What Matters In Our Valley (WMIOV)
See our 2024-04-19 Update at the bottom of this page.
The history of this new radical environmentalist group is nothing short of appalling. It started as a Facebook Group March 11, 2018
At that time the author or admin (same person) Anika Gattiker made it clear that this was not an environmentalist group, but a group that cared about what goes on in the Bulkley Valley. People invite people, as neighborly friendly residents we all are here up north. The membership shot up quite quickly and many topics were discussed in a mostly positive way. The over time, a few months later when they had so many names of influential local citizens, suddenly we started to see two things happen. We saw a lot of posts be a few people against the Telkwa Coal Mine.
This was followed by a lot of locals also supporting the coal mine and saying so in replies, next we saw replies going missing, supporting posts for the mine were going missing, followed by the authors of those posts being booted out. Most of the people had already stopped in Facebook terms called following the arguments, thus remained on as members who are in disagreement. The number of real supporters is much lower than the number shown in the group having used a dirty tactic to look good. I have personally spoken to a few of the members on that list who said if they want to behave this way, it just shows what kind of people they really are.
On November 28, 2019 they started a Facebook Page to promote a website they created. The website was created on 2018-07-20 with and expiry date of 2021-07-20 unless they renew it.
The Group seems to be headed by Anika Gattiker and Nancy Cody.
On their website they claim they started in 2017, but to this day they do not exist as a charitable organization or NGO or as a society, so it amounts to a few people who sit around a table. trying to block a coal mine development in Telkwa. Considering they are not listed as a charitable organization, its questionable if their asking for donations is even legal. There is a remote possibility the new organizations have not yet shown up in goverment lists, however it is a concern that needs to be reckoned with.
There is no listed board of directors, the only other name that comes op for this group is Jay Gildenin a Letter to the Editor where some ridiculous claims are made.
I cannot find anything that shows this gentleman is even living in British Columbia let alone the Bulkley Valley, am I missing something here? If you know he exists, please let me know.
Jay claims
“According to press reports and other information we have gathered, Allegiance is intending to file its application sometime in late 2018. In order to speed the process by avoiding a full environmental review under the Environmental Assessment Act, Allegiance has decided to file this as a Small Mine application under the Mines Act with the objective of beginning operations in 2019.”
BC Mining today has very strict environmental regulations it is not by accident that B.C. has divided mining into two groups, large and small, its not about dodging, its about the legal size of an operation. Jay Gildenin then rants about how Allegiance Coal “Clearly, the proponent’s aims are to mine far more than 240,00 tpa.” Completely NOT saying that they would be in violation of the Environmental Assessment Act and a complaint would have them shut down.
Next the generic fit all excuse to shut down any and everything “The location of the proposed mining project is a highly sensitive one lying as it does near the confluence of the Telkwa and Bulkley Rivers with their large runs of salmon and steelhead. ” This has and was already addressed in very large detail, had he bothered to attend information open houses.
Next an outright lie from Jay, “The proposal also raises serious traffic, noise and air pollution concerns for residents of the village of Telkwa.” The truth is he never read that this was already addressed by Allegiance Coal “The truck driving back and forth each hour will not be going down the entire length of Coalmine Road, instead turning right and driving through one private property and Crown land on its way to the rail line.”
Its only my opinion but me thinks the writer has not bothered to attend information sessions and or has not filed his complaints with the BC Environmental Assessment Office, but rather has chosen to sing it out in the press to avoid having to deal with the facts. The BC Environmental Assessment Office is highly receptive to complaints if they hold water so to speak, so if they ignore people like Jay Gildenin representing a very questionable organization that cannot bother with getting registered I would hardly be surprised.
At stake for our community is a lot of good high paying jobs, the mine is expected to create 40-50 jobs for local people with an additional 110 indirect local jobs. Not to forget the millions that will be generated in taxes to both our provincial and federal goverment.
See our 2024-04-19 Update
We discovered they now have a whole new website, and obviously some lucrative connections willing to fund them. This new website held a number of surprises, both in quality and in people jumping on board with them.
Of note was their advertisement of a fundraiser “Awakening The Skeena” a film made possible by the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
So it should not come as a surprise that new people like Carmen Nikal, April Vokey who is directly linked to Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition next we have Tony Harris directly linked to SkeenaWild Conservation Trust next we have Joe Hug, and a connection to Dan Mesec the former campaign manager for Nathan Cullen. Next we have Curt Gesch who sits on the Bulkley Valley Community Resources Board and contributor to the Bulkley Valley Food Security Forum (a local Nathan Cullen Project) Next we have Len Vanderstar who started another new eco fantic organization called Clean Air Now, plus “Len Vanderstar wrote a letter to town council asking them to “phase out the bright lights of Canadian Tire & Toyota” plus bought property next to Newpro is Smithers and wants them to stop making noise. He is also on the Old Growth bandwagon. His life of work was in forestry, but for the sake of this advertisement he calls himself a resident habitat biologist.