OBAC Picks Up an Extra $100 Grand

Friday, December 04, 2009 02:01 PM

PrinceGeorge, B.C.- The Omineca Beetle Action Coalition is getting another $100 thousand dollars from the Province to continue work on a strategy to meet the challenges posed by the mountain pine beetle epidemic.

In addition to unallocated funding, the Omineca Beetle Action Coalition (OBAC) will have approximately $550,000 of government funding to begin implementation of their recently completed mountain pine beetle (MPB)
mitigation report.

The future role and focus of the beetle action coalitions, including the OBAC, is to provide oversight and leadership in implementation of the recommendations of various MPB mitigation plans.

The OBAC is one of three regional beetle action coalitions, in addition to the Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition and the Southern Interior Beetle Action Coalition.

"Affected communities have an active role in moving from planning to action in responding to the MPB epidemic," said Don Bassermann OBAC chair and Prince George councillor. "We as a board look forward to continuing to work
with our communities and other partners going forward."

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Posted on Friday, December 04, 2009 02:01 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: giterdun on December 4 2009 2:18 PM

I think is too late. Out west where I go, all the Bug trees have already fell over. Bureaucratic BS all over again and again and again.

Posted by: northernjoe on December 4 2009 3:01 PM

giterdun is correct the "epidemic" is over all the trees are dead, the wave has passed....

hopefully they are working on ways of generating jobs from the huge volume of dead pine in the north central interior... but... $100,000 probably only pays for a couple of people to man a office for the next year....

would be nice to hear what exactly they might be doing to improve the fortunes of all the unemployed forest workers in the north with the tax dollars they are getting... another "study" is probably not going to cut it, the trees are dead already, figure out out to use them..... for jobs and profit....

Posted by: Andyfreeze on December 4 2009 4:47 PM

I can never quite figure out exactly what it is that they do...but I do know they do it very slowly?

Posted by: gus on December 4 2009 6:16 PM

They will provide leadership, eh??!!

Very interesting!!

Do we get to observe????

Posted by: netsurfer on December 4 2009 9:36 PM

Why don't we all revert to wood burning heating systems and utilize all this wood it would last us for years and conserve our oil and natural gas. :- ))

Posted by: gimmeabreak on December 5 2009 8:21 AM

For those of you that think the money is for "stopping" the bugs,be assured that the bugs cant be stopped except by fire or freezing.

the money that OBAC has gotten in the past and now is to find ways to mitigate the damage (i.e.) find economic alternatives to replace the pine that has been destroyed, or to invest in alternative business to help sustain the local economies as best we can.

OBAC may not be successful in everything they do, but they are trying and have the best interest of our beetle damaged economy at heart.

Posted by: gimmeabreak on December 5 2009 8:22 AM

....and you know...if you have some ideas that you think might interest them...why dont you tell them about it?

Posted by: Eagleone on December 5 2009 8:28 AM

They should be looking to pulp it for pulp products to anchor the rest of the forest industry in the area.

Posted by: gus on December 5 2009 8:56 AM

OBAC has been getting money since 2005. I am not sure whether they have been looking at the calendar as they do their supposed "work".

The information they have put together since then is a total no-brainer and could have been put together by almost anyone who has knowledge and, most importantly, the sexperience of how communities work and how the international marketplace works. In the case of OBAC, they had to learn that themselves and have still not quite gotten the key messages:

1. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!!

2. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!!

3. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!!!

Both OBAC and the province, whose real responsibility this is, have flubbed it.