The Peace River Valley is one of Canada’s most fertile regions (Damien Gillis)
Keeping the Peace Valley’s farmland and ecosystems intact would be worth $7.9 billion to $8.6 billion a year, says a new study from the David Suzuki Foundation.
Region’s ecosystems provide many valuable services
Industrial impacts throughout Peace region – indicated in red (from previous DSF report)
This latest report, which involved 3 years of intense data collection, analysis and review, tabulates the economic value of preserving what remains of the valley’s natural values. “These ecosystems play a critical role in providing clean air, clean water, habitat for wildlife and many other ecological benefits that sustain the health and well-being of local residents, and contribute to the cultural and traditional ways of First Nations,” says DSF.
The services provided by the 5.6 million-hectare region’s diverse ecosystems include “water supply, air filtration, flood and erosion control, habitat for wildlife and agricultural pollinators, carbon storage and other benefits.”
“We’re concerned because the strain on the Peace River Watershed’s farmland and natural ecosystems will only increase with the B.C. government’s plan for increased oil and gas development, including liquefied natural gas, as well as large infrastructure projects such as the proposed Site C Dam,” says the Foundation’s Dr. Faisal Moola.
Farmland could feed a million people
At the environmental assessment hearings into the $8 Billion proposed Site C Dam, expert agrologists Wendy Holm and Evelyn Wolterson told the Joint Review Panel that the land in the proposed flood and impact zone could feed a million people. This is due to the extraordinary soils and climate conditions of the valley, Wolterson explained.
[quote]These are all elements of this valley that make it absolutely unique…not only in the region but in all of British Columbia, and perhaps Western Canada…It is our opinion that the public interest is better served [by] agriculture and other uses for this valley, rather than a hundred years of power production.[/quote]
$7 Billion/year in carbon sequestration
The Suzuki report also calculates the value of the region’s forests, grasslands and wetlands in terms of carbon storage, pegged at $6.7 billion to $7.4 billion a year, with other ecosystem services contributing $1.2 billion a year.
Says Moola, “…our study shows that remaining farmland and natural areas have an incredible ability to generate natural wealth.”
[quote]We’re concerned because the strain on the Peace River Watershed’s farmland and natural ecosystems will only increase with the B.C. government’s plan for increased oil and gas development, including liquefied natural gas, as well as large infrastructure projects such as the proposed Site C Dam.[/quote]
Site C review panel worried about cumulative impacts
While the Joint Review Panel opted not to render a definitive verdict on the dam in its report, released in May, it did echo DSF’s concerns about the cumulative effects of multiple projects in the region, compounding the dam’s impacts. “Whether the Project proceeds or not, there is a need for a government-led regional environmental assessment including a baseline study and the establishment of environmental thresholds for use in evaluating the effects of multiple, projects,” the Panel stated.
First Nations back report
Chief Roland Wilson of West Moberly First Nations echoed the Suzuki Foundation report, noting that his people “have been blessed with forests, rushing rivers and rolling grasslands that have sustained our communities for thousands of years. However, the cumulative effects of industrial development in our territories have been massive and can’t be mitigated. They’ve had an enormous impact on our treaty rights as First Nations people.”
According to Moola, various aboriginal representatives helped guide the Suzuki report with their traditional knowledge of the area. “First Nations helped decide the study area, identify data sources, and review the work – including ensuring that we accurately reflected the place names, and other references to their Dane_Zaa culture”.
Many of these aboriginal voices are represented verbatim in the 2013 DSF-published report, Passages for the Peace, which includes interviews with elders, hunters, artists and other community members describing the role the land plays in their lives and the value of natural capital in their culture and economy.
The federal Cabinet is expected to render a decision on the dam in September. Says Moola, “We hope this report encourages discussion about how natural areas and farmland in B.C.’s irreplaceable Peace Region are valued — and undervalued — when decisions are made that could destroy the region’s natural wealth.”
Seeing red: The roof on BC Place Stadium is just one of many cost overruns on the BC Liberals’ watch
Oh, for the days of the fast ferries…compared to what we have now.
Most British Columbians will recall Premier Glen Clark’s late 1990’s boondoggle, which saw the construction of three new coastal vessels balloon from a projected $210 million to nearly $460 million.
How could we forget? After the relentless salvos from pundits like Vaughan Palmer and Mike Smyth led to the NDP government’s collapse, in every election cycle since, the incumbent BC Liberals have dragged out these ghost ships to bolster their own economic credentials. To Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark, the fast ferries are the gift that keeps on giving.
Liberal fiscal record sets new lows
The Fast ferries scandal sank the NDP
The only problem is the Liberals’ own fiscal fiascos absolutely dwarf those of their NDP predecessors – though they’re consistently able to get away with it.
Sure, Mr. Palmer has poked holes in the government’s laughable election promise of a debt-free BC and raised red flags over the government’s routine cost overruns, but the pundits’ knives have been decidedly less sharp over the past 13 years. Unlike the NDP, Liberal governments face no real consequences for their misdeeds.
With the Liberals on track to double the $34 Billion provincial debt they inherited from what history would now suggest was a surprisingly restrained NDP, it’s high time for an update to their fiscal report card. (That debt doesn’t even include an additional $100 Billion in contractual taxpayer obligations, like private power contracts, which they’ve swept under rug).
This is especially important with projects like the $8 Billion proposed Site C Dam currently under review (and if you believe that sticker price, I’ve got some pond-front property in northern Alberta you may be interested in).
“If you look back over the last 10 or 12 years to every project of any magnitude, it’s ballooned right out of proportion – two times, three times is not uncommon,” Fedderly noted. “This is a pattern that’s appearing on project cost management.”
Contrasting the government’s track record with his own companies’ construction projects, he acknowledged a 10% margin for error was acceptable – but no more than that.
[quote]In the real world of people building houses, they don’t double in price.[/quote]
How bad is the government’s legacy with major capital projects? Pretty darned awful. Here are a few lowlights:
1. Port Mann Bridge/Hwy 1 widening: 550% of initial estimate
Artist’s drawing of new Port Mann Bridge
According to The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, “Originally, the government said the cost of improvements to the Port Mann would be $600 million. That ballooned to $1.5 billion in 2006 when the government announced it would twin the bridge. Now, the total cost of the project is expected to be $3.3 billion” (that’s $2.46 Billion, rising to $3.3 Billion including operation and maintenance costs).
Extra demerits for a serious design flaw that led to falling ice bombs, putting passengers at risk and ringing up $400,000 in insurance claims for ICBC.
2. BC Place Stadium roof upgrade: 514% of initial estimate
While the official line is that the upgrade to BC Place Stadium skyrocketed from $365 to $514 million, a January 2008 letter from operator PAVCO’s Chairman David Podmore to Vancouver City Manager Judy Rogers pegged the total cost at just $100 million. I’m no architect, but that seems like a reasonable price, whereas $514 million does not. After all, Seattle built a perfectly good stadium for its Seahawks in 2002 for just $360 million. All we got is a roof.
3. Northwest Transmission Line: 182% of initial estimate
Crown corporation BC Hydro’s construction of the Northwest Transmission Line – designed to power an assortment of proposed mines in the Sacred Headwaters region of the province – has nearly doubled from initial estimates of $404 million to the most recent tally of $736 million (expect the final number to be considerably higher).
Extra demerits for management error that could cost BC $130 million in federal “green infrastructure” support for the project. The Liberal government received the grant to electrify the village of Iskut, getting it off diesel power. All the province had to do was file a plan for the spur with the feds by June 30, 2012 – but it missed its deadline by nearly a year, meaning that, technically, the BC public is on the hook to repay the entire $130 million.
4. Vancouver Convention Centre: 178% of initial estimate
What’s worse, all this could have been avoided if the Liberal government simply followed its own critique of the NDP’s fast ferries experience – namely, not having people without construction experience overseeing the project (i.e. Liberal powerbroker Ken Dobell) and being sure to have finalized plans for the contractor to execute. Lacking the latter, a fixed-price contract proved impossible to nail down.
5. South Fraser Perimeter Road: 169% of initial estimate
Perhaps the only way for the Liberal government to assert it’s on time and on budget with a major project is to lie about it, as this unnecessary, convoluted truck highway through Delta and Surrey demonstrates. Laila Yuile, a blogger and one of the province’s shrewdest transportation project watchdogs, recalled last year that initial estimates for the project ranged from $700-800 million.
[signoff3]
By the time it was completed in 2013, it was a year late and the cost had risen to $1.264 Billion – significantly more than a revised estimate of around a billion dollars. But that didn’t stop the government from boasting that its project was “on time and on budget”. As Vaughan Palmer quipped at the time, “Regular readers of this space will be familiar with the more flexible approach that the B.C. Liberals have taken toward the concept of being on time and on budget.”
Why won’t the NDP stand up for itself?
Perhaps the biggest mystery in all of this is the NDP opposition’s failure to call the government out for its dismal fiscal record. How “Mr. Nice Guy” Adrian Dix saw fit to let the Liberals off the hook for this series of blunders that make the fast ferry overruns look like pocket change is baffling. It cost them the last election, as I noted in the aftermath of that sorry affair.
Liberal record a harbinger of Site C boondoggle
Proposed Site C Dam on Peace River
These numbers and examples of the Liberals’ fiscal ineptitude should be of real concern to BC taxpayers today as we ponder projects like Site C Dam – whose $8 Billion estimate (making it one of the highest-priced government infrastructure undertakings in Canadian history) is surely only the tip of the iceberg. Dams, as a rule, are highly prone to cost overruns – the World Bank estimates an average of 27% around the globe.
The following is a July 15 open letter to Premier Christy Clark from the District of Hudson’s Hope – near the location of the proposed Site C reservoir.
Dear Premier Clark,
Re: British Columbia Utilities Commission Review of Proposed Site C Dam Project
I am writing to urgently request that you refer the proposed Site C Dam Project to the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) for further review of project costs, alternatives to Site C, and related issues prior to making a decision on this project.
Prudent fiscal management requires further review of Site C
The District of Hudson’s Hope, a community of 1,100 people in the heart of the Peace River Valley, will be more adversely impacted than any other municipality by the proposed Site C dam.
Understandably, we wish to ensure that these adverse community and environmental impacts and the $7.9 billion cost of the proposed Site C project are justified and necessary for meeting British Columbia’s future electricity needs.
The proposed $7.9 billion Site C project may also be the largest provincial public expenditure of the next 20 years, adding over 10% to our growing $62 billion provincial debt. BC taxpayers, whether they live in Hudson’s Hope, Penticton, Surrey, Comox, Coquitlam, Prince George, Vancouver, Delta, Victoria or any other BC community, reasonably expect the government to subject Site C project costs and alternatives to open, rigorous and independent review with full procedural safeguards before committing to such a large capital expenditure.
[signoff3]
Rating agencies such as Moody’s call this prudent fiscal management. When Moody’s reaffirmed B.C.’s triple-A credit rating in May of this year, it was accompanied by a negative outlook due to accumulation of provincial debt. Moody’s said:
[quote]The negative outlook reflects the risks to the province’s ability to reverse the recent accumulation in debt given a softened economic outlook, weaker commodity prices and continued expense pressures.[/quote]
What better way to demonstrate prudent fiscal management than to subject Site C project costs and alternatives to open, rigorous and independent scrutiny by the BCUC?
Yet this is not what has happened – at least to date. The Site C Joint Review Panel (JRP) was prevented by a combination of BC law, public policy, terms of reference, and a lack of information from fully scrutinizing key project elements including project costs and alternatives to Site C (1).
However, this did not prevent the JRP from flagging its concerns about project costs: “The Panel cannot conclude on the likely accuracy of Project cost estimates [by BC Hydro] because it does not have the information, time or resources. This affects all further calculations of unit costs, revenue requirements and rates.”
Or asking questions about alternatives such as natural gas:
[quote]Finally, if it is acceptable to burn natural gas to provide power to compress, cool, and transport B.C. natural gas for Asian markets, where its fate is combustion anyway, why not save transport and environmental costs and take care of domestic needs?[/quote]
To ensure proper scrutiny, the JRP recommended on May 1st, 2014 in its 457 page final report that a number of matters be referred to the BCUC for further review (2).
The JRP noted,”… available resources could provide adequate energy and capacity until at least 2028″ and accordingly there is time available for the BCUC to do this work. However, Minister of Energy and Mines, Bill Bennett was quick to dismiss further scrutiny. On May 8th, 2014, the same day as the report’s public release, Minister Bennett said:
[quote] …I think that the work has been done and I think subjecting it to another review after all the years the project has been studied is not a good use of public money …[/quote]
Madame Premier, this defies prudent fiscal management. BC needs to complete its homework on Site C.
Hudson’s Hope, BC taxpayers and rating agencies such as Moody’s need to be fully satisfied that this $7.9 billion project will not be characterized as a white elephant that transformed the beautiful Peace River Valley into a dam reservoir, increased the provincial debt by over 10%, and put BC’s strong fiscal management record at risk.
Urban Systems report supports need for BCUC review
Recognizing these major uncertainties, the District of Hudson’s Hope retained Urban Systems Ltd. to review the findings of the JRP Report, and compile information from the proposed project’s Environmental Impact Statement, BC Hydro’s Integrated Resource Plan, and other relevant resources and data to examine the following key question:
[quote]Are the anticipated community and environmental impacts, and high-costs of the proposed Site C project justified and necessary for meeting British Columbia’s future electricity needs?[/quote]
The JRP concluded that BC Hydro has not fully demonstrated the need for this project on the timetable set forth and Urban Systems has also concluded that a commitment to the proposed Site C is project is likely premature: “The material cited within this document suggests that a commitment to the proposed Site C project is likely premature before the British Columbia Utilities Commission undertakes a review of the proposed project costs and long-term energy needs, including the comparative costs and benefits of potential alternatives. And as the JRP notes there is time to do this work.”
Urban Systems reviewed 5 alternative scenarios to Site C including retrofits and upgrades, geothermal, other renewables and enhanced demand side management, natural gas/cogeneration, and emerging technologies. Urban Systems concludes: ” … there are likely alternatives which could be cost-competitive and viable to meet future electricity needs.”
A preliminary comparison of selected alternatives to Site C suggests that BC could pursue these alternatives and potentially save over $ 5 billion in project costs. The “accumulation of debt” by the province would be significantly reduced. Please refer to Table A.
Finally, Urban Systems cautions that emerging trends could result in a risk to ratepayers: ‘
[quote]Three trends are occurring simultaneously that could substantially reduce the need for the proposed Site C project and affect BC Hydro’s forecasted revenues, thus limiting its ability to pay for such an asset over its 70 year amortization period. These three trends include: increases in BC Hydro electrical rates, the decreasing cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, and the commercialization of micro grid enabling technologies.[/quote]
Conclusion
With the benefit of the information contained in this letter, I urge you to do what is fiscally prudent and makes common sense – refer the proposed Site e project to the BeUC for open, rigorous and independent review of project costs, forecasted revenues and less costly alternatives to Site e prior to making a decision on this project.
To do anything less for the largest and most expensive public project in Be in the next 20 years is imprudent, especially for a government that prides itself on its triple-A credit rating. I would appreciate a written response from you by July 31st, 2014.
_______________________________
1 JRP findings:
• The Panel concludes that, basing a $7.9 billion Project on a 20-year demand forecast without an explicit 20-year scenario of prices [by BC Hydro] is not good practice. Electricity prices will strongly affect demand, including Liquefied Natural Gas facility demand.
• The Panel concludes that demand management does not appear to command the same degree of analytic effort [by BC Hydro] as does new supply.
• The Panel concludes that a failure [of BC Hydro] to pursue research of the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs.
A popular recreation site, the Similkameen Valley is threatened by dams (Photo: SimilkameenValley.com)
By Ken Farquharson
The Similkameen River valley provides one of the most popular and scenic travel routes in BC. The campsites strung along the river, swimming at Bromley Rock, the old mining town of Hedley, the fruit stands of Keremeos, the wineries of Cawston, and the transition to the sage brush of the Okanagan, make for a varied and memorable BC travel experience. The river provides kayak and canoe runs for both the expert and the novice, and is one of only two free flowing transboundary rivers in southern BC that is not either managed for hydropower or in protected status of some sort.
However all is not serene in the Similkameen Valley, and the cause of this is the curious lack of interest of the BC government to protect the public interest in proposals to change the Similkameen River, the heart of the Valley.
BC govt sitting on sidelines of proposed US dam
The story starts in 2007 when the Okanogan Public Utility District, the small utility serving Okanogan County in Washington, applied to the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to study a dam proposed at Shankers Bend in Washington, which would flood the BC section of the Similkameen valley as far upstream as Cawston.
Given the lesson learned from the argument over the Skagit Valley from 1969 to 1983 that it is essential to participate early in the regulatory process, the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society ( CPAWS) immediately filed with FERC as intervenors. The BC government sat back, and, although Minister Barry Penner was made well aware of the potential impacts in BC, declined to file as an intervenor leaving it to the ONA, CPAWS and the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen to register their objections. The PUD eventually withdrew its application.
Fortis applies for 165m-high dam on Similkameen
In 2013, Fortis BC, the local utility, applied for permits to conduct studies on the Crown land required for the reservoir ( 20km long) and the dam site for a 165m-high concrete dam in the Similkameen Canyon, 15km upstream from Princeton, with a generation capacity of 45-55MW. If the final proposed capacity is below 50MW, the project may not be required to go through the environmental assessment process. As the plant is proposed as a market generator, it would not have to be reviewed by the BC Utilities Commission, as the cost would not be rolled into the utility’s rate base. It is possible the project could escape review entirely.
Map of proposed dam site on the Similkameen River
Fortis conceded in a meeting with the Regional District on 22 May this year that the project may not be economical based on generation alone and that it had already approached downstream parties in the US with interests in generation and irrigation as to whether they would be prepared to pay for the downstream benefits created by the project.
This action was confirmed by information that the Washington State Department of Ecology had allocated $1.6M in its budget for 2015-17 for a payment to Fortis for “Evaluation of a proposed hydropower and water supply….shared cost and water supply for Washington and Oregon” – no mention of BC needs.
This allotment was confirmed by the Director, Office of the Columbia River, Washington Department of Ecology, to Steve Arstad, editor of the Keremeos Review, on 9 June, when he advised that
[quote]Fortis was interested in developing a contract with us for scheduled releases of some of the water stored behind the dam. The timing of the releases would coincide with when water would be needed in Washington for instream and out-of-stream uses. The term of the contract would be for 50 years.[/quote]
It is clear, therefore, that if the project proceeds, control of the river would pass to Fortis and downstream US interests.
Fortis would be sole beneficiary of agreements
The Columbia River Treaty gave BC half the value of the downstream benefits in the US from provision of water storage in BC. The province took that money for itself. Queries to the BC Comptroller of Water Resources resulted in advice that, for this project, the province was leaving Fortis to negotiate any downstream agreements, and that Fortis would be the sole beneficiary of these agreements. It should be noted that any agreement made between Fortis and US interests will be between private parties and thus not subject to Freedom of Information requests.
The BC Water Regulations allow the province to collect a fee from any licensee benefiting from payments from downstream generators in the US for benefits received for power generation, but have no such provision for benefits generated from flood control or water storage.
Province derelict of duty
In respect to this project, the province appears derelict in its management of the river in a number of ways, permitting Fortis to negotiate contracts that would mean control passing to US interests, not ensuring that the province would benefit from all downstream benefits, and lastly not having done the work to determine the future water needs of the BC section of the Similkameen Valley before contracts may be signed for water storage for US interests. It is possible BC interests could be locked out of access to such storage if it had all been negotiated away by Fortis.
There is already enough evidence to state that Fortis should be advised now by the province that this project is not in the public interest. Should the province continue to dither, there is a real risk that BC could lose control of this valued river, a public resource, for a sub-marginal project, with the benefits going solely to the shareholders of Fortis and downstream interests in Washington. The people of BC surely deserve better from our politicians and bureaucrats in planning for the future of this beautiful river and valley.
[quote]The benefits are clear. Despite high initial costs, and some uncertainty about when the power would be needed, the Project would provide a large and long – term increment of firm energy and capacity at a price that would benefit future generations. [/quote]
But there is nothing clear about the panel’s report – which leaves the waters as muddy as the banks of the mighty Peace River.
Panel offers more questions than answers
Says Andrea Morison of the Peace Valley Environment Association, “We see this as a recommendation, and there are many significant concerns that the panel has brought forward, starting with the need for the project.”
On that note, the panel conceded that BC Hydro has not adequately demonstrated the need for the project – which it clearly hasn’t. It also noted a list of unanswered environmental questions and found that “the Project would significantly affect the current use of land and resources for traditional purposes by Aboriginal peoples.”
Locating the dam within the broad web of industrial activities which already cover the region – with many more on the horizon – the panel stated, “whether the Project proceeds or not, there is a need for a government-led regional environmental assessment including a baseline study and the establishment of environmental thresholds for use in evaluating the effects of multiple, projects…The Panel recommends that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency undertake, on an urgent basis, an update of its guidance on cumulative effects assessment.”
And yet, in the big picture, the review held up the project as a net environmental benefit – apparently favouring its purported climate benefits over the obvious ecological impacts it carries. “It would do this in a way that would produce a vastly smaller burden of greenhouse gases than any alternative save nuclear power, which B.C. has prohibited.” Unless, of course, we don’t need the power at all…
Further complicating things is the fact that in the new era of environmental assessment in Canada, the panel itself only makes recommendations – “The decision on whether the Project proceeds is made by elected officials,” it notes. A final decision from senior levels of government on the project isn’t expected for 6 months.
This has the effect of offloading the accountability for the panel’s findings onto other parties, and it has gone the extra mile in that regard, with its “on the one hand, on the other hand” language.
That said, at first glance, the document would appear to be an overall endorsement for the project – and that’s certainly how the Liberal government will interpret it.
Panel raised hopes through hearing
The panel offered the dam’s critics some hope throughout December and January hearings in northeast BC, appearing to give proponent BC Hydro a hard time on issues ranging from the impossible challenge for citizens to engage meaningfully with its 15,000-page technical application in just one month’s time, to the utility’s dismissal of important agricultural values in the Peace River Region that would be flooded.
Yet its final verdict, for the most part, fits into a pattern of rubber stamps issued by environmental assessments for major industrial projects like the recently-approved Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. As I noted in these pages following that decision, there is a troubling trend in these assessments – the inevitable conclusion that the purported economic benefits somehow outweigh the project’s impacts.
In the case of Site C, having reviewed the project closely for years now myself, it is clear that this is simply not the case. Like the Enbridge project before it, it is not incumbent on the assessor to support these conclusions with proof.
Here are 4 big reasons why the benefits of Site C do not outweigh the costs:
1. There is simply no need for the power
Throughout this latest period of Site C’s 30-year saga, we’ve heard the justification for the project morph into radically different permutations. First, we were told Site C would power 500,000 homes in BC. Except, as we’ve repeatedly demonstrated in these pages, that’s not true. BC’s power consumption has flatlined. We’re now in surplus power position for the longterm foreseeable future. Site C has nothing to do with BC’s homes.
Moreover, this presents a bizarre irony: At a time when we can no longer depend on cheap agricultural imports from California due to the extreme drought it faces, we are now proposing to flood some of our best farmland in order to export power to California. Go figure.
2. Flooding enough farmland to feed a million people
On that note, as the panel heard loud and clear from esteemed agrologists Wendy Holm and Evelyn Wolterson – contrary to BC Hydro’s assertions – the Peace Valley contains some of Canada’s best farmland. The 30,000-plus acre tract that would be flooded or disrupted by the dam could feed a million people. That’s a quarter of BC’s citizens. In the words of Wolterson:
[quote] It is our opinion that the public interest is better served [by] agriculture and other uses for this valley, rather than a hundred years of power production…Power has other alternatives; agriculture doesn’t.[/quote]
Good point. Too bad it fell largely on deaf ears.
3. Get ready for huge cost overruns
Any cost-benefit analys depends partly on knowing the real cost side of the equation. Clearly, there are significant environmental and food security costs from the proposed dam, but what about the financial costs?
The panel rightly acknowledged doubts about the accuracy of Hydro’s $8 Billion price tag for the project. Don’t forget, this is a government whose overseeing of large capital projects makes the NDP’s fast ferry fiasco look like the paragon of good project management. From the convention centre to the stadium roof to the Port Mann Bridge, the BC Liberal government boasts a track record of cost overruns routinely in the 50-100% range.
4. Serious grassroots and First Nations opposition
Local “Cowboys and Indians” – the landowners and Treaty 8 First Nations whose farms and territories would be flooded by the dam – have made it clear where they stand on this project. They’ve put themselves on the line many times before to stop the dam – and consistently won.
The panel’s ruling – muddy though it is – will likely be embraced by the Liberal Government as an approval, which puts First Nations and citizens on a path to conflict with the province in the coming months and years.
Whether it be from the lack of need for the project, the lingering geotechnical challenges it faces (though they won’t admit it, Hydro still doesn’t really know how to build the thing), the financial burden it presents to a province already deeply in debt, the growing awareness of the importance of food security in an era of climate change, or the opposition it will face on the ground, this dam is still a long, long way from being built.
Newly-minted BC NDP Leader John Horgan has come out against the proposed Site C Dam
VANCOUVER – B.C. New Democratic Party Leader John Horgan is raising concerns about the proposed Site C hydroelectric dam, just days before an environmental review on the project becomes public.
The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency conducted hearings in December and January, submitted its report to the federal government last week and is expected to post the document online Thursday.
Horgan says it’s a good project, except for the fact B.C. doesn’t need the energy, First Nations oppose it and the dam would destroy so much agricultural land.
He says he wants a third party to answer some legitimate questions like when will the province actually need the power and how much should the people pay for it.
The Crown utility has said the dam is a clean, cost-effective source of much-needed electricity for British Columbia.
We have 28 per cent rate increases coming down the pipe. We have deferred debt. We have long-term debt, and we have projects that are wildly over budget.
The $10 Billion proposed Site C Dam could provide power for export to California, BC Hydro representatives told the Joint Review Panel examining the project on the final day of public hearings, last week in Fort St. John.
A last-minute change to the story that keeps on changing, the new rationale for the dam confirmed the suspicions of some the hearings’ observers. “We thought we didn’t need the energy,” said the Peace Valley Environment Association’s Andrea Morison, “but we hadn’t heard from Hydro or any other credible source for a long time that it was for the U.S., and we just found out it was for California.”
Finally, in what came off as a weak, “Hail Mary” attempt to justify the dam before an increasingly skeptical review panel, BC Hydro offered the following explanation:
[quote]Our hydro capacity, including the existing capacity we have, and including Site C, is perfectly suited to helping California…We see that as a big opportunity.[/quote]
“Our trading folks are working very hard to try to find a way for us to help,” replied Chris O’Riley, Hydro’s executive vice-president overseeing generation in the province.
On one level, this makes perfect sense. Of all the reasons for building Site C, powering BC’s own homes and businesses is not one of them.
We know this because in 2012, BC exported a surplus of 5,800 gigawatt hours of power – roughly 10% of our total provincial demand. That figure more than doubled from the previous year. We’re already awash in private power we didn’t need in the first place but are forced to pay over a billion dollars a year for. On top of that, despite population increases, our demand has flatlined – BC uses roughly the same amount of electricity today as it did a decade ago.
That’s how you go from allegedly needing this power for 450,000 homes to having such an excess of it that the only possible justification for flooding the Peace Valley is selling power to California!
Rising costs drive conservation
This flatlining consumption undermines Hydro’s oft-repeated assumption that there is a direct and linear correlation between population growth and energy demand. The record suggests that’s simply not the case.
And it’s not just true in BC. According to a recent Associated Press story, the same trend can be observed south of the border – ostensibly our new market for power from Site C:
[quote]The average amount of electricity consumed in U.S. homes has fallen to levels last seen more than a decade ago, back when the smartest device in people’s pockets was a Palm pilot and anyone talking about a tablet was probably an archaeologist or a preacher. [/quote]
The combination of increased energy efficiency, conscious conservation efforts like Hydro’s Powersmart program, and higher power bills has kept consumption in check on either side of the 49th parallel.
But this should come as no surprise. Throughout its history, BC Hydro has chronically and significantly overestimated future demand – typically by 10-20% – a proud heritage that continues to this day.
Part of the issue is the way Hydro’s model for future energy demand in BC fails to take into account the effect of skyrocketing power bills for British Columbians – 28% over the next five years. And that’s without Site C, which Hydro pegs at an unbelievably low cost of $8 Billion. According to the World Bank, the average cost overrun for dams around the world is 27%. And this is the BC Liberals we’re talking about here – you know, the gang that can’t build a capital project for less than double the sticker price (see stadium roof, convention centre, Northwest Transmission Line, Port Mann Bridge).
Throw the cost of Site C on top of Hydro’s well over $20 Billion in total debt, plus over $50 Billion in high-priced contractual obligations and we can expect those bills to continue their steady climb. Just like high gas prices convince people to trade their SUVs for Corollas, so, apparently, do rate increases incentivize electricity conservation. But you won’t hear that kind of common sense from BC Hydro.
Powerex: a $750 million lesson
Before BC spends – let’s call it $10 Billion – of taxpayers’ money to build a dam which likely won’t produce one watt of energy until the middle of the next decade, let us pause for a moment to reflect on the utility’s last big foray into the California market: the scandalous energy crisis of the early 2000’s.
If we were deciding whether or not to build Site C based on typical spot market prices for power south of the border today, it would never happen – they’ve been far too low in recent years to make a profit off Site C’s costly power. In fact, this strategy would prove a big money loser, as our present experience dumping high-priced private power on the market today is teaching us.
Now, if the theory is that persistent drought conditions will mean higher electricity prices in California 10 years from now, well, that’s a $10 Billion gamble – one fraught with risk, which the Powerex debacle reminds us. Earlier this year, British Columbians were hit with a $750 million settlement relating to fraudulent power trading by Hydro’s export arm the last time the California market went into overdrive.
Thus, the dream of big exports to to California does not make for a sound foundation upon which to build Site C.
Hydro’s credibility gap
More than anything, Hydro’s continual flip-flopping on Site C’s need and its inability to accurately predict the future leave it with no credibility in the eyes of the public – and, let’s hope, the panel deciding the project’s future.
It’s time to pull the plug on Site C Dam, once and for all.
The Peace River Valley is one of Canada’s most fertile regions (Damien Gillis)
A pair of highly-respected agricultural experts made a compelling case this week for sparing some of BC’s best farmland from a proposed dam on the Peace River. Together, veteran agrologist Wendy Holm and soil scientist Evelyn Wolterson argued that BC Hydro’s error-ridden study of the flood zone for the $10 billion proposed Site C Dam missed the unique soil and climate values that would enable this land to feed up to a million people – were the focus to shift from hydropower to farming.
Conversely, if a third dam on the Peace were built, it would create the single largest loss of land in the 40-year history of the province’s Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) – drowning or severely impacting over 30,000 acres of largely exceptional land.
On Tuesday, the Joint Review Panel investigating Site C heard from Holm, a highly-decorated former President of the BC Institute of Agrologists with 40 years’ experience in the field, and agrologist and farming consultant Evelyn Wolterson – both presenting their findings on behalf of the Peace Valley Environment Association and BC Women’s Institue.
“The Peace River Valley has extraordinarily high value for agriculture,” Wolterson told the panel from the outset.
[quote]It is our opinion that the public interest is better served [by] agriculture and other uses for this valley, rather than a hundred years of power production…Power has other alternatives; agriculture doesn’t.[/quote]
Over 30,000 acres to be flooded or impacted
Location of the proposed Site C Dam (Damien Gillis)
In all, the project would impact 31,528 acres of class 1-7 farmland, roughly half of which lies “within the project’s flood, stability and landslide-generated wave impact lines,” notes Holm’s report to the panel. The other half will be permanently lost beneath the reservoir and access roads. Of the total land impacted and compromised, over 8,300 acres are class 1 and 2 soils – making it some the best farmland in the country.
According to Holm, Hydro ignores the half that won’t end up under water immediately but will nevertheless be heavily compromised over time and rendered largely un-farmable. Meanwhile, in its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project, the crown corporation determines the loss of the other half “is insignificant, because all ‘costs’ associated with any such loss can be mitigated and/or compensated.” Holm charges that the crown corporation understates everything from the amount of land impacted, to the long-term damage from the project to the local farming economy.
And that’s just the beginning of the problems with BC Hydro’s EIS which Holm and Wolterson unearthed for the panel.
The Peace Valley’s surprisingly “extraordinary” land
The panel seemed genuinely interested to learn from Holm and Wolterson about the special properties of the valley that make it so productive agriculturally.
For starters, the Peace River’s largely east-west orientation means the valley gets more sun, thus experiencing longer growing days and seasons than other land that far north. “The best farmland in BC is in the southern valleys,” Wolterson told the panel. “The notable exception is the Peace River Valley.”
Other factors like lower wind speeds, excellent Spring moisture, and a longer frost-free period mean, counterintuitively, that “crop yield goes up as you go from the south to the north,” Wolterson explained.
[quote]These are all elements of this valley that make it absolutely unique…not only in the region but in all of British Columbia, and perhaps Western Canada.[/quote]
Even a BC Hydro representative acknowledged to the panel in an earlier presentation Tuesday, “Our assessment certainly accepts that this is highly capable land and a favourable climate.” If anything, he conceded, the climate has improved since the last major study conducted by BC Hydro 30 years ago.
Yet throughout the project proponent’s 15,000-page report, “flawed data is leading to faulty conclusions,” Wolterson asserts.
Hydro cultivates wrong idea about valley’s farmland
A sampling of the diverse produce grown at the Peterson market garden in the 1980s (photo: Larry Peterson)
Both experts ticked off a long list of problems with Hydro’s methodology for the EIS. “The panel does not have in front of it reliable information on which to measure the economic loss to agriculture and the public interest,” Holm stated at the top of her presentation.
Wolterson gave several examples of BC Hydro’s flawed analysis. For instance, a higher-elevation region above the valley known as the Uplands was given roughly same growing season as a monitoring station at the Fort St. John Airport, while the dam proponent ascribed 30 fewer growing, or “crop opportunity” days to the valley itself. “There’s something wrong with that data,” Wolterson told the panel.
“What it shows here is the capability of these [valley] lands in Attachie Flat and Bear Flat are equivalent to what they are at the Fort St. John airport. I’ve worked in this community for 20 years…I know that’s not true,” Wolterson testified, offering an example of crop yields 30% higher in the valley, compared with farms closer to Fort St. John.
In some cases, the valley beats even the Lower Mainland’s farms for productivity. For instance, Larry Peterson, who ran a successful market garden there with his wife Lynda in the 1970s and 80s, would get 13.6 tonnes per acre for potatoes, compared with the average yield in the Lower Fraser Valley of only 10.2 tonnes per acre.
In broader terms, Holm emphasized:
[quote]The land to be flooded by Site C is capable of producing high-yielding fresh fruits and vegetables for over a million people.[/quote]
BC’s food security withering on the vine
“There is a misperception that there is a vast amount agricultural land that is waiting to be exploited. It’s simply not true,” Wolterson warned the review panel.
Much of the Peace Valley’s best farmland was flooded in 1968 by the WAC Bennett Dam (Damien Gillis)
According to the Ministry of Agriculture’s own 2007 assessment, titled BC’s Food Self-Reliance (download here), BC grows just 48% of the food it consumes. Vegetable production per capita has fallen to half of what it was in 1970. And the problem is only getting worse, says Wolterson. “Over the last 10 some-odd years, there’s been a serious and alarming decline in agricultural land area” – driven by everything from urban encroachment, industrial projects, and declining of productivity.
The combination of a shrinking food supply and growing population has put BC on a path to serious food security challenges, both presenters emphasized.
In that sense, Site C Dam should be viewed in the context of a wide range of cumulative impacts, together whittling away BC’s food security. Issues like fracking, roads, and segmentation of farmland for other industrial projects have all made farming more difficult and dragged down productivity, says Wolterson.
Moreover, BC Hydro’s flood reserve – a land bank it has accumulated over the years, buying out farmers in preparation for a future dam (Site C has been on the books for three decades now) – has had an “enormous”, detrimental impact on agricultural investment in the valley, giving a false impression of the productivity of the land. Hydro’s EIS and rationale for the dam leans heavily on this fiction.
Economic value of farmland underestimated
Cash crop: Is Hydro underestimating the economic value of farmland?
Holm’s presentation focused in part on the economic value Hydro assessed to farmland that would be lost from the dam, arguing it has made some dangerous miscalculations. With “global loss of farmland, water shortages, soil salinization, higher energy costs, transportations costs, supply chain concentration, population growth, there is no question that there is going to be intense pressure on food prices as we move into the future,” cautioned Holm.
In other words, land that is fallow and of seemingly little value today could see its economic worth – and value as a local food source – skyrocket in the future, something we may rue when we can no longer depend on truckloads of cheap tomatoes from California rolling across the border.
British Columbians currently spend 11% of household income on food, Holm noted, but that figure could rise significantly in the not-too-distant future, based on these myriad shifting factors. Viewed in that light, Hydro is recklessly lowballing lost economic value from flooded farmland, pegging it a a paltry $20 million.
The Shadow of the Dam
Holm came back to the flood reserve issue as well, suggesting that Hydro’s assumptions of the productivity and economic value of the land are erroneously based on a false dynamic that discourages farmers from working the land to its full potential.
[quote]The ‘shadow of the dam’ refers to the flood reserve that fell across the farmland in 1957. Considerable farmland was purchased by BC Hydro, farmers were told not to get too attached to their fields as Site C moved on, then off, then on again to the provincial drawing boards. Naturally, this has prejudiced farm decision-making. As a result, current land use does not reflect the agro-economic potential of the land.[/quote]
“This independent body, which was specifically created to ensure a thorough, non-partisan assessment of large projects like Site C, is not going to be allowed to do its job,” says Peace Valley Environment Association (PVEA) Coordinator Andrea Morison. The PVEA wrote to the Joint Review Panel, suggesting it ask the ALC for details on the process that they would have undertaken in assessing Site C – despite the provincial government’s attempts to exclude it from the conversation. The panel declined the request.
And so it is that both public watchdogs designed to keep the government and Hydro in check in this very situation curiously find themselves sitting on the bench for the biggest game of their careers.
Even the public hearing process was scheduled over the holiday season and limited to the region of the dam, despite the enormous bill taxpayers around the province would foot to build it. The whole process has been anathema to public participation.
Hydro’s work “weak and meaningless”
In the ALR’s place, BC Hydro has done a predictably poor job of assessing these agricultural issues and planning for their mitigation, say Holm and Wolterson.
“BC Hydro acknowledges that the mitigation plan and the compensation program that they’ve put together…they don’t really know how much is needed; there’s no specifics in how it would be implemented; there’s no evidence of possible uptake; there’s no proof that there’s a benefit,” Wolterson said in her conclusion.
[quote]I think it’s weak and I think it’s meaningless and it gives me no confidence and I can’t see how the panel can determine if this plan is going to adequately compensate for the loss of these incredibly valuable lands.[/quote]
What’s more important: energy or food?
Arlene Boon’s family would lose its century old farm at Bear Flat to Site C
Beneath the 15,000-page reports, the political shenanigans with the review process, and all the rhetoric about economic development lies a simple truth: Last year, BC generated about 110% as much electricity as it needed, but produced, at most, 48% of the food it consumed. In other words, while we have plenty of electricity to power our homes and businesses well into the future, the same thing cannot be said about our food security.
The problem is virtually invisible to British Columbians today. Most of us have no idea we exported a net surplus of 5,840 gigawatt hours of power last year (at a loss!) – you certainly wouldn’t learn this listening to BC Hydro, which has a long history of exaggerating future demand. And as long as those trucks keeping rolling north from California and Mexico – as long as Superstore’s shelves remain stocked and Costco keeps selling giant bags of tri-coloured peppers for 5 bucks – most of us will never know how real the danger is, how foolish the choices are that our government is making today.
So the choice we face with Site C Dam – if you can even call it a choice for BC’s marginalized citizens and First Nations – is this: Power that we don’t need…or food that we do?
If you live in BC, it will cost you, conservatively, $10 Billion – paid through skyrocketing power bills and taxes. It will flood tens of thousands of acres of excellent farmland – sacrifices you will make entirely for the benefit of multinational oil and gas companies.
And here’s the kicker: you have no say in the matter. The environmental hearings into the proposed Site C Dam currently underway in northeast BC have utterly excluded the people who will be paying the lion’s share of the financial costs: you. No hearings in Vancouver, Victoria, or anywhere outside of the Peace Valley, of which 50,000-plus acres of quality wildlife habitat and farmland would be flooded for the project.
Debunking Site C’s myths
Let’s begin by setting aside a few popular myths, peddled by your government, often repeated by the mainstream media.
First, when you hear $7.9 Billion, remember that dams all around the world run notoriously over budget – an average of 27%, according to the World Bank. Add to that the dismal track record of cost overruns for major capital projects under the supervision of the BC Liberal Government – from the convention centre to the stadium roof to the Port Mann Bridge – and we’ll go ahead and call Site C Dam a $10 Billion project…at least.
Second, whenever you read that Site C Dam would power 450,000 homes, remember that this power is not for yours or anyone’s home or small business. And that comes straight from the horse’s mouth – BC Premier Christy Clark, that is. She has told us repeatedly that Site C is necessary to power BC’s much-vaunted, proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.
You see, BC is totally self-sufficient in electricity now and well into the future. According to Stats BC, we exported a surplus of over 5,800 gigawatt hours last year – about 10% of our total domestic demand. That trend shows no sign of reversing for decades to come…unless, that is, we decide to power enormously energy-intensive LNG plants on the coast with subsidized public power.
These plants have been granted special permission to break the Liberals’ own climate laws and burn some gas to power the cooling of the rest of the gas into liquid – bringing massive air pollution and climate impacts. Site C would provide only enough energy for one of the larger proposed LNG plants, so it makes little sense for the beautiful Peace Valley, its environment, farmland, First Nations and citizens to make such a costly sacrifice at the altar of LNG.
With these hearings scheduled over the holiday season and only in the north, the message from the BC Liberal government could not be clearer: They do not want your voice to be heard. Just sign the cheque, give the land and the power to someone else, and keep your mouth shut.
$10 Billion of your money for a dam you do not need: That’s Site C Dam in a nutshell.
So whether they want to or not, this BC Liberal Government needs to hear from its constituents in the Lower Mainland, the Kootenays, the Cariboo, the Interior the coast. With a government that’s already racked up more debt – both hidden and obvious – than all its predecessors over the past century combined, the people of BC cannot afford to allow it to add another $10 Billion to their children’s Visa.
The founders of the American republic had it right: No taxation without representation. This government badly needs a refresher in that concept.
BC Hydro’s proposed Site C Dam (artist’s rendering)
by Dene Moore, Canadian Press
FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – The province of Alberta is concerned that a multibillion-dollar hydroelectric dam proposed in northeastern British Columbia could increase mercury levels in fish and escalate the risk of floods or drought along the Peace River that flows through its province.
Alberta’s Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, which manages lands, forests, fish and wildlife in the province, has filed a 23-page submission setting out its concerns to the panel reviewing the massive project.
Two existing dams on the Peace River in B.C. have already significantly altered the flow of the river into the neighbouring province, the Alberta submission said, and this has both positive and negative impacts in Alberta.
“Alberta is concerned that Site C will further exacerbate the negative impacts,” said the document filed Nov. 29.
The Site C dam would flood an 83-kilometre stretch of the Peace River from approximately Fort St. John to just upstream of Hudson’s Hope. It would be the third dam on the river, downstream from the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon dams.
The two existing dams already lower the river’s natural flow from May to late July, and increase flow from mid-October to mid-April. There are benefits to the flow regulation from BC Hydro, such as a reduced risk of flooding, but there are also risks, Alberta said.
Among those risks is an expected increase in methylmercury levels in fish during construction of the dam.
“Alberta acknowledges that BC Hydro expects increases in MeHg levels in fish populations downstream of the Alberta-B.C. border to be temporary and within fish consumption guidelines,” the submission said.
“However, it is unclear whether Albertans are aware of this increase, the amount of the increase, and the duration of the impact.”
The Alberta government requested ongoing information from BC Hydro to enable the province to inform fishermen on the Peace River of changes to methylmercury levels in fish until concentrations return to pre-construction levels.
Water flow, temperature changes
The impact of the dam on managing ice-related flooding and concern about minimum flow rates during construction were also singled out as concerns. Reduced peak flow affects the aquatic ecosystem on the Peace River, the Peace-Athabaska delta and other riparian wetlands, the document said.
Water fluctuations also cause mortality to fish and eggs by stranding, or indirectly through increased stress on fish, the report said.
There are also concerns about changes Site C will cause in water temperature downstream from the dam and reservoir, making the Peace River slower to warm in spring and slower to cool in summer.
“Such changes to water temperatures, though slight, may impact the current distribution and range of cold and cool water fish species within Alberta causing potential declines in some species and increases in others,” the report said. “Temperature changes may also impact the timing of ice freeze-up and break-up events.”
That could result in changes to spawning runs, in egg incubation rates and access to spawning habitat, the submission stated.
Dam could restrict fishing opportunities for Albertans
The province is also concerned about the flow of fish in the river. According to the report:
[quote]Upstream and downstream movement of fish populations is necessary for gene flow and hence long term resiliency in those populations, as well as to allow access to spawning, rearing, feeding, and overwintering areas.[/quote]
BC Hydro has told the neighbouring province that it is exploring options for fish passage, but as yet, “Site C could result in more restrictive fishing opportunities for species Albertans value more highly in the Peace River.”
Parks Canada raises issues with Site C
Parks Canada has also expressed concern about the cumulative effects another B.C. hydroelectric dam could have downstream, on Wood Buffalo National Park and the Peace Athabasca Delta.
The federal agency said the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Fort Chipewyan Métis Association, Little Red River Cree Nation and Mikisew Cree First Nation share those concerns. The Athabasca Cree, Dene Tha’, Mikisew Cree and Deninu Kue First Nations, as well as the Metis Nation of Alberta Region 6, have registered to appear before the panel.
“It is Parks Canada’s view that assessment of the operational phase of Site C must include consideration of the impacts of sustained, ongoing operations of all three Peace River dams managed by BC Hydro to ensure adequate assessment and consideration of the cumulative effects of flow regulation,” Parks Canada wrote to the panel.
