NELSON IN AUGUST OF 2024.
LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD FEBRUARY 18 ECOCENTRIC HERE:
Spearhead timber structure manufacturers on the North Shore near Kokanee Creek is planning a big expansion and a wood lamination facility. Local residents have concerns about possible toxics and watershed disruption. Local architect Austin Hawkins lives right by the Spearhead factory and is paying close attention. He gives us a detailed report.
The crisis in BC’s forest industry – mill closing and job losses – continues. But BC has promised to protect a lot of old growth, and 30% of the whole province in the next five years. Joe Karthein from Save What’s Left comes back with an update on local forestry and clear-cutting and the big picture.
LINKS MENTIONED ON THE SHOW:
Architect Austin Hawkin’s work: at F2A.ca
Spearhead’s impressive builds at Spearhead.ca
The Angry Clean Energy Guy. see Episode 89
Save Whats Left at SaveWhatsLeft.ca
ENVIRONMENTAL EVENTS COMING UP:
Noon Wednesday, Feb 26
West Kootenay Climate Hub Interactive Café
Zoom – registration required
Speakers Jayme Jones (Selkirk Innovates) and Keith McCandless (Liberating Structures) with an interactive discussion on complexity and solutions.
For more info and to register go to WestKootenayClimateHub.ca
Earth Day and Earth Week 2025.
Earth Day April 22
Earth Week April 20-27
Nelson West Kootenay Events
As Earth Day 2025 approaches, the West Kootenay Climate Hub is inviting the community to celebrate the planet by hosting events.
Community-wide events Planned so far:
April 26th Taghum Hall Earth Day Festival
April 27th, Nelson Parade, route TBA.
If your organization has an idea or would like to create an event, reach out to us before January 31st. Contact: EarthWeekNelson@gmail.com
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025. 4 pm PT
Livestream on Vimeo. Registration Required.
Vulnerable Communities and Climate Justice: A Roundtable
You can watch this live event from Toronto with several stellar panelists on Canada dealing with the joint crisis of climate and affordability. Climate change has tremendous impact on vulnerable and low-income communities. Learn now people’s experience of climate change is dictated by their circumstances.
You can register for this panel hosted by the National Observer magazine at:
https://tinyurl.com/p9p43x4y
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SHORTS
Kaslo Village Council has decided to decline a proposal by QP Developments to build a strata RV campsite at the south beach property on the Kaslo River.
This does not mean that council will not consider a new version of the proposal in the future, Mayor Suzan Hewatt told the Nelson Star.
For more than a year the developer and the village have been discussing a land exchange that would have seen the village selling 5.44 acres of road allowances within the South Beach property to the developer, who would in turn sell 1.55 acres of riparian land along the river to the village.
The British Columbia Energy Regulator is toughening oversight of “induced” seismic activity after a series of earthquakes linked to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in northeastern BC.
A seismologist with Natural Resources Canada, John Cassidy, says the regulator has confirmed four quakes last week related to gas industry fracking.
The quakes ranged in magnitude from 3.1 to 4.7, with the most powerful felt in Fort St. John, B.C., about 105 kilometres southeast of the epicentre.
The new regulations require operators in the area to immediately halt operations if they trigger a seismic event of a certain magnitude, over 3 or over 4 depending on location.
Over the last year, there have been five quakes in the range of magnitude 4 within 100 kilometres of the most recent series, as well as 29 quakes of a magnitude of 3 to 3.9 and 74 with a magnitude of 2 to 2.9.
Last month Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana gave Mosquito-Grizzly Bear’s Head-Lean Man First Nation (MGBHLM) in Saskatchewan 11 plains bison from the Yellowstone National Park herd.
It was the first time bison from the Yellowstone herd were going to Canada.
Jonny Bearcub-Stiffarm who helped make the move saidk “Our old prophecies say that when the buffalo returns, our people will become strong once again,”
A study in the UK has found that water chlorination levels in US and EU likely increase cancer risk. Bladder cancer risk increased 33% and colorectal cancer by 15% in using chlorine to disinfect water.
While the chlorination process is a “cheap, effective, and readily available” method for killing organisms and infectious disease, it comes with trade-offs, the study’s authors wrote, including a 33% increased risk of bladder cancer and 15% increased risk of colorectal cancer.
he US and EU set limits on byproducts at 80 parts per billion (ppb) and 100ppb, respectively, but the new research points to increased cancer risks at levels as low as 40ppb.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/17/water-chlorination-cancer-risk-us-eu
About 90% of water samples taken over the last 10 years from the Great Lakes contain microplastic levels that are unsafe for wildlife, a new peer-reviewed paper from the University of Toronto says.
About 20% of those samples are at the highest level of risk, but the study’s authors say the damage can be reversed if the US and Canada act.
The Great Lakes provide drinking water to over 40 million people in the US and Canada, hold about 90% of the US’s freshwater, and are home to 3,500 species of plants and animals.
Extreme weather events are expected to lead to volatile food prices throughout 2025, supply chain analysts have said, after cocoa and coffee prices more than doubled over the past year.
In an apparent confirmation of warnings that climate breakdown could lead to food shortages, research by the consultancy Inverto found steep rises in the prices of a number of food commodities in the year to January that correlated with unexpected weather.
Longest running Enviro News show on the Radio! 