Rafe Mair responds to Tom Fletcher
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Dear Editor:
Re: Usual suspects in the salmon crisis (B.C. Views, Oct. 28).
Tom Fletcher describes my opposition to salmon farms and run-of-river power projects as “bunk”. I realize that he is a right-winger with a right-wing paper but surely that doesn’t exempt him from telling the whole truth.
Regarding fish farms, does he not know that the run of pinks that was abundant this year passed fallowed fish farms when they migrated as smolts, and that this return confirms Alexandra Morton’s findings? That this was an experiment that proved the point of every private scientist who has examined this issue?
Regarding run-of-river, how can he ignore that fact that the bulk of the private power is to be exported if only because it’s produced when BC Hydro doesn’t need it? How can BC Hydro give take-or-pay contracts with private power companies at double the amount they can sell it for on the export market?
Regarding his earlier description of the Bute Inlet project hearing in Campbell River at which I spoke, how extraordinary of him to object to the word “shit.” Even more extraordinary was his failure to observe that the crowd was angry because they had no opportunity – and indeed had never had – to deal with the “merits” but were confined to the “terms of reference” for an environmental assessment of a project they didn’t want.
Does he have no concern for the environmental havoc private power projects wreak?
Rafe Mair
Lions Bay
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