Reject coal mine proposal
David and Carol Freeman
Comox Valley Echo
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A letter to Don McRae, MLA Comox Valley:
Re: Compliance Coalmine, Vancouver Island
What hypocrisy! The British Columbia Government touts itself as progressive with respect to climate change; a government, which promotes BC as a leading force in reducing greenhouse gases; but it is in fact North America's leading exporter of the dirtiest fuel, coal.
The B.C. Government while imposing the carbon tax on consumers is allowing and planning to export coal off shore to pollute other parts of the planet. The latest proposal is to build a coal mine on Vancouver Island, just two kilometers from Baynes Sound, a unique body of water with the most productive shellfish beaches in B.C.
The Compliance Company proposal will pollute air and water including still uncharted aquifers, will add the emissions of machinery and of 70 large trucks every day on their trip to and from Port Alberni, and will destroy the headwaters of salmon and cutthroat trout streams in the Tsable River watershed. The inevitable seepage of contaminants into Baynes Sound will threaten the shallow waters in which clam, oyster and scallop propagation currently provides 500 jobs in this region, not to mention the reputation of the shellfish industries providing some of the world's best. And what will be the fate of the herring in Baynes Sound?
It is not enough to claim that this fuel will not be burned here; the world already knows that greenhouse gases affect all of us, wherever produced. This proposal has not yet harmed any citizens or any of our natural resources.
We urge you, as our representative, to do whatever it takes to reject this proposal immediately.
David and Carol Freeman
Denman Island
© Comox Valley Echo 2010