Skip to content

Climate, readers intemperate

As the leaves turn, readers seem to be in ugly moods, perhaps a symptom of what I have always called our intemperate climate: too much cold and wet for too long in April, May, June and most of July, followed by too much too-hot and too-dry for who knows how long.
B02-Scammell-leaves-turn
As the leaves turn...

As the leaves turn, readers seem to be in ugly moods, perhaps a symptom of what I have always called our intemperate climate: too much cold and wet for too long in April, May, June and most of July, followed by too much too-hot and too-dry for who knows how long.

Major concerns are: uncontrolled headwaters clear cutting and its contribution to serious flooding; “fracking,” and its removal of fresh water forever out of the water cycle, lacing it with dangerous chemicals and pumping it just far enough underground, the companies claim, that it will never poison wells, springs, etc.; the new watered down wetlands policy, and pipelines.

The $455,000 review that our government sat on for eight months concluding that our pipeline laws are the best in the nation outrages everyone and raises hopes that an auditor-general’s investigation will get to the real issues around how those laws are complied with and enforced, particularly with regard to water crossings.

In that latter regard, an angler reports seeing, two months after the big flood, a 14-inch sour gas pipeline exposed, with chunks torn out of its protective coating, on the bottom of the Livingstone River right at the mouth of Beaver Creek.

Then, on Aug.25, another reader advises, Plains Midstream felt obliged to respond, “out of concern for public safety, to ‘a report’ of an estimated 25 m segment of a retired section of pipeline being exposed on the southern shore of Gleniffer Reservoir, across from Dickson Dam.”

The new wetlands policy, eight years in gestation, removes the former “no net loss” principle, and is regarded as yet another government sell-out to big energy.

In Alberta, it is only private conservation organizations that conserve-preserve anything, and readers note, cautiously, that, as our government does little to protect precious wetlands, the Nature Conservancy of Canada has recently reached agreement with the Waldron Ranch whereby 12,357 hectares of native grassland will be protected from “development,” which, in Alberta, probably does not include oil and gas destruction.

More readers now than I can ever recall are either flat-out claiming they are fleeing Alberta, or considering their options.

Ron Gietz of Pincher Creek says “I do find myself pining for the good old days prior to … yahoos on ATVs oilfield access roads in every direction, posted land, chronic wasting disease, urban sprawl…. I still see much of what I used to treasure when I travel the back roads of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho….Alberta for me has become a little too prosperous and urbane.”

Less often, now, I am hearing rueful comment such as this, re: my “fracking” column, from reader Perry Miller of Innisfail: “I love nature, plants, bugs, and birds, etc., but I also like my creature comforts, due, in no small part, to oil and gas. Could they be made to extract their water from the Dickson Dam? We seem to have an abundance there these days.”

After worrying about family, friends, and acquaintances stricken by horrendous June floods in places as close to home as Calgary, High River and Canmore, suddenly, in September, I am concerned about two friends and colleagues in remote and remoter corners of Colorado hit by torrential fall rains, floods and mudslides.

In 1999 I fished in our west country and became friends with renowned fly fishing writers A.K Best and John Gierach. Many Albertans faithfully follow them both in their columns in Fly Rod & Reel magazine and in their many books.

John lived in Lyons, Colorado, just across the street from his beloved St. Vrain Creek, which has been so high that the whole town has been evacuated.

Later, John moved to higher ground, up a canyon, I understand, which may have been above flood, but which would probably be at risk of mud slides.

A.K. lives in Boulder, and emails me that his house has suffered some damage in the basement, that Lyons has been cut off from the world, that he has tried in vain to contact John, but “hears” that he has been evacuated.

A.K supplied the title to one of Gierach’s pieces in his book, Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing:

“I’d Fish Anyone’s St. Vrain.” Now nobody will fish it any time soon, which is what really bothers some internet idiots I encountered while trying to find news of John Gierach, one of whom whined that this would have to happen just when the fishing is best up there.

While on the subjects of creature comforts and idiots....

For my maybe half dozen yearly mass market domestic beers, my choice would be Kokanee, generally, their Gold in particular.

Now the most frequent and far ranging — in Alberta — fly fisherman I know shakes my taste by emailing a picture with this caption: “Spent kokanee on the rocks, still #1 for beverage containers I find along creeks.”

Do I really have even a taste kinship with idiotic scumbags who so disrespect our rivers and streams that they can’t even carry out empty what they carried in full?

Bob Scammell is an award-winning columnist who lives in Red Deer. He can be reached at bscam@telusplanet.net.