JESSE ROGERSON (read by MARTIN WALDMAN): In Durham, controversy is swirling around a proposed garbage incinerator that would cost $260 million to construct. The chair of the region, Roger Anderson, has the ability to authorize the contract with Covanta Energy Corporation, before city councillors have the chance to look at the proposal and discuss it. It is expected that the council would drastically change or even cancel the program, leaving Anderson in a sticky situation. Now being cast as an ‘energy-from-waste’ program, the incinerator will burn 140 000 tonnes of trash per year creating energy for the community in the process. Skeptics view the incinerator as a bigger environmental problem than the current landfill paradigm, warning it will have heavy impacts on air quality, water quality, and a possible tax increase. The proposal will go before the city council on Dec. 8th, should Anderson not sign off on it before then. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING (read by VANESSA PURDY): A long-awaited hydroelectric project in Labrador will finally get underway. Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador and Premier Darrell Dexter of Nova Scotia announced an agreement to construct a generating station at Muskrat Falls on the lower Churchill river.

Development of the lower Churchill has been planned for decades, but the difficulty in getting the electricity from Labrador to hungry markets in Ontario, New Brunswick, and the northeastern U.S. has held up progress. Last May, Quebec rejected a plan to send the electricity through its lines, arguing the upgrades that would be required are too expensive. The new plan will see undersea cables laid from Labrador to Newfoundland, and from there to Nova Scotia. The new station and cables together will cost $6.2 billion dollars, which will be paid by Nalcor and Emera, the state power companies of the two provinces. The premiers have also asked for $375 million from a federal clean energy fund. When finished, the project will generate 800 megawatts of electricity, enough to power approximately 500,000 homes. [ index ]

JESSE ROGERSON (read by MARTIN WALDMAN): In a new documentary, Harmony, discussing the importance of groups working together is praising the innovation and hard work of Canada in creating and practicing sustainable logging efforts throughout British Columbia. The documentary focuses specifically on the Great Bear Rainforest agreement. Established in 2006, the agreement was struck between government, conservationists, loggers, and first nations to begin protecting large sections of the Pacific temperate rain forest stretching along the coast of BC. Both the federal and provincial governments have allocated $30 million to the project, which is currently half way through its goals set out at its inception. Notably, the Great Bear Rainforest agreement has recently missed an important deadline that would outline and implement an ecosystem-based management system, and is now expected to be completed in 2014. Successes of the program already have made few critics of this missed deadline, however, conservation groups will continue to pressure the governments to keep their promise. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING (read by VANESSA PURDY): A three-sided tailings pond about 70 km Northwest of Fort McMurray was at the centre of controversy this week. On Monday, CBC news published a story and some photographs that appeared to show the pond was seeping into the surrounding muskeg.

The pond was built 6 years ago by Canada Natural Resources Ltd. It was approved by the provincial government of the day. Although it has man-made barriers on three sides, it relies on a natural slope of clay to contain tailings to the west. Hunters from the nearby Fort McKay First Nation are concerned that animals can walk in and out of the pond, and that the toxic tailings will enter the food chain.

The story prompted immediate inspections by both the federal and Alberta environment ministries. Both teams reported that the pond is operating as designed, and that any water nearby is flowing into the pond, not out of it. Nevertheless, locals still worry that burrowing animals or tree roots may cause the toxins to leak into groundwater. Regular inspections of the pond will continue throughout its operation. [ index ]

JESSE ROGERSON (read by MARTIN WALDMAN): A new study conducted by the Living Oceans Society has found that 99 percent of the protected marine areas along Canada’s Pacific coast are still being actively fished. Roughly half of these protected areas are rated ‘strictly prohibited’ by the government of Canada. The protected regions provide safe waters for many species of fish to regenerate their populations. With this new finding, Living Oceans Society is not convinced the populations of these fish will be helped at all.

The study recommends the Canadian government must ensure that the proper regulations and management are present at all designated protected areas be in place, both new and existing. The study highlights that Canada has made an international commitment to build a network of marine protected areas by 2012, and has a responsibility to honour that commitment. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING (read by VANESSA PURDY):&nbspAfter winding its way through the halls of parliament for 18 months, bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act, died a sudden death this week in the Senate.

The act would have required the federal government to bring greenhouse gas emissions 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. These targets are much more ambitious than those currently in place, but they are consistent with recommendations by the UN. The bill was introduced in February 2009 by NDP MP Bruce Hyer, and last May passed the House of Commons with support from all three opposition parties.

On Tuesday, a snap vote was called in the Senate on whether or not to give the bill a second reading. Enough Liberal senators were absent to cause the motion to fail, killing the bill outright. While the move was legal under the rules of the senate, NDP leader Jack Layton loudly decried it as “undemocratic” and “as wrong as it gets” during Wednesday’s question period. The bill’s death comes mere weeks before a scheduled UN meeting on climate change in Cancun, Mexico. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE (read by VANESSA PURDY): The Philadelphia Eagles football team announced yesterday a plan to retrofit their stadium to make it completely self-powered. Team owner Jeff Lurie announced a partnership with renewable energy company SolarBlue to install a number of renewable power generators in the stadium. SolarBlue will install a biodiesel generator, 2,500 solar panels, and a ring of wind turbines that will surround the rim of the stadium. The proposed system would generate 1 billion kilowatt hours each year, enough to power the stadium and to produce excess electricity which would be sold to the Philadelphia power grid. The plan aims to make the Philadelphia Eagles the ‘greenest’ professional sports team in the world, and comes on the heels of an announcement by the New York Jets that they would power their training facility with solar panels. Speaking at the press conference, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expressed hope that it would be the beginning of a wider trend among football teams. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE (read by VANESSA PURDY): The first ever summit on tiger conservation will be meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia in two days. The summit, hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, will be a meeting of Presidents and Prime Ministers from 12 Asian countries that harbour populations of wild tigers. Asian tigers are severely endangered and it is estimated that Asian tigers have dwindled to around 3,000 individuals from over 100,000 a century ago. Tigers are threatened by habitat loss as well as poaching to supply the black market for tiger parts, where a whole tiger can fetch up to $50,000. The summit will seek to develop and implement conservation strategies to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, which happens to be the year of the tiger in the Chinese Zodiac. The conference will last four days, by which it will be seen whether or not the 12 participating nations can co-operate to stave off the tiger’s extinction. [ index ]

JESSE ROGERSON (read by MARTIN WALDMAN): Alberta’s Bill 24 on carbon capture is currently in its second reading, but is already causing controversy. The bill was proposed by Energy Minister Ron Liepert and is expected to help kick start cleaner energy.

Carbon capture aims to catch an industry’s produced carbon before it is released into the atmosphere. The carbon is liquefied and then forced into porous rock deep underground. While advocates of the process believe this is the quickest way to curb greenhouse gases, critics say the technology has not been shown to be safe for use. The stored carbon may leak into ground water supplies or escape to the surface and become noxious. The proposed Bill 24 says that the private companies will be responsible for any possible environmental or physical hazard, and the government will only take liability if the private sector is able to show that the carbon they have stored is safe.

Alberta has already committed $2 billion over four projects to begin carbon capture, but none are expected to begin operations for another four years. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING (read by VANESSA PURDY): Taseko Mines CEO Russell Hallbauer is not giving up on the Prosperity Mine project, despite strong environmental objections.

The proposed copper-and-gold mine near Williams Lake, British Columbia would have provided 700 jobs to the economically troubled region. However, last week it was rejected by the federal Conservative government due to the impact it would have on the environment. An environmental assessment completed last summer stated that the project would have significant adverse environmental effects on fish, fish habitat, navigation, and cultural heritage in the region. The mine would have drained nearby Fish Lake for use as a tailings pond.

In an open letter published in many Canadian newspapers, Hallbauer said that Taseko plans to submit a new proposal after carefully studying the reasons Ottawa rejected its original plan. He also stated that the company agrees the project should be done with the highest regard to the environment, and will do everything it can to address the federal government’s concerns. [ index ]

JESSE ROGERSON (read by MARTIN WALDMAN): A recent study in the Public Library of Science is suggesting that there are tough times ahead for the polar bear. The diet of the polar bear consists entirely of seals, a species endangered by the current global warming. If the current trends of warming continue, the number of seal will not support the polar bear, and they will be forced to find food elsewhere. A further complication is that as the Earth warms, the brown bear will advance further northward. The brown bear is equipped naturally with the ability to eat many different kinds of animals and also eat vegetation. The added competition with a new bear species in the area, coupled with the possible depletion of the main food supply, will put large amounts of stress on the polar bear population. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING (read by VANESSA PURDY): A new study released this week provided further evidence of the link between fish farms off the coast of British Columbia and sea lice infection among wild salmon.

The study was conducted by researchers from Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria, and the Salmon Coast Field Station in the Broughton Archipelago. The authors sampled juvenile salmon from British Colombia and found that those which passed by open net fish farms had sea lice infection rates of up to 40%. By contrast, those that did not pass by fish farms had much lower infection rates of only 5%.

Lead author John Reynolds of Simon Fraser University stated that the study points to the importance of moving open net fish farms away from wild salmon migration routes, ideally onto land-based containment systems. The study was published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. [ index ]

JESSE ROGERSON (read by MARTIN WALDMAN): In June approximately 400 litres of oil used for heating leaked out from a tank behind a music store in Charlottetown, PEI. In the process of cleaning up the spill, the Environmental Department found that there would be possible damage of neighboring property. Some were upset that the clean up would damage their property, so they refused to allow the workers to clean up. On Wednesday, Justice Benjamin Taylor ordered the contamination to be removed, citing the environmental concern is more important than property concerns. Clean up will begin as early as the end of the week. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING (read by VANESSA PURDY): The government of Newfoundland and Labrador is taking strong measures to curb caribou hunting, after a recent census shows that the herd’s population has been decimated in recent years.

As recently as 1993, there were over 770,000 caribou in Labrador’s Grand River herd. Today, the population is less than a tenth of that; about 74,000 animals. In response, the provincial government has cancelled the commercial hunt, as well as preventing non-residents from going on guided hunting expeditions. Licensed hunters will be restricted from the usual two animals per season to just one. The restrictions do not apply to aboriginal hunters, whose hunting rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Both the Northwest Territories and the Yukon have imposed emergency hunting bans on caribou this year. At an international conference held in Winnipeg in October, aboriginal leaders raised concerns about the impact that shrinking caribou numbers will have on those people who rely on the herds for food. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: Some of Great Britain’s top chefs from the nation’s most expensive restaurants are throwing their support behind the ‘Sustainable Livestock Bill’ which is now before the British Parliament. A large part of livestock feed in Britain comes from South American soybeans, and the growing of soybeans involves the destruction of rainforest to make way for soy fields. The bill would encourage the British agriculture industry to feed their livestock with locally grown feed to reduce rainforest depletion and to cut down on the fossil fuels costs of importing feed from far away. Other proposals include adding additional information to food packaging to give consumers with a green conscience greater choice. The bill is opposed by the National Famer’s Union who feel that such changes should be led by the industry, and that legislation, though well-meaning, would not be pragmatic. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: American company General Electric has announced that it will buy 25,000 electric vehicles by 2015. GE will use the vehicles in its corporate fleet, beginning with the purchase of 12,000 Chevrolet Volts over the next few years. Given the success of Toyota’s gas-electric hybrid cars, a number of car companies are trying to move into electric cars to tap into the growing number of consumers concerned about fossil fuels. However, one initial hurdle in the wider adoption of electric vehicles is their high cost. GE hopes that by purchasing such a large number of electric vehicles, it will drive down manufacturing costs and promote the adoption of electric cars by others. GE’s motives for pushing the electric car aren’t totally altruistic, however, as the company manufactures electric charging stations and hopes to profit from the proliferation of electric cars. [ index ]

BRYANT BOULIANNE: Like humans, whales suffer from sunburn, according to researchers at the University of London. They studied whales in the Gulf of California by analyzing images of whales’ skin and by taking skin samples. They found that whales developed sunburn-like blisters on their skin, and that blisters were more severe on whales with paler skin colours. Since whales have no fur to protect their skin, and since they need to surface in order to breathe and nurse, they are especially vulnerable to the sun’s rays. Worryingly, the team found that incidences of sunburn on whales in the area seems to be increasing. They propose that this could be due to ozone depletion or to decreased cloud cover in the area during summer months. The scientists also warn that increases in UV radiation could have negative effects on other wildlife with exposed skin such as amphibians. [ index ]