Shale gas: Sound the fracking alarm

NEW: A Fractivist's Toolkit

The evidence is being reported across the continent: first-hand reports, scientific studies . . . fracking may get more gas but it is very bad for people and the planet. Here are some reports from British Columbia and beyond:

• France looks at America, says non to fracking France’s energy minister looked at the destruction being wrought on America’s environment by hydraulic fracturing and said “non, merci” to the latest push by her country’s business lobby to make fracking legal. Grist, 7 June 2013.
• B.C. should cap gas sector growth, report says
  The report describes B.C.'s pursuit of shale gas development, including exclusive access to water and lax regulations for greenhouse gas emissions, as 'reckless.'


UPDATES:

• Andrew Nikiforuk tackles top claims fracking industry uses to reassure public.
• Is there really 100 years’ worth of natural gas beneath the United States?
• REPORT: Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?
• Shale gas subsidies threaten BC water supply: CCPA report
• A Fracking Disaster in the Making: Report
• Fracking tests near Blackpool 'likely cause' of tremors
• France Cancels Shale-Gas Permits Over Fracking Impasse
• Albertan, Tired of Her Tap Water Catching Fire, Sues
• Natural gas fracking reviews launched
• BC gov must rein in shale gas industry, says enviro group
• Critics slam B.C. government plan to report on fracking activity
• Fracking Operations Cause Thousands of Earthquakes in Arkansas
• Unlike BC, Wyoming Won't Allow Fracking Secrets
• Down the Drain Goes Public's Right to Know about Fracking
• The U.S. has one-fifth the shale gas once projected

Big-beaked Hairy Woodpecker

I'm no bird expert but for 12 years I've been watching and photographing the birds in my (Cariboo) back yard. Among our most frequent visitors are the hairy woodpeckers. I'm not sure I could tell one from another, except that the males have a red flash on their crown.

So, when I saw this one, I did a double take, thinking it was probably a variety I'd never encountered. But other than a beak three times as long as all the other Hairy visitors (see inset), he was the same. Nothing like this in the bird guide and our local bird guy, Tom Godin, agreed.

He's a regular visitor, gets on well with the other Hairys and seems to manage OK with his long beak. I think he even has a bit of an advantage getting deep into the suet cage, though my impression is that getting food down his beak and into his body is a little more time-consuming.

Have you ever seen a Hairy woodpecker like this? Either way, I'd welcome your comments.

For more about my birds: Birds from a Backyard Deck.

More Wild Cariboo Backyard Plants

I've done more work on the Wild Cariboo backyard plants page and improving it, including the addition of nine new photos.

Corrections, comments etc. very helpful and very welcome.

Here's a bit of a perspective on at least part of the land on which these plants grow:

Wild Cariboo backyard plants

I live on less than an acre. About half of the available land is second growth interior Douglas Fir. We moved here 12 years ago and, other than building a raised bed garden on the sunny side of the house, I planted little else. I put my energy into a much needed clean-up, including removal (to our wood-stove) of usable wood and excess forest floor fuel. I also removed a pile of thistle and some high-standing weeds.

When the garden was in reasonable shape, I spent more breaks from work walking around or just sitting and observing. After a while (about a year) I felt confident enough to make a few minor interventions - like building a small retaining wall. Mostly, though, I wanted to see what this little piece of land had in mind.

As I became more aware, my senses educated, I saw many changes and discovered the great diversity of plants in this unspectacular piece of land. I had to be careful not to bore people with what I realized might seem trivial to them.

It was relatively easy to get to know the birds that visit us, especially after I bought a fairly good camera. The plants were another matter. The photos I took allowed me to enlist the help of friends/clients in identification - like Chris Czajkowski. One day, I thought, I'll publish a list of the plants that grow here. It's about ten years but that day is dawning. I've just completed my page of Cariboo Backyard Plants with the beginnings of the list: photos of 26 plants. I'll be adding more as I go along.

I'd appreciate feedback and corrections.

Click to go to this web page

Birds from a Cariboo Deck No.11: Hairy Woodpecker

Looks similar but is much larger (around 9 inches) than it's smaller version, the diminutive (around 6 inches) downy. An early lesson in my birdwatching: "Huge Hairy, diminutive Downy".

Spring brings the Hairy woodpecker pairs out, chasing each other in spirals around the Douglas fir. As the young grow into their adult plumage, you can still see the adults feeding them from time to time.

More Birds from A Cariboo Deck

Harper restrained by environmentalists

Murray Dobbin in The Tyee, points to the ability of sustained and strong resistance by environmental coalitions to keep Conservative economic single-mindedness in check. For example:

The rejection of the B.C. Prosperity copper-gold mine proposal and the saving of Fish Lake was a good example. Approving the mine in the face of very effective publicity on the part of opponents proved just too much for even Stephen Harper to pull off. Defying many of the pundits' predictions, the Conservatives backed off and actually listened to their own environmental review panel.

Now comes a bigger issue:  The Enbridge Northern pipeline plan:

It's a huge issue. Harper has invested a lot in supporting the project. But the opposition is formidable: an informal alliance of some half dozen environmental organizations, 61 First Nations, and many municipal governments that may well be unprecedented. Eighty per cent of British Columbians are opposed to allowing oil tankers in coastal waters. If Harper gives a green light to the project he will unleash an enormous backlash, and the movement which is now simply campaigning for a rejection of the project by a federal joint review panel will move into higher gear, including civil disobedience.
It would be a public relations nightmare for the Harper government. Enbridge, which between 1999 and 2008 had 610 spills releasing 132,000 barrels of oil, is now pumping dirty oil allied with Alberta's Harper. This against a diverse alliance who want to save the pristine wilderness, B.C. coastal waters and First Nations' livelihood. That alliance also has the backing of all the opposition parties, two of which have put forward private members' bills trying to ban oil tankers (an informal moratorium now exists).

Read more

The Campaign to protect Fish Lake 

Chris Harris tours to launch his new book: Motherstone

Coming soon to a venue near you (if you live in BC, that is).

MOTHERSTONE
British Columbia's Volcanic Plateau

In the high country of British Columbia's Central Plateau lies the Motherstone. It is a land that few people have walked over or seen before. It includes a chain of shield volcanoes formed over a mantle hot spot rising from a depth of 2,900 kilometers, a sea of crystallized basalts stretching 300 kilometers from Anahim Peak to the Painted Chasm, a river of obsidian, underwater volcanoes sitting high up above the world's only inland temperate rainforest, and a field of cinder cones still rising from among the trees they burned through when they were formed.

Tour Itinerary

 

Beetle-killed trees probably less flammable than green trees

NASA Satellites Reveal Surprising Connection Between Beetle Attacks, Wildfire
The results may seem at first counterintuitive, but make sense when considered more carefully. First, while green needles on trees appear to be more lush and harder to burn, they contain high levels very flammable volatile oils. When the needles die, those flammable oils begin to break down. As a result, depending on the weather conditions, dead needles may not be more likely to catch and sustain a fire than live needles.

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For some years Dave Neads has been pushing this point. Perhaps it takes an authority like NASA to get past the sceptics and vested interests. In 2004, in his series, The Other Side of the Story, he wrote:

On the bright side, once the trees are dead, they actually are less of a fire hazard than the green tree that used to stand so prettily in your garden. This is because all those oils and turpentines have left the tree needles, and they are actually not as prone to explosive crown fires as green trees.

One they reach the gray stage, they are very low risk for naturally occurring fires, but once felled, these naturally air dried trees make good firewood, so there may be a bonus if you have several of them on your property.

From Backyard Beetles by Dave Neads

Other posts by Dave Neads:

• The pine beetle aftermath requires a fundamental culture change
• Perspective on the Lodgepole Pine
• Factory fences: aliens in the Chilcotin

Dave's personal blog: Chilcotin Ark

Flooding in the Chilcotin along Highway 20

Reports are starting to come in from friends and clients of mine:

From Chris Czajkowski, heading home after her season at Nuk Tessli:

Sunday, September 26

I was expecting to drive to Williams Lake at 4.00am Monday morning to arrive at the garage at 8.00 for a brake job on my van . . .   That was when someone said something about the road being closed near the McClinchy Bridge.  My turnoff is maybe 100 metres on the Nimpo side of the McLinchy Bridge.  So I drove along in warm, quite sunny weather - the surface of the road was dry and everything looked  peaceful.  Then, round a bend, just a mile or so from the bridge, was a police wagon parked across the road.  The cop pointed to two orange cones on the highway - "half an hour ago, there were 5", she said.  

 

Dave Neads.

Monday morning September 27 

As of this morning HWY 20 west of the McClinchy bridge has a washout 1km long,  and just east of Wolverine Ranch, another patch several metres long has disappeared. Louie Creek has washed out, Young Creek bridge on the hill is compromised, and "several" bridges in the valley are gone.

 http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/williamslaketribune/breaking_news/103861119.html

Talking to Interior Roads, they feel it could be several weeks until the Bella Coola valley  and probably a week until the McClinchy section is temporally repaired.  We are OK. It is raining hard again - expect another 30 to 40 mm overnight.

Rosemary Neads. 

Monday afternoon September 27

Anahim and Nimpo are now completely cut off from the rest of the world.  About 1 km of highway west of the McClinchy bridge (25 min east of Nimpo) and a large chunk east of the bridge are missing.  Estimates are at least 1 week, if it stops raining and the river drops.  That snow on the upper slopes last week has all been washed away - nto our rivers.  Just on our deck, yesterday we had 2.5 inches fall in about 8 hours - and this was after the worst of the storm .  Anahim and Nimpo get their power from a diesel generator, and that is in danger of running out of fuel.  And no way to get any here. The highways trucks also are very low. There's a run on the grocery stores!

Bella Coola is in a far worse situation, so far as regular supplies.  Luckily, their fuel gets there  by barge.  But their highway is washed out in many places and a number of bridge are gone - the Bella Coola River has overflowed its banks in many places.  The community around Hagensborg has been out of water since Friday, but of course there is lots of rain water.  A major bridge on the Hill has lost its approaches, although the Hill itself is holding.  Estimates from Interior Roads suggest it could be as much as two months before everything is restored, and probably several weeks before even limited travel is possible.

Chris again.

Monday afternoon September 27

It was lovely and sunny this morning and the air was filled with planes and helicopters.  But now, at 11.30 am it is pouring rain again.  I don't think it will bring the river up any more because all the snow at higher elevations has melted.  But it will hamper rebuilding efforts as the soil is so saturated it will be unworkable.  It is a couple of days before we can expect the weather to clear.  I will be out of food in 3 days - so will the stores at Nimpo and Anahim so goodness knows what will happen.

Chris' journal on the flood.

 

Earthship building going up in the South Cariboo

This type of energy-saving and energy-efficient structure was pioneered some years ago. As the design and especially the materials used (including much use of used car tyres and pop cans) gains credibility, "Earthships" are becoming more widespread. As I write, one of these is being built on my doorstep - in the South Cariboo, near 100 Mile House.