Article by Pamela Fayerman in the Vancouver Sun: Powerlines linked to leukemia in B.C. report

Excerpt: "Government spokesman Jake Jacobs said the government was not influenced by the article [in the BC Medical Journal] when it decided to offer to buy homes along a controversial, upgraded B.C. Hydro right of way in Tsawwassen.

"'The government had already made that decision several months ago,' Jacobs said in an interview. 'The homeowners were offered this olive branch because of the high anxiety and because it was deemed as the reasonable thing to do.'"

Letter to the editor by Heather Colls Wahlberg, published in the Delta Optimist: Buy out offers contrary to province's assurances

Excerpt: "How is it that for four years, when the right-of-way owners and Tsawwassen residents asked to have the lines adequately buried and shielded, the response from the government/BCTC/B.C. Hydro was that this option was too expensive and yet it appears that, in very short order, the Liberal government will easily come up with $70 million (or more) to buy out 138 homes along the right-of-way and pay to move these families from under the lines?"

Article by Rafe Mair on this subject in The Tyee: Gordon Campbell, House Flipper

Article by Brian Lewis in The Province: Desperate politicians often do stupid things

It's about a provincial government buyout of 138 homes in Tsawwassen. Excerpt: "According to Cec Dunn, co-chair of Tsawwassen Residents Against Higher Voltage Overhead Lines, this attempt at mitigation will likely cost taxpayers far more than if Victoria had buried the power line in the first place.

"If, for example, all the homes are purchased at an average of $500,000 each, this would cost you and me about $69 million.

"Dunn says the overhead powerline cost through the neighbourhood was about $7 million, while burying it via horizontal direct-drilling would have added about $25 million.

"So the net additional cost of burying the lines was roughly $18 million ($25 million minus $7 million), compared to spending upwards of $69 million to purchase the homes."

Article by Sandor Gyarmati in the Delta Optimist: Residents rally on first day of school.

Excerpt: "Phil Horan, who has two children attending SDSS, said the project in Tsawwassen is precedent setting. If BCTC is ultimately successful, many other B.C. communities will be bullied into having potentially dangerous higher voltage overhead lines, he said."

Watch Damien's new documentary film, POWERPLAY: Crossing the Lines on the Tsawwassen situation.

The producer of Save Our Rivers' POWERPLAY series appeared recently on Vancouver Co-op radio (http://www.coopradio.org/) to discuss his new video, POWERPLAY: Crossing the Lines on the battle by Tsawwassen mothers to stop the Campbell Government's heinous plan to run potentially cancer-causing high voltage power lines through the backyards of Tsawwassen families and over their lone high school.

Damien was joined by the spokesperson for Mothers Against Power Poles (MAPP), Heather Colls Wahlberg, who detailed their campaign against the lines and the appalling tactics being used against them by their government: spying, intimidation, injunctions, the threat of jail, environmental hazards, and, ultimately, cancer risks for electromagnetic radiation. Listen to the program now; click here for the MP3.

Tsawwassen mothers spoke to media and supporters before defending themselves at the BC Supreme Court against injunctions being sought by the Provincial Government's BC Hydro and BC Transmission Corporation wanting to keep people quiet and push dangerous high voltage overhead power lines even faster than before as mothers and community members are accused of interrupting progress. The mothers say they are "not protesters, but protectors," lawfully standing to guard children and others from radiation resultant from proposed power lines that would run through their backyards and atop their one and only high school. The outcome of the injunction hearing was predictable, with the judge begrudgingly granting yet another injunction in favour of the provincial government to summarily arrest citizens. He did note that the court is not the place to resolve these matters, showing his frustration with the continued use of injunctions to bypass laws. The citizens of Tsawwassen show no sign of backing down from the challenge of protecting their families as they face increasingly deplorable tactics by agents of the government peaking into women's windows and manufacturing evidence including covert and obvious spying on citizens.

Facts:

1. Premier Campbell, as our government, is telling us Vancouver Island needs power. The Island's consumption is shrinking due to the collapse and failure of the logging and pulp industries producing a shrinking electricity need. These new power lines being rushed through Tsawwassen are partially for Van Island, and US consumers in California who are offering power purchase orders that could go to Oregon or Washington.
2. Much like cigarette smoking years ago, there are some reports that deny any correlation between EMF radiation and cancer.
3. Tsawwassen has said it would accept the line being buried using a method called directional drilling at a depth of 3 meters and encased in metal shielding. BC Energy Minister Dick Neufeld rejects it. He is fond of telling the public and media that the citizens of Tsawwassen rejected the option to bury the that he doesn't say is that offer was to bury the lines at 1 m without shielding, which totally defeats the purpose and provides no protection from cancer-causing high voltage radiation.

Please Support the Citizens of Tsawwassen.

Click here to view a film by Damien Gillis (Flash video).

Excerpt: "Tina Ryan, who lives along the right-of-way, launched an official complaint with the B.C. privacy commissioner late last month after discovering BCTC had been monitoring her and other Tsawwassen residents who have been protesting the power lines project."

Story by Catherine Rolfsen in the Vancouver Sun: Delta residents prepared to appeal to Oprah to stop power lines.

Excerpt: "Resident Duncan Holmes expects 'a summer of protest,' saying the action reminds him of the fiery resistance to Eagleridge Bluffs that seized the normally placid West Vancouver in 2006."

Oprah Winfrey site: http://www2.oprah.com/

Excerpt: "The children and the people of Tsawwassen are wearing masks right now because we are afraid of the corona ionization effect, whereby carcinogenic particulates are attracted to the power lines like magnets and people breathe in these carcinogens," said Colls Wahlberg.