Province Sets Stage to Look at Health Impacts of Oil and Gas Industry
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 @ 4:01 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Provincial Government has announced it has awarded a 100 thousand dollar contract to the Fraser Basin Council for the first phase of a three phase project to examine the impacts on human health posed by oil and gas development in the northeast of the Province.
Phase one calls for public and stakeholder engagement where local citizens and interest groups can express their concerns and experiences with resource development in the region.
Independent MLA Bob Simpson says this project falls short of the full Health inquiry the Government had promised “What was called for and what was committed to by the Premier was a full health inquiry under the Health Act, and this is not that. What this is , is what I would call a preliminary scoping exercise and I have confidence in the Fraser Basin Council that they will do a good job within the terms of reference, but the people in the Peace are certainly telling me that what they’re going to go scope out, is already known.”
The Province says a variety of input methods will be made available, from regular mail in comments to online submissions. The Fraser Basin Council will make more input details available in the weeks ahead.
Simpson says while the phase one will look to see if there are health and safety implications of the oil and gas industry, the people of the Peace say they are living with those impacts “Air quality, water quality, noise, the implications of gas plants that haven’t met the safety requirements and have blow outs, so they ( people in the Peace ) would prefer the Government just get on with the job of doing the inquiry which has some legal teeth to it and would make some recommendations to Government on policy changes.”
Simpson says this phase one could be viewed as a stalling tactic, because he doesn’t think the government wants to open up the Pandora’s box of the oil and gas industry at a time when government is pushing for development and jobs to fuel the economy.
This first phase is to be completed by the end of March. The second phase will develop a human health risk assessment based on the findings from phase one, and phase three calls for all the findings to be reported to the Province, stakeholders and the public.
Comments
Whats the health impact of being permanentl unemployed?
What is the health impact of being permanently dead!?
Health impact when your dead will be zero, since your suffering has ended.
Short term gain, long term pain. Many human societies have driven themselves into extinction in the name of progress – read Ronald Wright’s “A Short History of Progress”.
Nobody works, nobody gets hurt. Everyone just stay at home and play Xbox.
I’m all for jobs and employment growth but it all has to be done safely and with enviromentally sound practices. This isn’t China after all….
“Whats the health impact of being permanentl unemployed?”
Depends on where one moves to.
Go beyond the health impact of the workers who, in this case, typically have a relatively dangerous job as can be seen from WSBC claim statistics and look at the impact of the lifestyle of workers who move from job to job, and especially those who have families. There was a great film done about the spouses who moved with workers to Mackenzie and the lack of things for them to do in that small community – higher drug and alcohol use, fights at home, etc. etc.
This project was just announced and the engagement phase is scheduled to end in March? That’s only 3 months from now. Good luck with that.
Meaningful community engagement, especially with an organization that has no history in the region will take much longer than that.
I am sure this will be an unbiased study, ya right, read up on the outfit here–
http://www.fraserbasin.bc.ca/
Good point Seamutt. Hey, if there’s any money left over, maybe they can get Greenpeace to do a study as well?
More like, “What are the employment prospects of the permanently dead?”
Ah, who gives a frac?
Save time and money and check out the studies already completed in other jurisdictions, compare the compapables to the Peace situation, record exisitng health outcomes, draw conclusions, then act.
All this other stuff is just so much sleight of hand.
What point did Seamutt make? What is everyone against? Environmental regulation? Fraser basin council? Sustainability? Science that goes against their beliefs?
Bias hood rich bias, get it. Even the WWF is represented so I do not expect a fair and unbiased revue.
Once again another case of money over morals. Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead,we will deal with it later. Money,Money,Money. I have just one question and maybe someone will have an answer, To the person that has 1 Billion dollars, What do you do with all that money?
“Once again another case of money over morals. Damn the torpedoes full speed ahead,we will deal with it later. Money,Money,Money.”
Will the hand-wringing ever stop? I would assume you used ‘money money money’ to purchase a computer and internet access and other things. And don’t forget, ‘money money money’ pays for the social services everyone holds dear.
This study is largely a political move imho. Regardless of the outcome, the perpetual greed of the shareholders of any large corporation dictate the progress of that entity. When demanding dividends that never diminish, there is but one way forward; profit above all else.
The B.C. government has to make an effort to be seen as putting the lowly taxpayer first, but the truth is that corporate profits are first.
metalman.
I hear you Johnnybelt but how much money is too much and at what costs.
I hear you Johnnybelt but how much money is too much and at what costs.
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