We’re on the road again! I got that old Willie Nelson tune playing in my head as I write this blog. That’s because we really are planning to be on the road again with meetings about stopping private power from taking over our wild rivers.

We’ll be in Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast (May 27, Roberts Creek Hall, 7 pm) and in Vernon in the north Okanagan (May 31, Schubert Centre, 7pm) and in the Kootenay country too: Nelson (June 1, Capitol Theatre, 7 pm) Invermere (June 2, David Thompson Secondary, 7 pm) and in Golden (June 3, Seniors Centre, 7:30 pm).

I’ll be travelling from town to town along with the rest of our Wilderness Committee road team, including Gwen Barlee our wild rivers campaigner and Tria Donaldson and Andrew Radzik, our outreach coordinators. In Roberts Creek we’ll be hooking up with members of the Council of Senior Citizens Organization - Sunshine Coast Chapter. During our Okanagan and Kootenay swing will be travelling, and sharing a podium with, Rex Weyler, one of the founding members of Greenpeace International, who now represents BC Citizens for Public Power. We’ll be hosted by the West Kootenay Eco Society, Council of Canadians, and Wildsight.

Are we doing this rabble-rousing road trip because we are losing the fight against private power? Heck NO! We’re going on the road because we’ve been winning the race to protect our wild rivers and we want you to know about it and to join in the fight to run the private power guys right out of the province!

Here’s a few tidbits to make your day. It looks like the huge mega private power project planned for the Klinaklini River on BC’s mid-coast is deader than a door nail. The Klinaklini would have involved diverting most of the river into a three-story high tunnel 17 kilometers long. But the massive public backlash from people like you has cause the Provincial Government to withhold necessary permits. Once again, we see that these terrible giant projects can be killed.

In the Kootenays the proposed Glacier and Howser Creek proposed private power projects have slowed slower than a trickle of maple syrup trying to drain up hill on a frosty night in January. Although it’s still waiting out there, we’re going to push really hard to kill this crummy project, and we’ll talk about it a lot in Nelson.

On the Sunshine Coast an environmental disaster during the construction of a private power plant on Tyson Creek sucked the silt bottom out of a lake and deposited the slurry into prime salmon and trout habitat. Yikes! It’s causing people to be even more determined to stop private power dead in its tracks on the Sunshine Coast, and we’ll be talking about it at the Roberts Creek meeting.

There you have it. The main thing you need to know is… We’re on the road again! Think of us, stuffed in a car, listening to Willie. Hope to see you in a town near where you are. Bye for now.

Joe Foy | National Campaign Director
Wilderness Committee