Wilderness Committee says claims are false

Re: IPP lobby group attacks COPE 378, Revelstoke Times Review letters to file editor, Oct 29, 2008

Editor,

In his letter Mr. Vickers refers to the Wilderness Committee in the following statement, “They will support run of river if it’s developed by BC Hydro.”

Mr. Vickers’ statement is false.

The Wilderness Committee opposes the BC government’s private hydro power policy because of the massive give away of our streams and rivers and the environmental damage it will surely wreak if allowed to continue.

Most of these so called run of river projects are just plain stupid.  They are now needed, not smart and certainly not green and the Wilderness Committee would oppose them if they were being proposed by BC Hydro or anyone else. 

We do say that the reason we have so many of these projects being shoved down our throats and which will divert our rivers and streams into big pipes, leach our public power system and loot the wallets of BC citizens with rising power bills, is that BC Hydro has been sidelined by Premier Campbell’s government.

Now we have a host of two-bit developers and speculators getting a hold of our rivers, then selling them off to the likes of General Electric and to other multinational power companies waiting in the wings.

That’s got to stop.

Joe Foy

Wilderness Committee National Campaign Director