About 60 protesters, including a moose mascot, gathered in the driving rain Friday for a May Day rally at the entrance to the proposed 500 MW gas/diesel generating plant on the Chignecto Isthmus near Centre Village.

“No gas plant, no gas plant” and “people over profits,” they chanted as they marched along Rte. 940 to protest against NB Power’s proposed 25-year contract with PROENERGY, the big American company that would build and operate the gas plant if New Brunswick’s Energy & Utilities Board gives its approval.

Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton

“So many countries are looking at how to get off of fossil fuels and yet here, there are two proposed gas plants in New Brunswick, one here and one in Lorneville that would help power a data centre,” said Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton to a chorus of boos.

“Yes, that does deserve some booing,” she said with a smile as she thanked residents from several nearby communities including Memramcook, Cap-Acadie and Sackville for joining the local people in Centre Village, Cookville and Midgic in fighting a gas plant that, she said, would affect them all.

Mitton noted that the gas plant is projected to cost at least $3.5 billion.

“It’s going to raise the power rates of everyone in New Brunswick,” she said. “It’s going to cost us a lot and that money is going to flow down to PROENERGY in the United States.

“This does not help our energy security,” she said. “This does not help us with affordability. Solar and wind are the cheapest energy options.

“It is madness that we are not going all in on solar, wind and energy efficiency and that the Holt government is allowing this to go forward.”

Toxic chemicals

U de M chemistry student Hudson Rogers

“I believe this plant is a very, very bad idea,” said Hudson Rogers, a chemistry student from the Université de Moncton.

“I believe we should all be against the gas plant in Tantramar,” he added.

“We learn in so many of our classes of the different contaminants and the different substances that come from natural gas and diesel,” he said, adding that breathing such chemicals can damage people’s lungs.

“This plant will be bad for the birds, it will be bad for human health, bad for the environment and bad for our economy.”

No community involvement

Midgic resident Phyllis Wheaton leading a group of marchers along Rte. 940

Barry Rothfuss, executive director of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute in nearby Cookville, said the community knew nothing about the gas plant project until it was announced last July.

“We were blindsided by it,” he said, “and being blindsided by this kind of project seems to be a pattern that we’re seeing.”

AWI Executive Director Barry Rothfuss

He was referring to the announcement this week that the North Shore Mi’kmaq Tribal Council and the Irish company BNRG Renewables had signed a deal for a 150 MW solar project in Cookville.

“It may be a very good thing,” Rothfuss said.

“But as a community, we were left in the dark. We have no idea of the scope or impact that it’s going to have in addition to what we’re looking at with the gas plant here,” he added.

“We’re finding out about these things after the fact, after contracts have been issued and we have no way of determining or protecting ourselves from the impact of what these things are going to do,” Rothfuss said.

“These are major decisions being made without the community being involved in the process.”

‘Beautiful umbrellas’

Meredith Fisher

Friday’s May Day protest was organized by the Tantramar chapter of Seniors for Climate.

Group member Meredith Fisher says it was meant to show solidarity with the residents who live in a beautiful, ecologically sensitive, farming area.

“It just doesn’t make sense to put something like this gas plant here or anywhere for that matter, and it’s going to create chaos for the people who live here,” she says.

“It’s pouring and pouring and pouring rain and we’re all standing here soaking in this parade of beautiful umbrellas.”