N.L. ENVIRONMENT MINISTER HAS A TOUGH DECISION TO MAKE

I’m glad I’m not N.L.’S Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

With the looming April 9th deadline for his decision on the controversial WEGH2 wind-to-hydrogen mega project on the southwest coast, Minister Davis finds himself between a rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, his boss in the Premier’s office, his gung-ho provincial cabinet colleagues and federal ministers O’regan and Hutchings all seem determined to push the monster project through, come hell or high water.

On the other, many of Davis’s constituents join the people of the Port au Port Peninsula and Codroy Valley communities, other concerned citizens across the province, and some of his own department’s public servants in telling him this precedent-setting proposal is a disaster waiting to happen. What to do?

It doesn’t have to be either/ or, stop or go. Minister Davis has a third choice – public hearings before an independent review board.

Public hearings are explicitly provided for in N.L.’S Environmental Protection Act “where the minister believes there is a strong public interest” in the proposed undertaking.

There is overwhelming evidence of “strong public interest” in the WEGH2 project and the precedent it will set – for good or ill – as other such wind-to-hydrogen mega-projects follow.

Despite the efforts of the powers that be to make this mega-project look like a done deal, it is not. They may spin the story to their advantage, twist arms behind the scenes, sign questionable agreements with European entities and thumb their noses at our environmental assessment efforts, but we still live in a democracy.

The minister has the power and the duty to make that a reality.

Helen Forsey

St. John’s