Ben joined the CCPA staff team as a resource policy analyst in 2005 after years working as an investigative journalist with numerous magazines, and previous to that as a reporter with The Vancouver Sun. He is author and co-author of two books on forestry issues and currently devotes much of his policy research to natural resources, with special attention paid to energy, water, and forest resources and climate change.
Ben values being part of a great team at the CCPA as well as the opportunities provided to meet regularly with First Nations, community leaders, environmental advocates and the many people who work in the province’s resource industries and who are committed to progressive change.
Ben is an avid cyclist and budding day hiker who likes to take advantage of the many outdoor recreation options open to him and others living in Victoria and south Vancouver Island. He is the proud father of a super-talented daughter, Charlotte Priest, who is wise beyond her years and has taught him much. He also loves to listen to music—the good old fashion way—on vinyl. Follow Ben on Twitter
More than half of nearly 50 dams that fossil fuel companies built in recent years without first obtaining the proper permits had serious structural problems that could have caused many of them to fail. And now, BC’s Oil and Gas Commission (OGC), which appeared to be asleep at the switch in allowing the unlicensed dams… View Article
In May 2014, British Columbia’s then Minister of Natural Gas Development, Rich Coleman, came out swinging when a team of Canadian and American scientists issued a report saying that fossil fuel industry fracking operations could contaminate surface waters and groundwater sources. “The reality is we’ve been doing this for over 50 years, we’ve never had… View Article
The provincial government has ordered Progress Energy to drain virtually all of the water trapped behind two massive dams that the company built in violation of key provincial regulations. The company was told on October 31 to drain all but 10% of the water stored behind its Town and Lily dams near the Alaska Highway… View Article
Last year, more natural gas was produced in British Columbia than at any point in the past 10 years. That may come as a surprise to some people who thought that growth in BC’s natural gas industry hinged on the emergence of a Liquefied Natural Gas sector. It does not. The reality is that even… View Article
Few environmental messes inherited by the new BC government rival the unregulated free-for-all that has unfolded in the province’s northeast where companies that frack for natural gas have built nearly 60 unlicensed dams. Not only do some of those dams show distressing signs of failing, but the companies that built them—and the government agencies that… View Article
I sent the following letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company also failed to obtain other… View Article
When the provincial government created the Oil and Gas Commission in 1998, it did much more than open a “one stop shop” for speedy oil and gas industry approvals; it also set British Columbia on a collision course with First Nations. The consequences of that collision course are more apparent with each passing day, and… View Article
A subsidiary of Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned petro giant courted by the BC government, has built at least 16 unauthorized dams in northern BC to trap hundreds of millions of gallons of water used in its controversial fracking operations. The 16 dams are among “dozens” that have been built by Petronas and other companies without… View Article
Fort Nelson and Merritt lie at two geographical extremes, the former perched in the northeast corner near some of British Columbia’s biggest natural gas plays, the latter located deep in the province’s southwest, near rolling dry hills that are home to BC’s biggest ranches. It takes nearly 15 hours by car to cover the distance… View Article
Second of Two Parts For many years, TimberWest has exported more raw logs from British Columbia than all of its competitors save one. And a new move afoot by the company has both forest industry workers and environmental activists convinced that the company is laying the groundwork for even more exports in the years to… View Article
