CdB Forum
CdB Whitewater Paddling Club Discussions => Paddling => Topic started by: Larry W on April 26, 2011, 05:11:33 PM
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Hi
Now why could they not hold this open house during the HOHW weekend?
Larry
Hello!
Xeneca would like to invite you to our upcoming Public Information Meeting for our proposed Big Eddy project at Railroad Rapids on the Petawawa River. We?ve been listening and noting your comments over the last few months and are taking the opportunity to address two major concerns; Recreational Activities and Safety around the proposed project
Please join us on Thursday May 5, 2011 from 4 ? 8 p.m. at the Petawawa Quality Inn & Suites in the Deep River and Pine meeting rooms.
Attached are the notice ads that will run in various local newspapers over the next two weeks.
Please note this will be an open house format, rather than a formal presentation.
The open house format will allow stakeholders to view up-to-date information before speaking with our professional team members.
We hope to see you there!
Vanesa
Vanesa Enskaitis
Public Affairs Liaison
Stakeholder Relations
Xeneca Power Development
5160 Yonge St., Suite 520
Toronto ON, M2N 6L9
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Agreed Larry. We should be thankful they gave notice at all!
Please - anyone who can attend, do so. Every person helps, even if they do not ask questions.
BTW, I will be attending a separate mid-day session they are having with WO. As such, I will have some time in the afternoon to get on the river. Probably only enough for park and play but the levels are great. Let me know if you want to meet up.
Of all the Xeneca projects in Ontario, paddler input to the Pet project has been the most vocal and organized. This is a key meeting for keeping the momentum!
Thanks to Larry for posting.
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I'm planning to go and would like to share a ride or take others in my car.
Let me know.
Bill
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Xeneca is required by the Provincial Environmental Assessment to provide public information sessions. I subscribed to their email notifications.
Xeneca has several PDFs on their website with phrases such as:
We are committed to doing it right...
We want to work with paddlers ...
To me, its all lip service if they taunt the WW community with an open house 2 days before the HOHW events.
WO sent out a survey recently on how paddling folks feel about working with Xeneca. There's a possibility of making another play hole, which would be located up stream of Railway rapids.
I don't trust Xeneca anymore.
Larry
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I'm planning to go and would like to share a ride or take others in my car.
Let me know.
Bill
Hey Bill!
I may consider going too. Lets talk this week.
Annie
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Note that the flows being proposed make a playwave impossible. Even the engineer that Xeneca hired to review this option admitted that.
My view is that releases, as many as feasible to replicate the normal flows of a river is the only potential venue to compensate for the natural flows.
I will circulate data on other releases organized by AWW and in BC prior to the meeting for everyone's information.
My position remains that no dam is better, but I think that we have to start being clear on what actually providing for flows that address recreational use would look like. This will further eat into their margins, and make safety more challenging (since in order to make it acceptable, they won't be able to fence off the whole area.)
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Hi
I driving up after lunch on Thursday. My car isn't full so if you need a ride, let me know.
Bill
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hi
I can't leave until after work ... 4pm ish from Huntclub/Riverside
The format is listed below, I probably only need 5 minutes to read the posters, and 25 minutes to bend some idiot's ear.
Larry
From Save the Petawawa - yah I'm on their email circ list too!!
As advertised in the newspapers recently, Xeneca will hold Public Information Centres (PIC) in the Quality Inn, Petawawa, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the 5th and 31st of May. The PIC on May 5 will concentrate on safety and recreational use. Base on similar PICs for other projects, the format will be a small room with posters om the walls, and the opportunity tro discuss the project one-on-one with Xeneca represenatives. CASP has protested this format, but as usual has been ignored. Nevertheless, it is important that there is a good turnout at these PICs. If it looks like there is little interest, future PICs may be cancelled.
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I am going, but will be going earlier in the day.
For some light reading, I'm attaching their current "proposal", which is no proposal.
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Thanks for providing htis Joanne! Annectodal evidence? Not sure what the kayakers want??? 8AM to 3PM, in the summertime??? The sun doesn't go down t'ill 9PM!!! I hope tha's just their openning bid proposal...
Good luck Thursday!
Paul
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Thanks to everyone who is able to make it out to the meeting. I am sure you all have already considered this, however, I just wanted to make sure... Please, when you speak, make sure they know that you are representing XX number of people in CDB and that it is not just you alone. This might help with numbers.
Larry - where are you leaving from? - Email me and I'll see what I can do.
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Hey Paul,
When you read more closely, those "releases" are only when the river is essentially flooding over the weir anyways. (OK, I'm being a little flippant, but not by much.)
Also, the inflow is determined by what they let out of the reservoir, not what is truly a natural flow, so the outflow = the inflow, not the unobstructed flow.
Yikes.
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Paul,
For interest, I pulled the Environment Canada flow info for the last 2.25 years. Apart from this spring, only offering "scheduled releases" when the river is flowing over 100cms (i.e. when the Xeneca facility is operating over capacity) would have meant NO releases all last year or the year before.
Hmmm...
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That is ridiculous!
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better numbers -
I keep a record of the Petawawa.
We try to run the river between 2.6 and 3.09 on the scitech height gauge = which equate to 5-6 on the old fashion markings on the bridge
Or below 60 cms (discharge) which is a new reading for this year
We have the run that section as low as 4 on the bridge gauge but I don't know the correlation with the online stuff.
Last years HOHW race was held at 40 cms
Larry
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Thanks Joanne and Larry. I've just sent you 2 emails that I've just received from Phillip Compas about tomorrow's meeting in Petawawa.
Good luck tomorrow!
Paul
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I attended the so-called information session. Maybe Bill and Annie were able to get straight answers or maybe I just asked the wrong questions.
The format: sucked
The people wearing name tags were engineering consultants that knew something and could answer some questions. The Project Manager from Xeneca was the only person not wearing a name tag. Go figure.
the good:
If the weir goes in, at least the engineering firm hired on has experience in designing and building whitewater parks.
the bad:
Here's the question I asked: "What is the maximum volume of water that can be diverted down the power duct?"
Answers:
- "not determined yet"
- "I'm not sure"
- "60 cms"
So how does one design and build a system around those answers?
During summer with low river flows, the gates are closed, no power is produced and all the water flows down the natural river bed. In the middle of summer, power consumption is the highest with all the air conditioners operating. So this proposed micro-hydro power plant is useless in its main purpose which is to provide peak power when it is needed most.
So how viable is this hydro dam???
Larry
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Xeneca really paints a rosy picture of their development.
On May 5, 2011 approximately 140 people attended a Public Information meeting to learn about and comment on our Proposed Big Eddy at Railroad Rapids Waterpower on the Petawawa River.
Thank you for being part of that very successful exchange of information and ideas!
Community interest in the Big Eddy project has been greater than all of Xeneca?s 18 other projects combined. The outstanding community response has helped make significant changes to the project?s design and operation plans as well as enhancing our approach to public safety. In fact, comments from the community have led Xeneca to bring on board a fully qualified, independent, third party engineering firm to assess and help develop a safety program for the projects.
Your participation in our May 5 meeting will add to the wealth of information we have about the project site and the potential impacts and benefits the project may bring to your community. To complement the environmental studies completed on the project site, we are also developing a knowledge base of the people who use and enjoy the river - including when and how often they are actively pursuing their interests.
Through this exchange of information we hope to avoid or mitigate any impacts on recreational activities and, where possible, take steps to maintain or even improve the features that are important to the people of Petawawa.
Again, we thank you for your participation and look forward to seeing you at our May 31 Public Information Centre which will be advertised in the coming weeks. In the meantime, please visit our website at www.xeneca.com for information updates, company profile and much more.
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"community interest" and "community response" do not equal community approval nor support.
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Hey Larry,
I have read the technical documents and some of your answers are:
Maximum diverted capacity is 68 cms.
Compensatory flow proposed is 3 cms in the spring and 0.5 cms the rest of the year. So, that nice weir will be dry most of the year (except when flow is over 100 cms). That being said, if they get the half mile project approved, they will be able to build a real reservoir and keep it dry 100 percent of the time outside of negotiated releases.
They have data but chose to not share it. I walked around answering people's questions and watching the Xeneca folks trying to change the subject.
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That 3 cms is certainly well below the volume which makes the section navigable. These consultations with the recreational users are all smoke and mirrors. Consultation should equate to listening to the effected people and users of the river, but apparently Xeneca really wants to meet their goal/objective.
I think it's time to fire of another letter. Just not certain it would have effect on the final approval.
Joanne:
Are these technical documents meant for public consumption?
Are these documents dated before or after the first Public Information session (May 5)?
The previous document was a draft, I printed it off and brought it to the May 5th session. This document was leaked out and the Xeneca people was surprised I had it. The "engineers" were off guard, when I asked about the certain table of 100 cms and 0 cms.
Could you post the technical documents or portions of it to this forum???
Conclusion:
Xeneca wants to de-water that section of the river. That is their goal from the very start and will strive to meet that goal no matter what all the opponents have to say.
Larry
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Hi all,
First a positive development: Both the Big Eddy (railroad rapids) and related Half Mile projects (related project to create a large reservoir upstream) have been kicked up to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency for environmental assessment. This is due to red flags raised on 3 fronts: Habitat for endangered species such as sturgeon, NAVIGATION, and objections raised by the military with regards to the half mile project. I believe that these were raised in relation to safety.
This is a huge success since CEAA's environmental assessment requirements have not been gutted and they will require actual data. Xeneca does not appear to have collected actual data on navigation or habitat as they were instructed to do in the fall. If stakeholders keep up the pressure on data collection, this could kick the review out by a year until next spring seasons (they earliest they can collect navigation and spawning data).
Larry, I just saw your note. This evening, I'll post all the documents that I have. Various people have been using the Access to Information Act to obtain these docs, none of which Xeneca wants released. The most recent is from April 16th.
Keep up the pressure, and attend the May 31st open house. I'll post the data tonight. The one value of the last open house was that Government officials were present and NOT pleased by what they saw, and not pleased with the extent of community concern over the project.
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Email from Xeneca
Web page has the story boards and a FAQ page.
Jim,
June 6, 2011
Just a quick note to update our stakeholders on some Big Eddy and Half Mile project updates.
We have posted a Frequently Asked Questions document on the website as well as the panels that were presented at both the May 5th PIM and the May 31st PIC.
There is also a comment form available online.
Please visit our website at http://www.xeneca.com/home/Latest%20Updates/updates.html to view these updates.
We continue to value your input.
Best regards,
Vanesa
Vanesa Enskaitis
Public Affairs Liaison
Stakeholder Relations
Xeneca Power Development
5160 Yonge St., Suite 520
Toronto ON, M2N 6L9
T: 416-590-9362 X 104
F: 416-590-9955
E: venskaitis@xeneca.com
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hi
The FAQ is attached
The spin doctors are spinning away
Larry
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Xeneca resorted to deception when it thought convenient and necessary to achieve its ends, misrepresenting cameras as belonging to a government ministry without permission from that ministry and then baldly justifying its deception and fraudulent behaviour saying that others are being unethical in the environmental assessment process. As long as Xeneca thinks it can make a profit to be made here this development will be pushed.
What will ultimately play a role in the fate of the Petawawa is multi-factored, but will be impacted in part by the reality that the number one leading development company proposing new dams on rivers accross Northern Ontario is Xeneca. This dam is just one in a matrix of projects on Xeneca's drawing board - all of which are ulimately supposed to return a healthy profit to investors. On most of these rivers Xeneca will have carte blanche, no or little scrutiny and therefore it will be to breeze through the compliance process, its plans "rubber stamped" and that = profit. On the Petawawa, however, it is facing huge opposition and push back at every step. From what I can see, it hasn't gotten buy in from the local government and business. Its actions are being vigilantly monitored and people need to push every level of government and official whose stamp of approval is necessary so as to prevent these fraudsters from circumventing any step in the process before any necessary permits are granted for any work to proceed. By making Xeneca jump every possible hurdle and by continually causing unforeseen contingencies and delays to the project, compliance costs increase exponentially, hopefully far outstripping every other project Xeneca has on the books. If the project becomes a financial "dog" Xeneca will face the wrath of investors who hold the purse strings. The measures necessary to protect spawning sturgeon for example and other necessary remediations to obtain permits must be so high that profitibality of this development is eliminated and therefore its worth to its investors will be nil, in contrast to other projects in which Xeneca is the leading proponent. If this happens in conjunction with Xeneca facing increasingly negative PR over the project such that investors get nervous, then the costs may just be too high.
Xenca will keep pushing and lying as long as they think there is money to be made.
Unlike the Kipawa, where the government itself was the dam proponent and in a conflict of interest, such that its concerns for liability pre-empted its ability to serve the public interest and where the local government in Laniel, Quebec supported the governent project "as is." Here the dynamics are different - a profit-driven private actor is proposing a dam on a pristine natural flowing river and government officials can exercise the role and responsibilities entrusted in them to act in the public interest and to treat the land as something we hold in trust for future generations. It is up to us "the public" to bring the pressure to bear such that they are compelled to fulfil their roles on behalf of the public and not cater to limited short term profit driven goals.
I just wanted to send out a big YEAH! and say how impressed with what Philip, Joanne, Mike and all the unamed activists hugely involved in this defence of the inherent value of undammed Petawawa have done so far. The growth in HOHW over three years is an example of that. Huge kudos, a big thanks to you all and keep up the pressure!