- Nigel Bankes
Bankes is a Professor at the University of Calgary in the Faculty of Law and has been teaching there since 1984. Prior to teaching in Calgary he was a research associate at the Canadian Institute of Resources Law. He holds a B.A., an M.A. (Cantab.), LL.M., (U.B.C.) and is a member of the Alberta Bar.
He has taught international law (at Simon Fraser University), natural resources law, energy law, property law, aboriginal law, administrative law, communications law (in the Faculty of General Studies at the University of Calgary), advanced oil and gas law, international environmental law and a seminar on northern legal issues.
Bankes maintains an active research agenda in Oil and Gas Law, International Resources Law, Public Resources Law and Aboriginal Law.
Bankes is currently supervising LL.M. students working on:
• ecological integrity;
• domestic implementation of international environmental agreements;
• compensation for infringements of aboriginal title; and
• liability regimes in international law.
Bankes is also a member of the Sahtu Arbitration Panel under the Sahtu Land Claim Agreement.
- Chad Day
Educated in geology and geography at the University of Western Ontario, Day received his doctoral degree in integral water and land management at the University of Chicago. He has been a faculty member at the universities of Western Ontario and Waterloo and currently is an emeritus professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University. Day has conducted research on the effectiveness and efficiency of river basin and watershed planning and management. He taught graduate courses in water planning and management and environmental and social impact assessment since 1980.
Day’s fields of interest include integrated land and water management, collaborative planning, public involvement, institutional arrangements for sustainable land and water management, water quality and impact assessment.
- Tim Newton
With engineering and economics degrees earned at Cape Town and then Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship, Newton contributed a wide range of operating and planning expertise to BC Hydro during his thirty-three years there. Primary areas of experience include computer science, international operations, planning, energy
management, and marketing. This included 30 years of experience working on the Columbia River Treaty.
Newton is now officially retired, but still provides consulting services to a select number of clients, and in April 2002 was appointed to the Board of the newly formed Western Electricity Coordinating Council, and in April 2005 Tim was appointed as Chair.
In October 2003 Newton was appointed as one of four members to the international Permanent Engineering Board established under the Columbia River Treaty between Canada and the United States.
- Richard Kyle Paisley
Paisley is a practicing lawyer, the Director of the Andrew R. Thompson Natural Resources Law Programme at the Faculty of Law, and a member of the Westwater Research Center at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
His current research, teaching, legal practice and publishing interests are in the area of national and international natural resources law and policy, including national and international water law and policy, international environmental law, negotiation and environmental conflict resolution.
He is currently an advisor on these subjects to, among others, the Mekong River Commission Secretariat (MRCS) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS) in Kathmandu, Nepal; the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome, Italy; El Colegio de Mexico, in Mexico City, Mexico; the Brace Water Resources Management Institute at McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec; the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).
His academic background includes graduate degrees from the London School of Economics (LL.M.) in London, England, the Pepperdine University School of Law (J.D.) in Malibu, California and the Institute for Marine Studies at the University of Washington (M.Sc.) in Seattle, Washington. He also holds a B.Sc. degree from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
- Hans Schreier
Schreier is a Professor at the Institute for Resources and Environment at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on watershed management, land-water interactions, and soil and water pollution, as well as on interdisciplinary evaluations of mountain processes. He has dedicated much of his research time to water and resource issues in the Himalayas and Andes and has developed a number of multi-media CD-ROM presentations to create awareness of mountain processes. He also developed four distance education graduate courses on watershed management that are delivered online. Participants from some of the most remote mountain systems of the world can participate in this educational program. He believes that looking to the mountains may give us an early indication of what's in store for the entire planet.
In 1996 he was honoured by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa for significant contribution to the world of science in the developing world. In 1999 he received the Manaaki Whenua Fellowship from Landcare Research, New Zealand and spent a sabbatical year with IDRC to train young researches in watershed management in 15 different countries in Asia and South America. In 2004 he received The United Nations International Year of Fresh Water, Science in Action Award for his outstanding work in making watershed management knowledge and innovative, cost-effective applications possible in Canada and in Developing Countries. Between 2004-2008 he was co-program leader for the Canadian Water Network, National Centre of Excellence Program, and in 2008 he received the King Albert International Mountain Award, for scientific accomplishment of lasing values to the world’s mountains.
- Adéle M. Hurley
In 1980, during the early days of the Reagan Administration, Hurley co-founded the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain. She moved to Washington, DC, established an office, and registered as a Foreign Agent on behalf of the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain. The Acid Rain Coalition quickly became the largest single issue citizen’s coalition in Canada. For the next eight years she worked on a successful campaign aimed at bringing about amendments to the US Clean Air Act, and on regulations to reduce pollutants from large Canadian emitters.
Upon her return to Canada she established her own company which continues to specialize in North American air and water issues.
In the early 1990s she was appointed to the Board of Directors of Ontario Hydro, where she served as the first Chair of the Environment Committee of what was then the largest utility in North America. In 1995 she was appointed by the Prime Minister’s Office to serve as Canadian Co-Chair of the International Joint Commission which oversees Canada/US boundary water issues according to the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.
She has served as a member of the Canadian Federal Government’s International Trade Advisory Committee-Task Force On Environment and Trade Policy.
Currently Hurley is a member of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Power Authority (OPA).
- Ken Hall
Hall is an environmental chemist with 30 years experience in conducting research on water quality, environmental contaminants, wastewater treatment and environmental impact investigations. As the assistant director of the Westwater Research Centre (1972-1990) at UBC, he coordinated field monitoring studies for an interdisciplinary program that involved land use, wastewater discharges, water quality and biological studies on the Lower Fraser River, B.C. He coordinated a three-year program to investigate the impacts of log handling and storage activities on a lake ecosystem in central B.C. He has conducted limnological studies on eutrophic, meromictic and coastal oligotrophic lakes and is presently involved in in-lake restoration studies using aeration and fertilization techniques. Recent research has been investigating the contaminants associated with non-point pollution from urban storm water runoff and its impacts on the aquatic ecosystem.
Hall has served on two committees as part of the Metro Vancouver (MV) liquid waste management program (LWMP). The Brunette Watershed task group was responsible for developing a management plan for an urban watershed which can be used as a template to manage urban watersheds in the region. He is also on the environmental assessments task group which coordinates and evaluates the monitoring program for all of the MV waste discharges and their impacts on the receiving environment. He is on a Reference Panel to advise MV on the next phase of their LWMP. He was a member of the Environmental Programs Advisory Committee at UBC and serves as an advisor on the stormwater management program for the university.
Hall is a member of the Environmental Programs Advisory Committee at UBC and serve as a consultant on the storm water management program for the university.
- Kenneth G. Peterson
Peterson’s career spans a wide range of assignments in the electric industry. He is a resource economist by training and started in the electric utility business with BC Hydro in forecasting, planning and rates. He has also consulted internationally in these and related fields. The last 10 years of his professional career were spent as CEO of Powerex, the marketing and trading subsidiary of BC Hydro. During his tenure Powerex became one of the most successful power trading enterprises in the west. Peterson also devoted a great deal of effort to the objective of rationalizing institutional arrangements in the West from the formation of the WRTA to its merger with WSCC to form WECC.
Since his retirement he continues to be vitally interested in the development of the electric industry with competitive markets co-existing with regulated approaches to customer service and reliability. His current role as a member of the Board of Trustees of the North American Reliability Corporation gives him the opportunity to apply his experience to the reliability challenges facing the industry.
- Marvin S. Wodinsky
Former Acting Consul General, Canadian Consulate General, Seattle, Wodinsky was also Manager of the Consulate General’s Political, Economic Relations and Public Affairs Program. This program monitors and interprets local and regional US political and economic events and trends of interest to Canada. It ensures that Canadian interests are represented on such diverse issues as energy, forestry and softwood lumber, borders, environment and fisheries. It promotes the study of Canada at educational institutions and provides information on general economic, financial and fiscal policies in Canada. Finally, the program promotes Canadian cultural activities and assists Canadian artists and performers to showcase their talents in the region.
Wodinsky has also been involved in the following foreign assignments:
• Counsellor and Consul - Political, Economic and Public Affairs Program Manager, Canadian Embassy, Kiev
• Counsellor and Consul - Political, Economic, Public Affairs and Development Cooperation Program Manager, Canadian Embassy, Moscow
• Counsellor and Political, Economic, Public Affairs and Development Assistance Program Manager, Canadian High Commissions in New Zealand, Fiji, Western Samoa and Tonga
• First Secretary and Consul - Economic Affairs, Canadian Embassy, Seoul
- Josh Smienk
Smienk is a founding Director of Columbia Basin Trust and served as Chair from 1995 to 2006. He is Director of Area E of the Regional District of Central Kootenay, a position he has held for seven consecutive terms.
Smienk has a long history of personal business investments in the region through Tri-Gen Holdings Ltd. and has lived for over 30 years at Redfish Creek, near Balfour.
Smienk was also appointed to the BC Task Force on Electric Market Reform and was Co-Chair of the Columbia River Basin Trans-boundary Ecosystem Management Forum.
Smienk has devoted extensive time to the public sector and community organizations within the Columbia Basin. He is a 25-year member of the Vintage Car Club of Canada and a member of the Horseless Carriage Club of America.
In the past 25 plus years of public service Smienk has also held the positions of: President of the Association of Kootenay Boundary Municipalities, Director of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, Director of the Nelson University Centre, Chair of the Regional Parks Board and Chair of the Central Kootenay Regional Hospital Board.
