Landowners concerned about project $8 billion facility would be the third hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River
An environmental review of the proposed Site C hydroelectric dam is as murky as the Peace River on which it would be built.
The Joint Review Panel found that the benefit of British Columbia Hydro’s proposed 1,100 megawatt hydroelectric generating station is clear. It would provide large and long-term energy for future generations with the least greenhouse gas emissions of other power sources.
The $8 billion project would also provide local and regional economic benefits but at “significant environmental and social costs.”
“Based on our initial review of the report, we’re pleased that the Joint Review Panel confirmed that there will be a long-term need for new energy and capacity and that Site C would be the ‘least expensive’ of the alternatives to meet this growing demand,” said BC Hydro president Charles Reid.
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However, Ken Boon, a Fort St. John area farmer and opponent of the project, said the panel report did a good job of capturing producers’ opposition to the dam.
“Overall, I think it’s pretty good.”
Boon said he expected a definitive answer in the report if the dam should go ahead or not, but instead the panelists analyzed specific points but didn’t make an overall recommendation.
“Now, everyone is doing their own interpretation because they didn’t.”
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office released the Report of the Joint Review Panel for the proposed Site C project in British Columbia May 8.
The panel’s mandate was not to make a decision on the dam but to assess the project’s potential environmental, economic, social, heritage and health effects. Both levels of government will review the findings and each make a decision on the project within six months.
The report made 50 recommendations on the project, including a number of precautions.
If built, the Site C dam would be the third hydroelectric generating station on the Peace River. The Site C dam was first proposed as part of a series of dams on the Peace River in the 1950s.
The W.A.C. Bennett dam was built in 1967. The Site B, or Peace Canyon Dam, was finished in 1980. The Site C dam has been rejected two previous times, but a need for electricity generated from cleaner sources has revived the project.
Despite the expected economic benefits, the panel said creating an 83 kilometre reservoir behind the dam would cause significant adverse effects on fish and fish habitat as well as birds, bats, smaller animals, rare plants and sensitive ecosystems.
It also said the project would significantly affect the current use of the land and traditional resources of aboriginal people.
Farmers who own land and farm along the river have long voiced their opposition to the project, which would flood their farmland.
“It would end agriculture on the Peace valley bottom lands, and while that would not be significant in the context of B.C, or western Canadian agriculture production, it would highly impact the farmers who would bear the loss,” said the report.
Boon said it was clear the panelists were sincere and earned everyone’s respect.
“The one big disappointment for me in this report is they did not capture the importance of agriculture. We’re quite shocked about that.”
If built, the water would come close to Boon’s river valley farm, but more importantly, flood valuable river-bottom land that is able to grow horticulture crops.
The report said the Peace region is undergoing enormous stress from resource development, and the project would result in “significant cumulative effects on fish, vegetation and ecological communities, wildlife, current use of lands and resources for traditional purposes and heritage.”
BC Hydro said Site C is being proposed to meet future electricity needs, but the report said BC Hydro didn’t have a clear idea of the province’s needs. In its release, BC Hydro said it hopes to implement aggressive conservation methods to reduce electricity needs.
“Seventy-eight percent of future demand is to be met through demand-side management,” it said.
“Site C provides the best combination of financial, technical, environmental and economic development attributes compared to alternatives.”
Boon said landowners will continue lobbying government officials to kill the project once and for all. They also want the province to remove the flood reserve on the river valley land and develop a sustainable land use policy for the valley.
“We’re planning on moving ahead. We’re not planning on losing this valley to Site C.”
