Not likely worth it - but prove me wrong…

As a Canadian born in Nova Scotia, near to the St Mary's River, I learned to love nature, in no small part, by the way that the river impacted me.

My daily (hour long) bus ride to school included a view of the river. Each day we would pass the "falls" after Stillwater and rate the level of the water - often reckoning whether or not we would brave it in a canoe or kayak. 
 

I fondly remember highlights of first trying  the St Mary's River Smokehouse Salmon, (a relic of the years when salmon were plentiful) never to be matched. The Monday morning stories of the fishes caught over a weekend ... the nights spent camping and listening to the relentless glug of the river .... the winters when we watched it nearly freeze over, and the springs we saw it flood. The river was a frame in our lives. It wrapped around us, it defined us in a way we didn't quite understand , but accepted nonetheless.

There is truth that rural communities are less fruitful than they used to be. There are fewer people and families, and no general stores left to serve them. I'm not certain, in this day and age, that is a loss. I've lived in several provinces in Canada. It's hard to find places of peace and quiet and natural beauty. This province of Nova Scotia is growing. Halifax is growing up in a way that none of us dared to imagine in the decades past. I'm proud of it. It's why I returned home. I came home because opportunities returned and this place I remembered so fondly remained the same in some ways, because rural Nova Scotia still exists. There are opportunities for people here now. That's great! But we can keep the opportunities available without selling our souls. 

I am not against development. But my line in the sand is ... does the cost reflect the gain? 
 

The St Mary's River and its watershed give so much. It supports more natural life than even the dedicated scientists know. There is a reason we feel at peace here. When I canoe this water, or fish a pool, or gaze upon the beauty of the river valley, I can feel nothing but love and peace and goodness. 
 

Again, I am not against development, but what do we lose and what to we gain? I don't personally believe there is a dollar figure that can replace this habitat. If the government believes that there is, than I need to see that number. What is the real cost? The only way to evaluate the value of this project is to set a value in the loss of one of the East Coasts' greatest natural assets and its potential "restoration" after several decades of industrial pollution, traffic, and "mishaps".

i don't support this project in any way. If I were to be convinced; an unbiased, regulated, and comprehensive environmental evaluation of the entirety of the project needs to be carried out and published. Only then can we decide if this project is worth the sale of our souls.  I doubt it will be, but I'm open to the science that would prove me wrong.