About 130 people attended a public information session at the Sackville United Church on Sunday to hear about opposition to a 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant that the U.S. company PROENERGY wants to build on the Chignecto Isthmus.

“We’re using 20th century technology to fight a 21st century problem,” Beverly Gingras, executive director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB) told the standing-room-only crowd.

CCNB is a member of the Protect the Chignecto Isthmus Coalition which organized the information session.

“This plant is likely going to be out of date in the next few years if you think about how fast renewables are changing and getting better, how fast batteries are changing and getting better,” Gingras said, adding that the 10 noisy jet-engine-turbines at the plant would put immense pressure on wildlife as well as water supplies.

“They are looking to take out seven million litres of  groundwater a day,” she said. “Pretty scary when we’re still in a drought.”

Gingras questioned why NB Power and its partner PROENERGY were not coming to answer community concerns.

“Why isn’t the government coming if they’re so for this?” she asked.

Big numbers

Gregor MacAskill, senior economist, Gardner Pinfold Consultants

Economist Gregor MacAskill predicted that the gas plant would be costly in both financial and environmental terms.

Using publicly available figures, MacAskill said NB Power would pay annual fees to PROENERGY of more than $50 million or $1.25 billion over 25 years, an amount equivalent to $3,400 for every New Brunswick household.

Plus, he said, NB power would pay for the fuel which at today’s prices would amount to $3.5 billion over 25 years or $9,500 per household.

He said the capital cost of grid-scale batteries with the same capacity, such as ones being developed in Ontario and Nova Scotia, would be about $1.2 billion, similar to the capital costs of the gas plant.

But there would be no fuel costs, he said.

“I just think there is a lack of creative thinking. Why not have New Brunswick Power, maybe the Energy & Utilities Board, look at alternatives?” he asked.

Environmental costs

MacAskill went on to cite PROENERGY’s figure for yearly greenhouse gas emissions: 910,800 metric tonnes.

“The federal government has what’s called the social cost of carbon,” he said, “and if I put it in 2025 dollars, it’s about $308 per tonne. It’s really supposed to reflect what we’re paying for the damages of carbon emissions.”

He said that over 25 years, the social cost of carbon would amount to $7 billion or about $19,100 per household and more than 10 times the $650 million that New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the federal government are planning to spend to protect the Chignecto Isthmus from flooding.

“This is going to lock us into future (environmental) costs that we all end up paying,” he said.

“How crazy is that?”

Health effects

Retired family doctor Harold Popma spoke about the gas plant’s potential health effects

Harold Popma, who is a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), spoke about the potential health effects of a fossil-fuel-burning gas plant.

“The World Health Organization has said that global warming is a fundamental threat to human health,” he told the audience.

“They’re calling for the rapid reduction of burning of fossil fuels and a transition to renewable energy,” he said.

“And we know what the threats are to human beings worldwide: the fires. I talked to somebody recently anecdotally about living in an area where you have smoke in the air all the time, inside and outside. Where do you go to avoid the smoke when there’s a forest fire in your neighbourhood?” he asked.

“What about heat domes? Where do you go to get cooled off when it’s 45 degrees in some places around the globe? What about food insecurity? How do we manage poverty, people who have nothing to eat because there’s no crop, there’s no water? Or there’s a flood and there’s so much water that it’s all washed away?”

Popma said the gas that would be burned in the PROENERGY plant is methane that leaks out when it’s fracked and then emits greenhouse gases when it’s burned.

“It’s sort of a double-whammy,” he said. “Forget the word natural, use the F-word,” he added as people laughed.

“Fracked! Fossil! Fuel!” he said to applause. “Pardon my French.”

Popma praised members of the Anti-Shale-Gas Alliance whom he said had done so much to stop fracking in New Brunswick.

To read CAPE’s guide for NB doctors on the health risks of gas plants, click here.

‘No man’s land’

Tantramar Mayor Andrew Black answering questions during the information session

During the question period after the presentations, Tantramar Mayor Black responded to a query about whether the town could deny permits for the gas plant because people here don’t want it.

“No, the municipality would not have to issue any permits,” he said, “and the reason for that is zoning and permitting in former local service districts is a no man’s land. The provincial government has through their (municipal) reform process recognized that land planning had to be reformed as well and they dropped the ball on it and haven’t done anything.”

Black went on to point out that the rural Centre Village site is wide open for development unlike, for example, the Sackville industrial park where the municipality would have a say under the municipal plan and the Planning Act.

“If it got to the point where they could build it, it would go to the province to pass those permits and the municipality would have no say,” he said.

‘False information’

At the same time, Black drew applause when he suggested the gas plant project could be stopped because PROENERGY does not appear to have the Indigenous support they claimed they had when they filed a description of the project with federal and provincial regulators.

“They don’t have partnership with First Nations communities. They have a partnership with the Mi’kmaq North Shore Tribal Council, which two people who have unilaterally made a decision that PROENERGY has First Nation collaboration as an equity partner (and that) is absolutely false information in my opinion.”

Black added that the nine Mi’kmaq Chiefs have expressed serious concerns about the proposed gas plant.

“To me that shows that there’s not support,” he said.

“It’s something that I pushed on PROENERGY. They gave an answer which was not an answer, so I asked them to answer it again and I still haven’t heard anything.”

The mayor went on to say that the provincial minister of energy has the authority to cancel a tender agreement if there is false information in it. He added that First Nations participation was an essential requirement for the project.

“They don’t have it. That’s my opinion and I’m just waiting to hear from PROENERGY that they actually have that and I think with whatever answer they come back with, the next push will be to the minister of energy to say ‘Well, they don’t have it, I, we, are saying that they don’t have it, so we would look to you to pull this [proposal],” he said.

“I don’t think they have it and they have falsified that information really,” Black concluded.