A fossil fuel company can make a real financial offer when it wants to, not just the pocket change people in the U.S. southeast are being offered for easements for the Sabal Trail or Palmetto pipelines. And no offer is enough to outweigh the environmental damage, was the unanimous vote of a Canadian native group about a competitor of Spectra Energy.

Brent Jang, Globe and Mail, 8 May 2015, Environment dwarfs financial merit in LNG deal for B.C. First Nations,

For the Lax Kw’alaams in British Columbia, Thursday’s decision turned out to be simple — the environmental risks of a massive liquefied natural gas project far outweighed the financial rewards.

In the second stage of three votes, members of the B.C. First Nations group have again unanimously rejected a $1-billion offer from the LNG joint venture led by Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas.

More than 255 eligible Lax Kw’alaams voters at a meeting Thursday night in Prince Rupert declined to provide aboriginal consent to the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, say three sources close to the First Nations group. Row upon row, the people in attendance stood up to indicate their opposition at the North Coast Meeting and Convention Centre, located on the lower level of the Chances casino.

Aboriginal leaders and environmentalists say the proposed LNG export terminal on Lelu Island, near Prince Rupert, would be a threat to salmon habitat in the nearby sandy, reef-like Flora Bank. Critics say Lelu Island in the estuary of the Skeena River is a terrible place to locate the export terminal because of the threat to juvenile salmon habitat and the Lax Kw’alaams’ way of life. “Lax Kw’alaams would no longer be able to harvest traditional plants and medicines on Lelu Island,” according to a bulletin issued by the First Nations group to its members.

Like Spectra Energy’s proposed Sabal Trail fracked “Gas Pipeline Threatens Southwest Georgia Water, Way of Life”, as the Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen 2014 #9 says.

This Pacific NorthWest LNG project is a competitor to the LNG export terminal to which Spectra Energy is building a pipeline in British Columbia. TransCanada is building another one, in addition to its notorious Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

The U.S., Canada, and the world don’t need new pipelines. We all need to get on with what’s already started: the conversion of power to sun, wind, and water.

-jsq

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