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Hi Any thoughts on this release appreciated. Mark Butler For Immediate Release 11 August, 1999 Ecology Action Centre Resigns over Turbo-Charged Offshore Bidding Process (Halifax, Nova Scotia) The Ecology Action Centre has reluctantly resigned from the Environmental Coordinating Committee of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board in protest over the process used to issue exploration licences to oil companies. The Centre is calling on the federal and Nova Scotian governments to halt the nomination of new areas and issuance of exploration licences until the process is changed. At present oil companies nominate, in confidence, offshore areas to the Petroleum Board. The Board then issues a call for bids for the offshore areas nominated by the oil companies. The companies willing to spend the most dollars on exploration work win the bids and are granted exploration licences. Says Mark Butler, Marine Coordinator at EAC, "there is no warning as to which parts of the ocean are going to be put up for bid and once they are up for bid there is no formal opportunity for public input. The coast off Peggys Cove or the lobster grounds off Yarmouth could be nominated and exploration licences issued without any formal public consultation." Most of the licences the Board has issued have been for areas far from the coast, but recently it granted two licences for areas along the coast of Cape Breton. In both cases, local fishermen simply woke up one morning to hear on the radio that oil companies were bidding on their fishing grounds. In the case of the licence in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence fishermen have asked that the licence be revoked. There is widespread agreement amongst environmental groups and the fishing industry that two fundamental changes must be made to the bidding process: 1)ecologically sensitive areas, such as nursery and spawning grounds, should be identified and excluded from the nomination process; and 2)the public, including marine scientists, the fishing industry, the tourism industry, and environmentalists, should have a formal opportunity to intervene in the nomination and bidding process. ...2 Norway, an oil producing nation, has taken a different approach to offshore oil and gas development. Where Canadian legislatures have declared all areas open to petroleum activity(subject to regulatory processes) unless specially closed, Norway's Parliament has delared all areas closed until it chooses to open them to petroleum development. Canada should consider a similar approach. The Ecology Action Centre has been a member of the Environmental Coordinating Committee for more than a year and a half during which time it has always found Board staff to be helpful and professional. The Board is aware that many organizations, including the EAC, are concerned about the bidding process. The EAC felt it could not continue to sit as a member of the Committee because of the serious flaws in the bidding process and the urgency with which those flaws need to be addressed. The Centre believes that the most critical question in offshore petroleum development is whether or not an area is going to be opened up to exploration. Once an exploration licence has been granted, and as long as commercial quantities of petroleum are discovered, production will inevitably proceed with all its associated impacts. There is an urgent need to change the process now, not in two years, by which time most of the geologically attractive areas will already be under licence. Calls for bids and results of calls for bids are issued every six months and the next round will occur in October. Charts issued by the Petroleum Board increasingly look like they have been attacked by an energetic four year old with a big pack of crayons. In its letter to the Board the EAC also cited other reasons for its resignation. -30- The Gulf of Nova Scotia Bonafide Fishermens Association and the Ecology Action Centre will be setting up a display in front of the downtown branch of the Halifax Library today and tomorrow. Please drop by and look at the charts of offshore Nova Scotia. For more information drop by or call EAC at 429-2202. -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*- You received this because you are subscribed to "sust-mar", the Sustainable Maritimes mailing list. To unsubscribe, send email to <majordomo@chebucto.ns.ca> with "unsubscribe sust-mar" (without quotes) as the body of your message. To post a message to sust-mar subscribers, send it to <sust-mar@chebucto.ns.ca> Posts that are off-topic or excessive length (10K) will be rejected. For help contact <sust-mar-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>
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