Together We Can Fight This
Environmental destruction is not welcome in our small town. Right now, an American company, ProEnergy, is working with NB Power to build a proposed gas plant just 18km from our campus. This company is looking to infiltrate our rural area and drastically change not only our environmental climate, but our entire community. This gas plant will have an impact on the people living in this community, whether you live here for two years or 25. Growing up, I lived about 25 minutes from a nuclear power plant, and woke most days to a thick smog, a smell of rotting decay which made me sick to my stomach, and a rising awareness of what these implications meant to myself and the people of my community. There were many technical malfunctions with the plant. Though we were rarely told what specifically happened, some caused the entire plant to go up in flames, spreading a thick, dark smoke over our entire town. Then came the air quality warnings, the unexplained flooding, and rare diseases. This is not yet our reality here in Sackville; however, the community of Mt.A and Sackville must work together to stop this project before it begins and becomes our reality.
This project will destroy everything we, as students, love about Sackville. A debrief in Waterfowl Park with friends after a tough exam or hard night on the Ducky’s dancefloor won’t be the same if you are the only creature there, and you are bombarded by the smell of an inevitable gas leak, or industrial smoke so thick you wonder if it is even safe to be outside. We are lucky to live in such a beautiful town, with so many nature trails, beautiful wetlands, and involved community members. It is now our turn to give back to this community that has welcomed us with open arms. It is time to fight to preserve the Sackville that we know and love, the Sackville that has given us so many memories. This is why we must take a stand against the Tantramar gas plant. This proposed plant is set to be constructed across from a family farm, in a community where locals, farmers, and students all cohesively value our nature and our own health. NB Power and ProEnergy are trying to quietly place this massive 500-megawatt (stated in numerous CBC publications) gas plant into our community, which if built will also provide power to another proposed industrial project, an AI Data Centre in Lorneville, NB: another rural community filled with wetlands. These companies are attempting to build multiple massive industrial projects in our province, and a gas plant right here in our community, all the while hoping to spread as little detail as possible about the project and fly under the radar. We cannot let this happen. We need to demand answers. We must challenge these companies that do not care about the health of the people in this community and put an end to this project.
There are many layers to this project, and the more meetings I attend – organized by the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition – the more I learn to despise this gas plant. So, let me break it down for you in the simplest terms. NB Power has decided we need more sufficient sources of power in our province. Now, there are many ways to do this with renewable energy. One example is the use of grid-scale batteries, which are currently being used in Ontario and Nova Scotia. However, here in Sackville, NB Power has decided a gas plant, which is both more financially and environmentally costly, and a partnership with an American company (in today’s political climate) is the best choice. In addition, the gas plant will only provide approximately 10 long-term jobs to people in our area. This gas plant is bad – bad for our health, bad for our climate, bad for the animals in our area, bad for our wetlands, and bad for our province, which will likely lose more money to this project than it gains in profit.
This is our fight. These massive capitalistic companies will not breathe our polluted air or watch our wetlands die; they will profit from our nature and destroy it in the process. We need to stand up and fight for our future. So, I urge you to get connected and stay involved. Read about the proposed gas plant on both the CBC or local news source The New Wark Times. Follow “Stop The Tantramar Gas Plant” on Facebook. Talk to representatives at the Sackville Farmer’s Market, reach out to friends and fellow community members, and keep the conversation going. Attend a community information session, or a town hall meeting, reach out to your professors, and classmates; because this is a project we need to oppose, and the only way to fight the detrimental effects of this capitalism (starting right here in our small town) is together. Our voices are louder in unison; we can stop this gas plant from derailing Tantramar, but we must do it together.