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QC Management Committee supports energy initiative

The Queen Charlotte Management Committee has agreed to support the creation of a community energy planning steering committee.
Jacques Morin of the Sierra Club of Haida Gwaii met last Wednesday with the management committee to explain his plan to seek funding for a two-year planning process to address energy issues on the islands, and the committee made a motion to support in principle his initiative.
Mr. Morin told the committee that the Sierra Club and the Pembina Institute are seeking about $100,000 in federal and provincial government funding to pay for the study of sustainable energy alternatives on the islands.
Already, several initiatives including a wood-powered power plant in Queen Charlotte, and a wind-power study by Uniterre have begun on the islands. Mr. Morin hopes to pull together all stakeholders to create an islands wide energy plan that will decrease both the cost and environmental impact of energy production on the islands.
Mr. Morin pointed out that islanders' energy production is subsidized by as much as 76 percent and produces substantial greenhouse gas emissions. With the federal government's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol and the provincial government's plan to make people pay closer to the true cost of power generation, the islands will be facing pressure to produce cleaner, cheaper energy in the future.
Mr. Morin has already received support from Masset council, after writing a letter about his initiative.