agreement between New Brunswick Power and ProEnergy.”
N.B. Power had originally argued that because the plant would be constructed by U.S.-based ProEnergy, it would be exempt from an EUB hearing, but was overruled. According to MacAskill, N.B. Power then “had to scramble to file a whole bunch of documentation,” which he said they “didn’t really put together properly.” The EUB’s decision will be more difficult as “they don’t have a really solid, coherent evidence basis,” he says. “Now what we’re dealing with is a real mess.”
Closing arguments were delivered on Thursday, Feb. 19, though another hearing is planned for April to include evidence from a December contract agreement between N.B. Power and ProEnergy. MacAskill says the board will release its decision after the April hearing, “maybe in early May.” According to him, the project “was on a fast-tracked timeline” at the request of N.B. Power and ProEnergy, and that the two corporations had provided “very little information” to the public.
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Caption: The proposed Tantramar gas plants continues to face staunch community activism and grassroots efforts for its prevention Kendra Draband/Argosy