[溫哥華本地新聞] Some in Old Masset had concerns over iron-dumping scheme first, designed, generate, credit, stream

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Some in Old Masset had concerns over iron-dumping scheme

Ocean project not community’s first carbon credit initiative
A controversial $2.5-million iron-dumping project in the ocean off Haida Gwaii is not the first scheme considered by the Village of Old Massett designed to get payback from global credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A $4.5-million project in 2006 proposed cutting alder trees along stream beds in logged areas and replacing them with fast-growing evergreens to generate cash from carbon credits. The project was abandoned because it did not satisfy criteria for accepted carbon credit practices, according to a report by the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development.
The latest iron-dumping scheme — which involves controversial carbon project developer Russ George — also shows little chance of payback.
Haida elder Gloria Tauber calls the iron-dumping project a failed get-rich-quick scheme.
She said she lobbied the village council, the Haida Nation and her MLA to consider the environmental risks of dumping iron into open water, but couldn’t stop it.
“People have to be punished for letting greed overtake common sense. Especially when it’s money for nothing,” said Tauber.
“Restoring the salmon was not the priority, It was selling off of carbon credits to rich European industries,” she added.
Tauber plans to attend a meeting in Old Masset Tuesday night about the project, which has attracted negative international attention.
Former Village of Old Masset councillor Lisa White also had concerns when the project was brought to council in early 2011.
“I myself am not a risk-taker, so I wasn’t really in support of it,” said White, whose term ended in December 2011.
She said she voted against the proposal to dump 100 tonnes of iron sulphate and 20 tonnes of iron oxide in the international waters off the coast of Haida Gwaii to feed plankton in a supposed effort to grow the number and size of salmon that would potentially return to the area.
White said the hope was for some kind of carbon credit sale to recoup the $2.5 million.
While the first nation had no expertise in this area, White said they were assured by the Old Massett economic development officer John Disney, who was heading the project, all regulations would be followed and due diligence carried out on the carbon credits. “I remember him saying that. All the legalities, everything would be looked into, made sure,” she said.
However, Howie Chong, the Toronto-based founder of offsetting firm Carbonzero, said there is no market for using plankton blooms in carbon credits.
Another former village councillor, Judy Williams, had voted in favour of the iron-dumping project in 2011 and remains supportive.
She said she believes Disney did his homework.
However, Williams said she does not have any knowledge of how the money was going to be paid back. She said she may have missed the meeting where that topic was discussed.
Documents obtained by the conservation group Living Oceans Society show that a $2.5-million loan from the Northern Savings Credit Union is secured by term deposits held by the Village of Old Massett ($500,000) and the Gwaii Trust Society ($2 million).
The trust money comes from a parity fund that was set up to ensure first nation communities on Haida Gwaii share equally in the proceeds of the trust.
As long as a band council votes in favour of a project and it has the support of the community, the trust hands over the money, said Gwaii Trust Society executive director Errol Winter.
The Gwaii trust was seeded by $38 million in federal government money in 1995 as part of a settlement that ended logging protests on Lyell Island.

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The trust has paid out $50 million and grown to $66 million, said Winter.

Disney said Monday he was no longer talking to media after a barrage of criticism was levelled at him and the project. “This is a small first nations community. We’ve had our integrity and character assassinated at the world stage,” he said in a brief phone interview.

Disney earlier said the project does not violate any Canadian laws or international conventions, and is primarily a research project.

Disney also spearheaded the failed 2006 plan to cut alders and harvest carbon credits.

It is not clear if the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp., the company established by Old Massett to run the project, ever found a partner to sell the hypothetical carbon credits.

The documents obtained by Living Oceans refer to Switzerland-based Schoppmann as the company identified by the proponents to handle the sale of carbon offsets from the iron-dumping project. But Schoppmann is best known for real estate, aviation, and a food import-export business. Nowhere on Schoppmann’s website does it list carbon offsets as part of its business.

In B.C., the Crown corporation Pacific Carbon Trust turned the iron dumping project down last June, said spokeswoman Hope Hickli.

B.C. has no protocols for plankton bloom projects, and the Trust only buys offsets once they have been verified by a third party, she said.

No scientific studies have shown that algae or plankton blooms from ocean fertilization using iron create a carbon sink, according to Ken Denman, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of Victoria who studies how marine life interacts with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

There’s no way to verify this type of experiment would remove carbon for decades, he said.


Old Massett Village economic development officer John Disney looks over the under water probe used during their ocean fertilization project during a news conference in Vancouver last week.