India to get electric air taxis in 2026 via InterGlobe, Archer venture

Story by By Chris Thomas • 1d


FILE PHOTO: Midnight, an all-electric aircraft from company Archer Aviation, is seen at the Salinas Municipal Airport in Salinas, California, U.S. August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo© Thomson Reuters


BENGALURU (Reuters) - InterGlobe Enterprises, which backs India's top airline IndiGo, and U.S.-based Archer Aviation will launch an all-electric air taxi service in India in 2026 that will be "cost-competitive" with on-road services, the companies said Thursday.



FILE PHOTO: Midnight, an all-electric aircraft from company Archer Aviation, is seen at the Salinas Municipal Airport in Salinas, California, U.S. August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo© Thomson Reuters

The partnership, should they get regulatory clearances, aims to capitalise on a growing need for transport solutions in the world's most populous country that is battling severe ground travel congestion and pollution in its main cities.



FILE PHOTO: Midnight, an all-electric aircraft from company Archer Aviation, is seen at the Salinas Municipal Airport in Salinas, California, U.S. August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo© Thomson Reuters

Archer Aviation, backed by the likes of Chrysler-parent Stellantis, Boeing and United Airlines, makes electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that have been touted as the future of urban air mobility.

These 'Midnight' e-aircraft can carry four passengers and a pilot for up to 100 miles (roughly 161 kilometers). The service aims to start with 200 aircraft and begin in Delhi, the national capital, Mumbai, the country's financial capital, and Bengaluru, known as India's Silicon Valley.

The companies said that a trip that typically takes 60 to 90 minutes by car in Delhi, for example, will take about 7 minutes in an air taxi.

InterGlobe Enterprises, which owns nearly 38% of IndiGo-parent InterGlobe Aviation as well as hospitality and logistics businesses, also plans to use the e-aircraft for cargo, logistics, medical, emergency and charter services.



FILE PHOTO: Midnight, an all-electric aircraft from company Archer Aviation, is seen at the Salinas Municipal Airport in Salinas, California, U.S. August 2, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo© Thomson Reuters

Archer secured a $142 million-deal from the U.S. Air Force in July to provide six Midnight aircraft and said in October it would launch an air taxi service in the UAE.

Archer Aviation's shares were up 1.5% in U.S. premarket trading on Thursday, while InterGlobe Aviation's closed up 0.12% ahead of the news.

(Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)

GM's Cruise slashes contractor roles after driverless car suspension

Story by Hayden Field  • 1d

• Cruise announced a round of layoffs Thursday affecting contract workers who worked on its driverless ridehailing service, CNBC has learned.
• The cuts included those who help with cleaning vehicles, fleet charging and fielding customer support inquiries.
• "Cruise has made the difficult decision to reduce a portion of the contingent workforce that supported driverless ridehail operations," a company spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.

Kyle Vogt, chief executive office and chief technology officer of Cruise Automation Inc., during the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, US, on Tuesday, March 14, 2023. © Provided by CNBC

Cruise announced a round of layoffs Thursday affecting contract workers who worked on its driverless ridehailing service, CNBC has learned. The cuts included those who help with cleaning vehicles, fleet charging and fielding customer support inquiries.

The company declined to share a specific number.

"Cruise has made the difficult decision to reduce a portion of the contingent workforce that supported driverless ridehail operations," a company spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. "These contingent workers were responsible for work such as cleaning, charging and maintaining the fleet, and we're grateful for their contributions." 

Cruise told CNBC that the layoffs are reflective of its current supervised driving operations, adding that the company plans to resume driverless service but that it does not have a specific timeline to share.

The news follows a barrage of safety concerns and incidents since Cruise, owned by General Motors, received approval in August for round-the-clock robotaxi service in San Francisco. This week, Cruise announced it would recall 950 robotaxis after a pedestrian collision. In October, the California Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday suspended Cruise's deployment and testing permits for its autonomous vehicles, effective immediately.

"When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits," the California DMV said in a statement.

In GM's third-quarter earnings update, the company said it had lost roughly $1.9 billion on Cruise through September of this year.

The DMV suspension came a week after federal auto safety regulators announced they were investigating Cruise following pedestrian injuries. The probe, spearheaded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was prompted by multiple reports involving pedestrian injuries and Cruise vehicles in recent months, and it concerns an estimated 594 self-driving Cruise vehicles, according to the filing.

BIDEN'S SECRET SAUCE 2024

Gun control advocates give political candidates a boost in races with special program

1d

ABC News
Everytown’s program infiltrates politics, bringing gun legislation to forefront

Duration 9:34  View on Watch

As gun violence continues to be a major flash point around the country, one of the nation's largest gun control advocacy groups has been pushing a program to get people who have been affected by a shooting to get involved with politics.

Everytown for Gun Safety started its Demand a Seat program in 2021 to train and assist grassroots volunteers and gun violence survivors running for office or interested in running campaigns.

The program is funded with over $1.5 million in investments and has had volunteers in every state, according to Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, an Everytown division.



Gun control advocacy groups rally with Democratic members of Congress outside the U.S. Capitol on May 26, 2022 in Washington, DC.© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

"It doesn't matter if it's Democratic or Republican gun owners. I talked to so many people and they're just tired of this," Ferrell-Zabala told ABC News.

The program hosts several training sessions for volunteers and potential candidates on several topics including recruiting volunteers, communicating with voters, and discussing gun violence during their campaign.

MORE: America has a gun violence problem. What do we do about it?

At a Demand a Seat event, Colorado State Sen. Tom Sullivan spoke with candidates and volunteers about the importance of bringing their activism to the bigger political stage.

Sullivan said he knows too well the horrors of gun violence as his son Alex was murdered in the 2012 mass shooting in Aurora after the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" at a movie theater. He began joining groups and events calling for more gun control and was elected first to the Colorado House of Representatives in 2020 and later to the Senate.

"We need their voices not to just talk about what's happening to them, but talk about the impact to their friends," Sullivan said.

"I think that any type of long term political change has to start at the local level," said Andres Cubillos, a participant in the Demand a Seat program who volunteers at Florida State University's chapter of Students Demand Action.

"A lot of our legislators, they're not part of the school shooting generation. They don't know what it's like to do an active school shooting drill. They don't know what it's like to see their classmates murdered," he added. "It's important for us to be a part of that process, to demand that seat."

Ferrell-Zabala said last year, 158 out of 275 Demand a Seat candidates won their races for office, and the non-profit is looking to have similar successes this year.



Voters cast their ballots at a polling station in Midlothian, Va., Nov. 7, 2023.© Steve Helber/AP

Some candidates who are part of Everytown's program said they too want to do more through local politics

Shantell Rock, who ran for a seat on the Woodbridge, Virginia, school board, told ABC News Live that she and her family have been affected by gun violence directly.

Rock lost the election on Tuesday with 21.91% of the vote, according to election results.


Rock said she is a domestic abuse survivor and there was a recent drive-by shooting at her foster children's high school.

"It's just every day, it's becoming a normal thing for this to happen in our school system. So that's why I decided to run," she said.

MORE: 6 election night takeaways: Democrats win big, but GOP holds Mississippi

Rock noted that she is also a military veteran and doesn't have a problem with individuals owning firearms.

"My problem is these kids can get a hold of it," she said.

Demand a Seat participant Rozia Henson Jr., a Democrat who won Tuesday in a race for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, told ABC News Live that gun control has always been a major issue in his political career.

He said he is inspired by the youth volunteer efforts and said that more voices in office that call for gun control will lead to less violence.


Rozia Henson Jr and Shantell Rock took part in this year's Everytown for Gun Safety's "Demand a Seat" program.© ABC News

"They're going to look at me…and say, 'Hey, what difference did you make while you're in these offices?' And we have to have that response," Henson said.

MORE: Virginia 2023 election results: Dems projected to flip General Assembly, in Youngkin defeat

Ferrell-Zabala said that Everytown is ready to help more people who are passionate about gun control solutions into office and are open to others signing up for any help they can provide.

"We're really excited about the success of the program, really demonstrating that people want to take into their own hands and really solve this problem," she told ABC News Live.

UNBC project advancing marine oil spill technology

Story by The Canadian Press  • 21h

UNBC engineering professor Jianbing Li has begun a project to develop next-generation marine oil spill technology, which focuses on oil and water separation and could be placed on sea vessels, allowing for on-site decontamination.

The technology could also be used with freshwater, explained a press release. Li will receive $830,000 in funding over the next three years to put towards the project, through the Government of Canada’s Multi-Partner Research Initiative through the Ocean Protection Plan.

“Our lab has been developing and testing improved oil/water separation and wastewater disposal technologies under different spill conditions,” Li said in a statement. “This funding will greatly help us to advance our oil spill response solution through technological innovation and multi-partner collaboration.”

The initiative was launched 2018, and has fostered collaboration among industry experts, scientists, and government authorities to advance the understanding of the impacts of oil pollution and to develop technologies for cleanup

The new funding also support the mentorship of the next generation of environmental scientists and engineers and oil spill response professionals by providing training opportunities for post-doctoral researchers, PhD candidates, graduate students, and senior undergraduate researchers.

Tom Summer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alaska Highway News

Portuguese municipality to file lawsuit to stop lithium mine amid corruption scandal

Story by By Catarina Demony • 1d


People carrying a banner saying "No to the mine. Yes to life" take part in a anti-lithium protest in Covas do Barroso, Portugal, August 15, 2023. 

REUTERS/Catarina Demony/File Photo© Thomson Reuters

LISBON (Reuters) - A municipality in a lithium-rich area of northern Portugal said on Thursday it would file a lawsuit next week to stop London-based Savannah Resources from developing four open-pit mines, adding that an ongoing corruption scandal related to "green" energy deals had given a boost to its fight.

Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costa stepped down on Tuesday after prosecutors detained his chief of staff and named his infrastructure minister as a formal suspect in an investigation into alleged illegalities in the government's handling of lucrative lithium and hydrogen projects.

With more than 60,000 metric tons of known lithium reserves, Portugal is Europe's biggest lithium producer, but its miners sell almost exclusively to the ceramics industry.

They are now preparing to produce the higher-grade lithium for batteries as Europe seeks to develop its own strategic energy resources to reduce dependence on China and other suppliers.

Environment agency APA earlier this year gave environmental approvals for Portugal's Lusorecursos to extract battery-grade lithium in northern Montalegre and for Savannah Resources to develop mines in Boticas, also in the north.

Savannah said it was cooperating with authorities, which visited some of its locations, but that neither the company nor anyone of its staff was a target of the investigation.

Boticas Mayor Fernando Queiroga told Reuters his team was finalising a lawsuit against Savannah's mining plans it initiated after APA's environmental approval in May, and aimed to file it next week.

APA President Nuno Lacasta has also been named a suspect in the ongoing investigation. APA confirmed its offices have been searched as part of the investigation and said the approvals process complied with the law.

"Naturally, we will now include (in the lawsuit) the news that has come to light," Queiroga said. "There's no doubt this has given us more arguments and more strength."

Savannah said it "has and always will conduct its business in a fully lawful and transparent manner".

Lithium projects have faced strong opposition from local residents and environmentalists. They say the processes lacked transparency and have warned of "dangerous promiscuity" between decisionmakers and mining companies.

Portuguese anti-mining groups have urged authorities to suspend and review all lithium projects while authorities carry out the investigation.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, editing by Aislinn Laing and Tomasz Janowski)

Analysis-Argentina election puts China, Brazil ties in the spotlight

Story by By Lucila Sigal • 1d

Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei holds a chainsaw next to Carolina Piparo, candidate for Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, during a campaign rally, in Buenos Aires, Argentina September 25, 2023.

 REUTERS/Cristina Sille/File Photo

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina could see a resetting of some global ties depending on the result of its run-off presidential election later this month - although the value of trade with partners like China and Brazil may outweigh any short-term political posturing.

While Economy Minister Sergio Massa, a pragmatist in the ruling left-leaning coalition, has signaled policy continuity, radical libertarian candidate Javier Milei has sharply lambasted China, Brazil, the pope, South America's Mercosur trade bloc and the China-led BRICS group.


Argentina's Economic Minister Sergio Massa and Brazil's Finance Minister Fernando Haddad (not pictured) hold a news conference, at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina, January 23, 2023. 

REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File photo

Massa and Milei will compete in a Nov. 19 head-to-head that looks likely to be a tight race, with angry voters deeply divided amid inflation running at nearly 140%, two-fifths of the population in poverty, sky-high interest rates and capital controls hurting the economy.

The vote could impact the global positioning of Argentina, South America's No. 2 economy, which is a major grains exporter as well as a lithium and shale producer. But years of volatility have made some international investors wary and it is the top debtor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).



Argentina's Economic Minister Sergio Massa and Brazil's Finance Minister Fernando Haddad (not pictured) hold a news conference, at the Casa Rosada presidential palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina, January 23, 2023. 

REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/

Gustavo Martinez Pandiani, current Argentine ambassador to Switzerland and Massa's likely foreign minister, said a future Massa government would seek to improve the country's global partnerships.

"While some promise to cut ties with Brazil or China, we want more markets and more trading partners, not less," he said.

Related video: Radical candidate shakes up Argentina presidential election (The Associated Press)  Duration 1:18  View on Watch

France 24 Argentina election: Who are the main contenders?

1:56

WION  Argentina's Peronists soar in election to seal run-off with radical Milei

1:35

WION Argentina elections: Javier Milei fails to win first round of presidential election

1:55

Milei has said he "won't make deals with communists" in China or Brazil, though he does back private trade. He has described climate change as a "lie of socialism" and said Argentine Pope Francis is "on the side of bloody dictatorships."

Diana Mondino, Milei's likely foreign minister, said some of his statements had been blown out of context, and that in fact he would look "to reinsert Argentina into the world."

"Not only is there not a problem with Brazil, but we hope to be able to trade as much as possible with Brazil," said Mondino, adding that with China - a key trade partner, creditor and investor - Milei would simply stop opaque state-to-state deals.

That could include the country's $18 billion currency swap line with China, which has helped cash-strapped Argentina pay back its IMF debt. China is also a big investor in local lithium projects, hydro and nuclear.

"What we are not going to do are secret contracts. Argentina, this government, in the last 20 years, has had multiple secret negotiations," she said. "That is not normal and it is what we have said we are not going to do."

A current senior Foreign Ministry source, from the same Peronist coalition as Massa, predicted that Argentina's ties with Brazil and China would continue regardless of who won the election.

"Relations with China are going to go as they have until now with either of the two candidates. The intense trade that exists with them cannot be dissolved," the person said, asking not to be identified.

"The same thing would happen with Brazil: bad personal relations do not affect trade."

TRADE BLOCS: MERCOSUR AND BRICS

Massa and Milei have also clashed on Mercosur, the regional trade bloc led by Argentina and Brazil that has faced internal tension from other members who say it is not an effective trade mechanism for negotiating global deals.

The Peronists want to strengthen the bloc, while Milei has threatened to pull Argentina out of it.

Pandiani said member countries needed to "modernize Mercosur to make it more efficient," and added that a Massa government would consider it their "main platform" for global trade.

"Argentina has a very promising future, because it has what the world demands: proteins; traditional, green and transition energy; critical minerals such as lithium and copper; rare earths and qualified human resources," he said.

The current government has also pushed to have Argentina in the China-backed BRICS group of developing countries, which also includes India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa. Argentina was invited to join the group in August. Milei opposes joining.

"The BRICS are not a trading bloc. As of now it's not clear why we would want to have membership in this group," said Mondino. The BRICS are a relatively loosely-formed group with diverse political and geographical positions.

Pandiani disagreed. "Rejecting entry into BRICS is nonsense; we believe that Argentina should always sit at the negotiating tables where important issues for our future are discussed," he said.

(Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Additional reporting by Nicolás Misculin; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O'Brien)

Protesters stage sit-in at New York Times headquarters to call for cease-fire in Gaza

NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the lobby of The New York Times on Thursday, demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza while accusing the media of showing a bias toward Israel in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

The latest in a series of near-nightly demonstrations since the start of the war saw thousands march through Midtown Manhattan to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza. At around 5 p.m., a small group of demonstrators led by media workers calling themselves “Writers Bloc” entered the atrium of the Times building carrying a banner calling for a cease-fire.

They remained for over an hour, reading off the names of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza, including at least 36 journalists whose deaths have been confirmed since the war began. They scattered editions of a mock newspaper — “The New York War Crimes” — that charged the media with “complicity in laundering genocide” and called on The Times’ editorial board to publicly back a cease-fire.

Photos showed the word “Lies” painted across the doors of the Times headquarters. It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was arrested during the sit-in.

An email sent to New York Times staffers by the publication’s head of corporate security described the protest as “peaceful,” noting that “no entrances are blocked.”

The action came hours after students across New York City walked out of classrooms in support of Palestinians. Some remained in the streets for a protest that snarled traffic in Manhattan during rush hour and grew unruly at times.

Related video: Protests outside New York's representative office ask for Gaza ceasefire (Reuters)  Duration 1:07   View on Watch

The demonstration at The Times was the latest in a series of actions at high-profile locations in New York intended to bring attention to the growing death toll in Gaza.

On Tuesday, activists with the group Jewish Voice for Peace briefly took over the Statue of Liberty. The week prior, hundreds of people packed into Grand Central Terminal, shutting down the commuting hub during rush hour while hoisting banners that read “Ceasefire Now.”

More than 10,800 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, since the Oct. 7th massacre by Hamas, which took the lives of at least 1,400 people in Israel.

Jake Offenhartz, The Associated Press

State of Georgia using extreme legal measures to quell ‘Cop City’ dissenters

Story by The Conversation  • 1d

Earlier this week, nearly five dozen people appeared in a courtroom near Atlanta, Georgia to answer criminal racketeering and domestic terrorism charges brought against them by the state. The charges are related to what’s commonly known as “Cop City,” a $90 million paramilitary police and firefighter training facility planned for 85 acres of forest near Atlanta.

The Atlanta Police Association saw a need for such a facility at the start of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings and started to fundraise. Many corporations have contributed to the plans for a world-class police training facility.

Georgia prosecutors are calling the demonstrators “militant anarchists.” But many of those charged say they were simply attending a rally or a concert in support of the Stop Cop City movement.

The protesters, their lawyers and their supporters, who rallied outside the court this week, say the government is using heavy-handed tactics to silence the movement. The RICO charges brought against the demonstrators essentially accuse them of being part of organized crime and carry a potential sentence of five to 20 years in prison.

Legal experts worry about the type of precedent this might set for our right to protest. It’s a case a lot of people are following nationally and internationally, for that reason.

In this week’s Don’t Call Me Resilient episode, we speak with one of the leaders of the Stop Cop City movement. Kamau Franklin is a long-time community organizer and the founder of Community Movement Builders. He is also a lawyer — and was an attorney for 10 years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta.

Also joining us is Zohra Ahmed, assistant professor of law at the University of Georgia. A former public defender in New York, she, too, has been watching this case closely.

“In 2020 when people were talking about…defunding the police …the state…instead of doing any of that, decided to double down here in Atlanta and bring forth the idea…of a Cop City, a large scale militarized police base meant to learn tactics and strategies on urban warfare, crowd control, civil disbursement which was meant to move against community organizers and activists. The idea of Cop City is that it’s not only going to train the police in Atlanta, but it’s going to train police across the state and across the country and have international connections…so that different policing agencies are learning similar tactics and strategies and exchanging ideas on how to suppress. - Kamau Franklin

Read more in The Conversation

Read more: Arrests of 3 members of an Atlanta charity's board in a SWAT-team raid is highly unusual and could be unconstitutional

Read more: Students demand removal of 'mild racist' from Georgia landscape

Read more: 'Fortress USA': How 9/11 produced a military industrial juggernaut

Resources

Disarm, Defund, Dismantle: Police Abolition in Canada, edited by Shiri Pasternak, Kevin Walby and Abby Stadnyk

Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies, by Andrea J. Ritchie

"The Fight Against Cop City” (Dissent Magazine)

“How Georgia Indicted a Movement” (The Nation by Zohra Ahmed and Elizabeth Taxel)

The Companies and Foundations behind Cop City (American Friends Service Committee)

“Georgia State police return home after two-week Israeli training” (The Jerusalem Post)

Listen and follow

You can listen to or follow Don’t Call Me Resilient on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

We’d love to hear from you, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok and use #DontCallMeResilient.

This article is republished from The Conversation, >, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.

Read more:

• Rise of the SWAT team: Routine police work in Canada is now militarized
• Public police are a greedy institution

Google, Meta win court fight against Austrian online content rule

 A 3D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is seen in front of displayed Google logo in this illustration taken on November 2, 2021. 

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration© Thomson Reuters

By Foo Yun Chee

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google, Meta Platforms and TikTok on Thursday won backing from Europe's top court in their fight against an Austrian law requiring them to delete hate speech or face fines of up to ($10.69 million).

The Austrian law, enacted in 2021 and which obliges Big Tech to publish regular reports of illegal content, comes amid mounting concerns worldwide about hateful posts.

The European Union recently adopted new rules called the Digital Services Act (DSA) which require large online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful online content or risk fines up to 6% of their annual turnover.

Google, Meta and TikTok challenged the Austrian law in an Austrian court, saying that it is contrary to an EU rule which says online service providers are only subject to the rules of the country where they are established, while countries where they provide a service must refrain from applying their laws.

The three companies, which have their European headquarters in Ireland, say they should only be subject to Irish rules. The Austrian court subsequently sought advice from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which sided with the companies.

"A member state may not subject a communication platform provider established in another member state to general and abstract obligation," judges said.

"Such a national approach is contrary to EU law, which ensures the free movement of information society services through the principle of control in the Member State of origin of the service concerned," they said.

Google welcomed the ruling.

"We are pleased with today's decision which reaffirms the importance of the EU's country of origin principle. We will study the judgment and continue to invest in the trust and safety of our users across our platforms," a Google spokesperson said.

Meta and TikTok did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.

Public comment session held by Ksi Lisims LNG project in Prince Rupert

Story by The Canadian Press  •

A public information event was held on Nov. 8 for Prince Rupert residents to learn more about the proposed Ksi Lisims Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) project. 

The open house was part of the facility’s enviromental assessment application. If approved, the floating North Coast liquefaction plant could begin operation by the end of the decade. 

While public traffic was relatively minimal, there was plenty of information on the project for those who did attend to sink their teeth into the plan headed by the Nisga’a Nation, Calgary-based Rockies LNG and Texas-based Western LNG. 

The proposed facility, which is attempting to tap into the lucrative Asian market, would export up to 12 million tons of LNG per year, according to Ksi Lisims. 

Planned at the tip of Pearse Island just below the Alaskan border and 15 kilometres from the village of Gingolx, the floating operation would take about three to four years to construct, the proponents say, while the operational lifespan would be a minimum of 30 years. 

According to Eva Clayton, president of Nisga’a Lisims Government, the project will create career opportunities for generations of Nisga’a members. Opportunities are limited in the sparsely-populated Nass Valley, with many younger members leaving the region for bigger job markets. 

“We have a project that’s going to be generational,” she said. “We’re going to be going forward in a good way for the North.” 

The project, which was started in 2012, would also bring much-needed infrastructure improvements to the Nass Valley, Clayton said.  

Also, a previous disagreement with Lax Kw’alaams has largely been resolved according to Clayton, who said they want to respect the desires and opinions of all First Nations potentially impacted. 

When any major industry project comes to a location, residents often have concerns about out-of-town workers and their potentially problematic behaviour in nearby communities. 

However, having the facility in such a remote area will mean workers’ contact with the wider public would be minimal, according to Rebecca Scott, communications director for Ksi Lisims. 

“The most important thing at this stage for people to take away about this project is that it is very different from other major projects that the region has seen in recent years,” Scott said. “And that’s because it’s very remotely located. So we’re going to be having our workforce up in that site, and not in the community.” 

She said the prospective plan is to fly workers into the region, bus them to the workplace, then vice versa once their work spell is over. The session also outlined some plans to provide employment for residents of the Northwest. 

For the federal and provincial environment departments to accept the Ksi Lisims proposal, the consortium have to demonstrate they will be able to operate the proposed facility at net-zero by 2030. Ksi Lisims said its plan will be to use power from BC Hydro, while the floating design of the project would reduce the environmental impact of a site-clearing operation. 

There are already numerous LNG projects in northern B.C., particularly as construction nears completion at LNG Canada in Kitimat. 

However, Ksi Lisims environmental advisor Brian Clark said the cumulative effect from this operation would be minimal, partly due to its extremely remote location. 

“It’s so remote compared to everything else, the cumulative impact of this individual project is not large,” Clark said. “For air quality, there’s nothing, because it’s gone within two and a half kilometres to the site, and the closest town is 15 kilometres away.”  

According to Clark, the ship traffic to the location would be minimal, with one to two tankers entering the Portland Canal per day at an approximate speed of 12 knots. 

Another concern with projects such as this is the acoustic impacts of drilling for marine animals due to underwater drilling. Information provided at the public session said the impact would be “minimal.” 

The mandatory public comment period will continue until Dec. 1. 

Interested parties will also be able find out more about the project online or via a zoom info session on Nov. 14. 

Seth Forward, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Rupert Northern View