The City of Prince Rupert has done a bit of promotion for their partners at ecotrust Canada, noting of the start of an Energy Savings Program for the North Coast area.
Tuesday the City made use of its Social Media stream to share word of the debut for the program for the Prince Rupert area which was announced that same day.
As ecotrust Canada explains it, The program is designed to address the pressing issue of high heating costs, discomfort and energy inefficiency
If you've been scrolling through your Facebook feed of late you probably have come across an advertisement for one of the newest in adventure tourism options for the region.
RIBTide Tours has introduced themselves to the community, noting of their home at the Cow Bay Marina which serves as the departure point for their ocean excursions this Spring and Summer.
While RIBTide may be new to the tourism sector, the ownership behind it is pretty familiar for the community with Owners Chelsey Ellis and Blair Mirau the tandem behind the new venture.
Ms. Ellis currently is involved with the Area A Crab Association, along with past experience through EcoTrust Canada.
He also is a former two term City Councillor for the City of Prince Rupert.
With the RIBTide operations based out of CowBay, Mr. Mirau comes full circle to that waterfront property.
Previous to his time as City councillor, Mr. Mirau was employed as a Grant Writer and one of the early programs he was to work on, was the Grant Application for the Cow Bay Marina proposal as an intern with Community Futures.
During his time on City Council he was on hand to watch as that facility grew to become the new focal point for Cow Bay Area. And now some twelve years after the Marina went from idea to marine destination Mr. Mirau charts his own travels from it.
Our Quick reference and archive of items from Civic Departments, or on issues that come up for discussion at City Council Sessions in 2024, as well as any other notes of relevance to Prince Rupert.
The Archive of our City Council Meeting Preview, Reviews and Timelines can be found here.
Items of Note for 2024
UBCM Talking Points (our archive of the annual convention)
An opportunity for residents of Metlakatla to hear more about what Heat Pumps may be able to provide for their homes is coming next month, with a session set for October 4th for community residents.
The gathering will be at the Metlakatla Administrative Building from 9 to 11 AM and will feature a presentation from an advisor from Prince Rupert's Frosty Refrigeration with the 411 on heat pump technology and how it would work in community homes.
The topic of heat pumps made for an extensive presentation for Prince Rupert City Council earlier this month, that as Josephine Schrott from EcoTrust Canada took City Council members and those viewing at home through some of the elements of the Heat Pump program in the region.
Civic themes dominated much of our list of five for the week, with two articles out of the Monday Council session and two other items of interest from City Hall making for our most read stories of the week.
From the Monday council session our notes on an agenda item related to potential new use for a downtown building gained the most reads, followed up by a look at an energy savings presentation to Council from EcoTrust Canada
The other two notes of interest from City Hall included word that a planned sale of Civic property in the Cow Bay Area is now off, as well the setting of the date for the annual Tax Sale of properties in arrears on their civic taxes.
Rounding out the list of five found much interest in the travels of Skeena-Bulkley Valley Conservatives, which sent a delegation to the Party Policy convention last weekend.
The top story of the week however, makes note of a potential new use for a downtown building with a bit of history to it.
Proposed change for Second Avenue building on the list for Planing notes for Council -- What could be more residential space, along with travellers accommodation in the downtown area was among the notes from the city's planning department at Council this week. While on the agenda, the item generated no comment of enquiries from Council members. It's progress to be tracked through future meetings. More notes on the Monday Council session can be reviewed here. (posted September 11, 2023)
That article was followed by:
City calls halt to property disposition plans in Cow Bay Area -- A plan to sell off some city owned land and remove parking spaces from the Cow Bay parking, which gained some push back from area business owners, has been taken off the city's planning list. A notice posted by the city on Monday morning noted that the plans had been called off. (posted September 12, 2023)
Northwest Conservative delegates make way back west after Quebec City convention -- Canada's Federal Conservative Party hosted their policy convention in Quebec City last weekend and among the delegates was a contingent from the Northwest who brought some of the concerns and comments from this region to the national forum, They returned to the Northwest just in time for a well received tour of Smithers and Terrace by leader Pierre Poilievre, some of the notes on his trip to the region can be found from our House of Commons Archive. (posted September 11, 2023)
September 25th Date for City of Prince Rupert Tax Sale for 2023 -- The annual sell off of properties in tax arrears comes up later this month, the list was released this week and property owners have until the day of the Tax Sale to address their tax situation to have the property taken off the for sale agenda. (posted September 15 , 2023)
You can find our weekly Blog watching feature posted every Sunday morning by 9AM, making for a handy way to catch up to the week that was, at a leisurely weekend pace.
You can also review the full listings of the week just past, from our Blog Archive index page found on the right hand side of the page.
For updates on new items posted daily to the blog, we direct you to our CharlesMHays Twitter feed, where we post notification of new stories as we post them.
The completion of a study from EcoTrust Canada, which was conducted in collaboration with the City of Prince Rupert met with mostly glowing reviews, as well as a few tough questions on Monday evening from City Council members.
Josephine Schrott from Ecotrust Canada provided for a thorough overview of their report for council
The presentation to Council from Josephine Schrott from EcoTrust Canada serving as a companion piece to the extensive overview on Energy saving opportunities that was relayed through the document which is available on the City of Prince Rupert website.
As part of her overview for council, Ms. Schrott touched on many of the themes from the report, focusing on the cost benefits for residents towards home improvements and how they can improve their energy efficiency in their homes and reduce emissions in the community.
Much of that focus was put towards the savings possible from the use of heat pumps and improved insulation as part of retrofits to local homes.
The presentation also included an update towards their work on a fully funded upgrade support program which would be run by EcoTrust, in collaboration with city staff which would assist to get the word out towards it.
Upon the completion of her overview, Council members had a few comments towards the report.
Councillor Nick Adey led off the council participation, noting of the opportunity that EcoTrust offers towards consultation for the public when ti comes to what would be their best fit to get their energy costs down.
Councillor Cunningham had questions related to the impact on the call for electricity that would come should a large volume of residents switch over to the electricity model that is proposed, noting how with the city's industrial base also putting a demand on electricity, there may be an unforeseen environmental impact on the province.
"From the other side of it, if we've got 5,000 residents in town here, if half of them were to switch over to heat pumps ... where would all this electricity come from?
I was at a convention a little while and I actually asked an Engineer from BC Hydro about the grid and what it can support and can't support, and they readily admit we would need another Two Site C dams just to keep up with what is projected.
We're a small rural town that is already encouraging industrialization which is a lot more electricity and so this is all fine and dandy but the environmental impacts of two more Site C dams, when one Site C dam is so controversial ... I'm looking farther down the road I like this idea I would like to put a heat pump in my house an save some money.
But the environmental impact on the rest of the province and the rest of the country to upgrade to these things, we don't seem to be looking at the whole picture ... We're always pushing this new technology without really looking past at the impact its going to have ...
I just wonder where these thought processes go when we're just looking at just Prince Rupert and we don't have the electrical grid right now to support this. And you know we've had industry come here and look at it and say we need more electricity and things like this, it just boggles my mind that we keep looking at the small picture not the big picture. "
Ms. Schrott countered some of those concerns by noting of the significant impact of natural gas on the environment and how that has to be weighed, a swell as to how some of the savings that would balance out some of that energy consumption and how BC Hydro continues to work on the supply side of delivery of electrical service.
On the theme of the impact on the electrical grid, it was somewhat surprising that no one from City Council made mention of the City's recent investment in the Woodworth Dam, a project that was completed earlier this year at some additional cost so as to have the capacity to generate electricity if the city wishes.
Though at the moment there is nowhere for any of that electricity to be directed, if it were to be generated.
Councillor Forrester noted of the conflicting information available related to heat pumps and how some contractors suggest that they don't work well in the climate conditions found in Prince Rupert, she followed up by asking where residents could find the best source of information towards that.
"I found a lot of conflicting information when I researched it. I came into reading the report with an assumption and I don't know where I got it that heat pumps don't work well in Prince Rupert as a climate and it might be because I heard that in Terrace, that our temperature doesn't have a lot of highs and lows to make it economically viable and this report said something different ...
Where would I find the most accurate information, because a lot of this does suppose that people would move if they went with this to an electric heat pump, but when I talk to contractors when I talk to different people they say that won't work here.
So I'm just wondering where I can find the best source of information for that "
Ms. Schrott observed of the improved quality of the current options from Heat Pumps, noting of some of their installations on the Central Coast and Vancouver Island where the product works well, she also stressed that if you have the right heat pump for the conditions for the area and it's properly installed they would be a good solution.
Councillor Randhawa asked towards any future plans towards sharing information towards their energy savings programs.
Towards that, the EcoTrust analyst suggested their blog as a good resource and plans for future information rollouts to come, as well as the work that they have done with the city's director of Communications Veronika Stewart which will see some of that information relayed through the City of Prince Rupert information streams.
“We’re excited about the opportunities for home energy retrofits in Prince Rupert, and appreciate the work that our partners at Ecotrust Canada have done on this project. Retrofits have been shown not only to benefit the environment, but also the pocketbooks of our residents.”
The City and EcoTrust have partnered in the past, along with the city Council also providing for both moral and some funding support for some of their work in the Prince Rupert area.
Sone snapshots of that engagement can be reviewed below:
