I’m responding to Wolfgang Richter’s letter from the Jan. 8 paper regarding the Garibaldi at Squamish (GAS) project.
Thank you for waking up the fight against this GAS-eous project again.
After extensive reading on the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO) page, it seems your team has been very busy. Meanwhile, our new local government creates public awareness for their immense disapproval of everything LNG.
The Dec. 16 committee of the whole meeting was scheduled at the same time that a time capsule, containing a bottle of Paradise Valley well water, was being buried. The meeting was commenced and then adjourned one minute later so the mayor and interested councillors could attend the burying of the time capsule.
The significance of that bottle of water is only known to those who buy the local paper or read it online.
The water wanted for the GAS project lies in an aquifer near our homes in Paradise Valley.
There was a one-time only testing from that location to try to create an information package to sell to the public and the BCEAO. That document used the terms “conceptual,” “estimated,” “predictions,” minimal impact,” “trends,” along with other vague descriptions, as well as creating hypothetical results.
During the hot rainless summers, local wells dry up. That is without an “environmentally responsible, energy efficient, master planned community” pumping the groundwater away!
There is talk of future mitigation to residents if wells dry up. It is not an “if,” it would be a “when” and only if those opposed to this project permitted water from Paradise Valley to be used.
This letter is sent to state to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office, the proponents of The Garibaldi at Squamish project, the Squamish mayor and councillors and whomever else it concerns.
Water will not be taken from the aquifer in Paradise Valley for this or any other project, ever! The fight is on!
Brenda Bjorkman
Squamish
