The Panet Beach

The Panet property in the middle of above photo back in 1976.

Where I grew up, our immediate neighbor was millionaire Henry C. Panet. He had inherited from his rich father, and had a thriving business selling propane gas. He had started his business from home, but the many underground and surface containers holding propane gas under pressure to feed his ever growing fleet of distribution trucks eventually forced him to move the major part of his business in an industrial park in another town. (Four tanks side by side can be seen in above photo between two sheds)

The man was quite a character, and became my father's best friend. He had come to know him, and the existence of the summer cottage availability that he eventually bought, from his younger brother who worked for the same Montreal company as my father did.

When Hydro-Quebec put up for sale the river bank in front of his home, he quickly bought it, for he was very afraid of fire, and wanted a way to have easy access to a lot of water. So every spring, a bulldozer would go on the river bank, level out the area in easy slopes to go down to water level, then the bulldozer would align the big rocks in a long row across that part of the river that was the water outlet of the holding dam for the electric power plant. The big rocks would raise the water level in front of his property, and so would insure a proper source of water to extinguish any fire that could occur. This would quickly become the "Panet Beach" where the people would come and swim during the summer time. I remember that for many years, Panet and my father would repair and build wooden stairs to make the "beach" more accessible, and a dock by the water for those who did not like to sit in the sand he would sometimes have delivered to make the "beach" more inviting. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time there, and that is where I learned to swim.Photo: my mother with friends on the dock by the river.

To go down to the beach, stairs went down right beside 4 big Red Oaks that shaded that part of the shore. Those trees are still there to this day (on the right in this photo):


Like my father, Panet had an only daughter, a little older than I am, but when she married a divorced Italian man, his strict catholic upbringing made him frown on this, and so openly said that on his death (in his last years, it was clear that he had a severe heart problem, but would not seek medical help), he would let his wife and daughter enjoy the property, but he would eventually bequeath it to his younger brother and his children.

So his daughter and her husband, and Panet's wife, lived there for awhile after Panet's passing. The husband had a certain way of dealing with the property: everything had to be "clean", and that meant mowing as close to the ground as possible, and trees where considered a hassle. So after the terrible ice storm of 1998, the husband hired a contractor to clean up "the mess" by the riverbank, and that meant cutting down 9 trees out of 10 that had grown on the high water mark. You can read what I did about that in my other posting here: http://lesamisdurichelieu.blogspot.ca/2012/02/riviere-richelieu-cette-manie-de-couper.html

I had verbally, and then physically, tried to stop the cutting of the trees, and received many death threats from that contractor, and my neighbor did very little to protect me. When the game wardens came to check on the damage, my neighbor came to tell me that I was no longer permitted to come on "his" property. I told him that I had grown up on this property, had spent an important part of my life on this property, and he was not going to be the one to stop me from being here.

So a few weeks later, I received a hand written letter of intent to sue signed by a very shaky hand, the matriarch of the family, who did not have all her marbles straight by that time, I'm afraid. After that, I would deliberately walk along the edge of the property, going down to the river by the adjoining municipal park, then wading in the water (the river bottom, up to the high water mark, belonged to the provincial wildlife preserve), all along the property, then climb back up the other side. The matriarch, who usually was never seen outside the house, often came out to see what I was up to and make sure I did not walk on the wrong side of the property line. I still don't know what crazy story they told her to make her do that.

When the daughter, and her husband and their kids finally moved out once her mother had passed, the house was put up for sale and surprisingly, the part of the property along the river was bequeathed to Nature Conservancy!

A cycle of fracking denial says Texas Sharon

Photo: Sharon Wilson

"(Jessica) Ernst noticed a worrisome development in the lawsuits, something Texas blogger Sharon Wilson later described as "the cycle of fracking denial." Regulators began by claiming there was no proof of groundwater contamination. When landowners provided proof of methane or hydrocarbon contamination, industry attempted to bury it by offering landowners cash in return for signing confidentiality agreements. Landowner Grace Mitchell, for example, had sued Encana in 2010 in Johnson County, Texas. After Encana fracked shales near her property, Mitchell could "no longer use the water from her own well for consumption, bathing, or washing clothes because in approximately May 2010, the well water started to feel slick to the touch and give off an oily, gasoline-like odor." Mitchel settled out of court and went silent. Even court discovery materials in her case were subject to "a protective order." Gag orders erased history, Ernst realized, and allowed regulators to claim there had been no proof of contamination in the first place. To her way of thinking, the courts were participating in "criminal activity" by allowing the gag orders. She had compassion for families who signed to protect the health of their children but ony contempt for the authorities that willfully covered up industry's dangerous methane liabilities."

Excerpt from Andrew Nikiforuk's book Slick Water, p. 227-228

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ma traduction libre d'un extrait du livre d'Andrew Nikiforuk intitulé Slick Water:

"Jessica Ernst avait remarqué une tendance inquiétante dans les poursuites, quelque chose que la blogueuse Sharon Wilson du Texas aura décrit plus tard comme étant "le cycle du déni du fracking." Les régulateurs commençaient par dire qu'il n'y avait pas de preuve de contamination de l'eau souterraine. Et quand les propriétaires terriens fournissaient des preuves de contamination au méthane ou au hydrocarbures, l'industrie tentait de tout étouffer en offrant de l'argent comptant aux propriétaires terriens en échange d'une signature d'entente de confidentialité. La propriétaire terrienne Grace Mitchell, par exemple, avait entamé une poursuite contre Encana en 2010 dans Johnson County, au Texas. Après qu'Encana ait fracturé le schiste près de sa propriété, Mitchell "ne pouvait plus se servir de son eau de son propre puits pour la consommer, se laver ou laver ses vêtements parce que vers le mois de mai 2010, l'eau de puits commençait à être visqueuse et avait une odeur huileuse d'essence." Mitchell accepta un règlement hors cour et n'en parla plus. Même les documents préalables de son procès étaient assujettis à un "ordre de protection." Les bâillons effaçaient l'histoire, réalisait Ernst, et permettaient aux régulateurs de déclarer qu'il n'y avait pas de preuves de contamination en premier lieux. D'après elle, les cours participaient à de "l'activité criminelle" en permettant les bâillons. Elle ressentait de la compassion pour les familles qui signaient pour protéger la santé de leurs enfants mais n'avait que du mépris pour les autorités qui camouflaient délibérément les dangereux problèmes de méthane de l'industrie."

Living ahead of our time

Areal photo of my parent's home(3d from the right) and mine(1st on the left) in 1976.

I'm still trying to figure out if I was born to parents who were considered different from most folks, or if I was simply born in a small backward community where people did not go out much.

My father was working for a Montreal company, and my mom was a stay at home mom, and they decided to buy this summer cottage at the end of the street that followed the Richelieu River. There were very few cross streets to our street, and the cottage is about a mile from everything: church, schools, the bank, the pharmacy, the dépanneur, grocery store, bus stop, you name it. At the time, and this is at the end of the '40s, there was mostly only one row of houses on that street, opposite to the riverbank, and there were empty lots in between them too! The empty lots, and the lots behind the houses, were farmland or woodlots. This was at the edge of town, and in the next town, the same street kept on going, but with mostly summer cottages on it. So when I was a kid, in the 50s and 60s, there were not a lot of children to play with near where I lived.

So mostly, my parents' families thought that they had moved out in the boonies. By the time I was born, their summer cottage was now an insulated four-season home, and my father had done most of it. And he kept on working on it while I was growing up. When I was a baby, my mother would wrap me up in the baby carriage, and leave me out on the front porch for the afternoon nap. Even in winter. That was frowned upon by the few neighbors we had at the time. And I still nap sometimes outside on the front porch, in the sun, when the wind is coming from the back. The roar of the river is the perfect background to fall asleep. I still wonder what people think of me when they see me lying there, outside.

In fact, come to think of it, we very rarely saw the neighbors outside, except when they mowed their lawn, of course. But my parents and I, well, we are outdoors people. All year long. We do the chores, and once we are done, we find a place to sit down in the sun and read. Even now, (I still live in the same neighborhood), I rarely see my neighbors outside, except to mow the lawn. I even have a neighbor who maintains an outdoor swimming pool, but some years, like this year, I never see them enjoy it. Not even to sit by the pool and dip the toes. Although now that I think of it, there is ONE neighbor that spends more time outside than I do: he's a gentleman farmer that bought the local estate (in the middle of the above photograph).

When I was about 6, my father built what he called a solarium on the front of the house. It made sense: it has a south-west orientation, and it's the perfect look-out to gaze at the river. But most people though he was crazy building a glass room outside? At school, for years (during the 60s), my classmates had no idea what I was talking about and had never even heard of the word "solarium"! (I'm not sure the municipal zoning by-laws would let us build it these days)
My mother and I in the solarium.

Also, because we often when down to the river to have a swim, and the water was getting less and less clean, at some point my father built an outdoor shower near the backdoor. It was nestled in a U in the back of the house, and after coming up from a swim, we would, each our turn, go in that corner, strip the swimming trunks off, take a shower, wrap ourselves in our towel and go inside. Well! Of course that caused a scandal with the neighbor, who had to make quite an effort to see us do it. Up to that point, I had not realized that not everyone was comfortable with family nudity.

And once, when I was about 12, some classmates came to see me at home, and giggled when they saw the clothesline. I had to ask them what they thought was so funny: I could not figure it out. It was my father's underwear: it was colored! There was navy blue, red, green, besides the regular white. They had never seen anything like it! I could not believe it.

Like I said, we lived (and I still do) a bit far from everything. But back in the 50s and 60s, and even the 70s, my mother and I were the only ones to walk. It was so bad that we were often offered a lift, because people figured we had probably broken down and were in trouble. Now, on my street, during daylight hours, there are all kinds of people walking, strolling, just for the exercise or enjoy the view. But not in those days! I used to walk if I had a destination or a reason to do so. But my mother would walk every day, sometimes many times a day. And because of that too, we were considered different.

In the 50s and 60s, my father had a subscription to the Montreal Star. The population of our town did not justify home delivery of newspapers at the time, so the papers were delivered to the local family restaurant. They would spread the papers on the table of a booth, and those that had a subscription were given a number, and so could find their own newspaper with the proper number written on it fanned out on the table when they picked it up during the day. Which is what my father did when he came back from work on weekdays. But it was my job to walk or cycle to go and pick up the newspaper on Saturdays. My friends thought that pretty weird. Because, you see, there was no question of firing up the car just to get the paper. Even then, we kept our outings by car to the minimum. And that was a foreign concept to most people I knew at the time. And it still is.

And of course, there was my Mom's veggie patch. She always grew her strawberries and veggies, and she always composted kitchen scraps too. I'm talking about the 50's here! Composting is barely catching up in the rest of the community here! I myself have 3 compost bins. I wonder what I will put in it when we will finally have a brown recycling bin in my town.
My mother in her garden before I was born.

By the mid 70's, I was shopping for my own home. When an agent would make us visit a house, I would bring a compass: window openings on the sunny side were a must for my new home. Again, it was considered a bit strange to insist on that at the time. Today, with home heating costs, people are just barely catching up and determine if a house is worth buying because of the sun exposure!

And when I did finally find the perfect place back in 1979, one of the first things I did was change the windows that yes, were facing mostly south. The roof, also, needed to be done, and instead of buying the usual asphalt shingles, I chose a yellow colored ribbed steel roof for durability. A pale color to keep the heat down too. Again, environmentally savvy home builders are barely catching up and recommending pale roofs to avoid urban heat islands! But my choice was considered strange at the time for a family home: only industrial sheds had yellow roofs, I was told.


One of the craziest things that put me apart from my neighbors is this: every Fall, I see my neighbors start up their riding lawn mower and go through their property to bag all the leaves. Those bags end up by the road that a big diesel truck picks up to deliver them somewhere where I'm told they are being composted. Then, each Spring, I see my neighbors fire up their four-wheel drive and go to a hardware store where they buy bags and bags of compost that they bring home and spread on their property, throwing away all those plastic bags in the trash. I, on the other hand, simply take a rake and sweep those leaves around my trees, under my hedges, sprinkle them on top of my flower beds and veggie patch, and presto! Next Spring, I have nice composted leaves and rich soil to start the new growing season. No fossil fuels involved at all!

My parents are gone now. But I guess I will continue to march to the sound of my own drum, not waiting for the rest of them to catch up with me. I still don't care what they think.

Alberta is giving itself a black eye

"In her short talk at the United Nations, (Jessica) Ernst argued that fracking could never be sustainable because "it poisons water and divides communities, and captures our energy regulators and elected officials." Prior to the event, a Canadian reporter had asked her why she was going to New York- "to give Alberta a black eye?" Ernst got pissed off. "I'm not giving anyone a black eye," she snapped. "Alberta is giving itself a black eye."

Excerpt from Andrew Nikiforuk's book Slick Water, p.226

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ma traduction libre d'un extrait du livre d'Andrew Nikiforuk intitulé Slick Water:

"Durant sa courte présentation aux Nations Unies, Jessica Ernst affirma que le fracking ne pourrait jamais être soutenable parce "cela empoisonne l'eau et divise les communautés, et s'empare de nos régulateurs énergétiques et nos élus." Juste avant l'évènement, un journaliste canadien lui demanda pourquoi s'était-elle rendue à New York: "Pour donner un oeil au beurre noir à l'Alberta?" Cela mit Ernst en furie. "Ce n'est pas moi qui donne un oeil au beurre noir à quiconque," répliqua-t-elle. "L'Alberta se l'est donné tout seul."

Le gouvernement de Harper

"Harper's overtly ideological government had little regard for evidence of any kind, and that too alarmed (Jessica) Ernst. The federal Conseratives not only muzzled scientific studies on climate change but dismantled the nation's science libraries. They obstructed freedom of information requests as religiously as the Alberta government did. Harper also changed the nation's approach to basic science by appointing John McDougall as the chief of the National Research Council in 2010. McDougall acted in his new capacity as he had done at ARC (Alberta Research Council): he transformed the ninety-seven-year-old government research agency into a contract research organization focused, as the Globe and Mail put it, "on a clutch of large-scale, business-driven research projects at the expense of basic science."

Most worrisome of all for Ernst was that Harper had little regard for the nation's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. His administration openly viewed the Charter as an inconvenient document that limited the power of corporations, along with the reach of the Prime Minister's Office. Harper not only questionned the authority of the judiciary (he thought politicians should make laws, because judges were notoriously too liberal) but attacked the impartiality of the Supreme Court."

Excert from Andrew Nikiforuk's book Slick Water, p. 225
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ma traduction libre d'un extrait du livre d'Andrew Nikiforuk intitulé Slick Water:

"Le gouvernement ouvertement idéologique de Harper se souciait très peu des preuves, peu importe leur nature, et cela aussi inquiétait Jessica Ernst. Non seulement les Conservateurs fédéraux muselaient les études scientifiques sur les changements climatiques mais démantelait les bibliothèques scientifiques de la nation. Ils faisaient obstruction aux demandes d'accès à l'information aussi religieusement que le faisait le gouvernement de l'Alberta. Harper avait aussi changé l'approche de la nation envers la recherche fondamentale en nommant John McDougall comme chef du Conseil national de Recherches Canada en 2010. McDougall agissait dans sa nouvelle position comme il le faisait quand il était au ARC (conseil de recherche en Alberta): il avait transformé l'agence de recherche gouvernementale de 97 ans en un organisme de recherche à contrat se concentrant, comme l'a dit le quotidien Globe and Mail, "sur une poignée de projets de recherche de grande envergure appuyés par le monde des affaires, au détriment de la science fondamentale."

Ce qui était encore plus inquiétant pour Ernst était le fait que Harper se préoccupait peu de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Son administration ne se gênait pas de considérer la Charte comme un document inopportun qui limitait les pouvoirs des corporations, et la portée du Cabinet du Premier Ministre. Non seulement est-ce que Harper questionnait l'autorité du système judiciaire (il pensait que les politiciens devraient écrire les lois, parce que les juges étaient notoirement trop libéraux) mais attaquait l'impartialité de la Cour suprême."

Je ne le fais pas pour moi

Photo: Prince Albert Daily Herald

"A month later, (Jessica) Ernst's lawyers flew to Calgary. In a press conference held at the Kensington Inn, they went public with Ernst's amended seventy-three-page lawsuit. The case had universal importance, Murray Klippenstein said, because "the hydraulic fracturing issues that Jessica raises in her lawsuit" were coming up more and more all across North America. Sitting between her lawyers, Ernst told a room full of reporters, "I'm doing this case for all Albertans, and for our water. I'm not doing this for me." Following the press conference, a CBC reporter asked Ernst, "They have all the power, they have all the money, they have all the courts, and you have nothing. How can you do this?" Ernst gave a short answer: "I have one thing they do not. It's more powerful than anything: heart."

Excerpt from Andrew Nikiforuk's book Slick Water, p. 223-224

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ma traduction libre d'un extrait du livre d'Andrew Nikiforuk intitulé Slick Water:

"Un mois plus tard, les avocats de Jessica Ernst ont pris l'avion pour Calgary. Dans une conférence de presse tenue à l'hôtel Kensington Inn, la poursuite amendée de 73 pages de Ernst fut rendue publique. La poursuite avait une importance universelle, selon Murray Klippenstein, parce que "les problèmes de la fracturation hydraulique soulevés dans la poursuite de Jessica" se reproduisaient de plus en plus partout en Amérique du Nord. Assise entre ses avocats, Ernst disait devant une pièce remplie de journalistes: "Je lance cette poursuite pour tous les Albertains, et pour notre eau. Je ne le fais pas pour moi." Après la conférence de presse, un journaliste de la CBC demana à Ernst: "Ils ont tous les pouvoirs, ils ont tout l'argent, ils ont toutes les cours de justice, et vous n'avez rien. Comment pouvez-vous faire çà?" Ernst lui donna une réponse brève: "J'ai une chose qu'ils n'ont pas. C'est plus puissant que tout le reste: j'ai du coeur."

Leaky wells: a multi-billion-dollar liability

"(...) in a little read American 2011 report called "Plugging and Abandoning Oil and Gas Wells," the National Petroleum Council admitted that fracking shale formations had collided with an older problem: abandoned and leaky wells. As fracking placed more wells on the landscape, more gas would leak "into other formations and fresh water," the report said. Not only had industry not done the proper research on materials for sealing these leaky wellbores, according to the report, it lacked "long-term vision" about the multi-billion-dollar liability."

Excerpt from Andrew Nikiforuk's book Slick Water, p. 221-222

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ma traduction libre d'un extrait du livre d'Andrew Nikiforuk intitulé Slick Water:

"Dans un rapport américain très peu consulté intitulé "Le colmatage et l'abandon des puits pétroliers et gaziers", le conseil National Petroleum Council admettait que fracturer les formations de schiste s'était buté à un problème encore plus ancien: les puits abandonnés qui fuyaient. Puisque le fracking implantait de plus en plus de puits dans le paysage, encore plus de gaz s'échapperait "dans d'autres formations et l'eau douce," selon le rapport. Non seulement l'industrie n'avait pas fait suffisamment de recherche sur les matériaux à utiliser pour colmater ces trous de puits qui fuyaient, selon le rapport, mais il n'avait pas eu de "vision à long terme" pour prendre soin de ce passif de plusieurs milliards de dollars."