I work as a licensed gas contractor in the Sea to Sky. I use natural gas in my home. I am pro industry.
Locally, Fortis BC is a great company. It supports its workers, community events and customers.
It is the only company/organization offering rebate incentive for installing high-efficient appliances in new or existing homes. Some rebates are as high as $2,000. This shows its commitment to the future and cutting down unneeded usage of their carbon-based product.
Fortis is a multinational publicly-traded company with shareholders to report back to. That means keeping cost down and posting profits. The year 2015 reported earnings of $728 million – not bad.
To make that type of profit, I believe, they need to install equipment/infrastructure as cheap as possible.
Fortis is proposing to burn cheap gas to power their turbines in our valley instead of using hydro.
Fortis, if you want to be a good neighbour, and have the local support of the community for this compressor station:
1. Power it with electricity like originally planned. Smoke stack fallout is a major environmental concern.
2. Move this compressor station out of our traditional/back-up watershed. Global warming and future population increase is heading us towards needing this watershed as a main resource in the near future. Defoliants and fire-suppression chemicals could pollute the water that we drink, and the salmon we eat.
Fortis will be in the government allowable levels, but as we know, government does not have the resources to monitor industry properly (Mount Polley, Cheakamus costic soda spill, the 2007 Burnaby crude oil pipe line rupture).
3. Move it somewhere that is safe. The side of a forested mountain with difficult winter access has challenges.
Address these issues responsibly and with common sense and I’m sure the informed community will be behind you in full.
Garret Schumacher
Squamish
