Not a good day for opponents

No matter which side you’re on in this debate, it’s not a good day for local environmentalists on two fronts. An appeal filed by the Shuswap Thompson Organic Producers Association against Domtar has been disqualified.

MOE issued a permit to Domtar for a new emissions system and the Environmental Appeal Board has ruled the STOPA appeal defective.

It not only kills hopes of getting the Domtar permit withdrawn or revised, but brings into serious doubt chances for an appeal against the Aboriginal Cogeneration gasfication plant.

Several of the reasons cited by the Environmental Appeal Board for not allowing the Domtar appeal to proceed are similar to those cited in a letter to the board from the provincial government’s legal services branch.

Legal services asks the appeal board to disallow an appeal by Ruth Madsen against ACC on grounds that she does not qualify as an “aggrieved person,” just as STOPA has been ruled not to qualify as an “aggrieved person” in the Domtar situation.

It’s hard to imagine the Board allowing one to go ahead after rejecting another on those same grounds.

Meanwhile, MP Cathy McLeod has hit a dead end in efforts to force an environmental assessment of the ACC plan via the Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund. Then, of course, there was that forceful defence by Environment Minister Barry Penner in the Legislature yesterday of granting the permit for ACC.

All of which is reported in today’s Kamloops Daily News.

Question now is whether MLAs Lake and Krueger will plod onward with trying to throw a spanner into ACC’s plans by withholding ICE funding. All in all, not good news for opponents, but we’ll see what happens at tonight’s chamber of commerce forum at TRU Grand Hall, 7 p.m.