By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The area’s development authority in southwestern N.S. is interested in coordinating a community-based study to explore if fishing and oil exploration can co-exist on Georges Bank, and with that it has begun the process of a community-based fact finding model.

Last week a contingent of people appointed to a working committee visited Norway to study oil and gas exploration taking place there.

The working committee – chaired by local lawyer and town councillor Clifford Hood – has been recruited by the South West Shore Development Authority to study what the implications of lifting the Georges Bank moratorium would be on fishing, the economy and the environment.

Members representing fishing, environment, business and municipal interests – accompanied by local MLAs, officials from the Nova Scotia Department of Energy, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Natural Resources Canada – went to Norway to examine how the oil and gas industry has transformed the economy there, while at the same time achieving world recognition for oil and gas development using high ethical and environmental standards.

The committee will report the outcome of its preliminary work in Norway in the near future.

What got the ball rolling on this issue was recent comments made by Yarmouth MLA Richard Hurlburt, the province’s energy minister, who suggested it is time to start exploring whether fishing and oil and gas exploration can co-exist on Georges Bank. A moratorium in place now expires in 2012, but part of the moratorium requires that ministers of key departments begin a review no later than Jan. 5, 2010.

“What I’m saying is not to put a rig on Georges Bank. What I’m saying is we have to get out and start educating the people do they understand the issue and have good discussions,” Hurlburt said when he raise the issue.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, fishermen vigorously fought to ban oil and gas exploration off of Georges Bank. This time around people appear more willing to debate the issue.

Rod Rose, chair of the regional development authority, says RDA staff has determined the fishery, the traditional mainstay of the economy, is facing tough economic times as a result of circumstances beyond the control of the industry and government.

Rose suggests that if it is found that a viable oil and gas industry can co-exist with a long-term sustainable fishing industry, providing there are low-risk and very strong environmental and financial safeguards, there is an opportunity through oil and gas exploration to transform the local economy for the benefit of all of southwestern Nova Scotia, including the fishery.