Time to Experience Recreational Value of the River Valley

(Originally published in the Northeast News, July 7, 2009, pp. 8-9)

As the fourth annual Paddle for the Peace approaches, this is a good time to revisit one of the most persistent myths about Site C. In regard to recreation, there’s a widespread impression that we’d simply be exchanging a river valley for a lake.

The pro-construction bias in BC Hydro’s consultation literature is partly responsible for this perception. For example, an artistic rendering of the dam on the cover of the Pre-Consultation Discussion Guide creates an impression of undisturbed pastoral tranquility.

Similarly, the Feasibility Review describes what sounds like a fair trade: “creation of the reservoir would result in a decrease in river-based activities, although this could be offset by new opportunities for reservoir-based recreation” (p. 51). The Stage Two, Round Two Discussion Guide informs readers that “long-term changes would shift use toward lake-type activities” (p. 26).

To paraphrase BC Hydro’s apparent message about recreation: you lose something; you win something.

Even developers from afar have gotten into the act. By ironic coincidence, the new hotel in Hudson’s Hope takes its current name from a national chain called “Lakeview” Inns and Suites. This in Hudson’s Hope of all places, whose town council recently passed a resolution opposing Site C.

What would we really be getting with a third dam and a new reservoir? I don’t think anyone knows for sure.

BC Hydro’s pro-dam boosterism dangles the familiar carrots, mentioning parks and boat launches.

However, BC Hydro also acknowledges that “the development of beaches and the regression of the shoreline is a process that could take many decades” (Stage Two, Round One Discussion Guide, p. 12). In fact, members of the Site C team have said that a new reservoir may not even be safe to use for a number of years.

To appreciate the mixed realities of reservoir-based recreation, we need look no further than Williston reservoir.

Williston has staunch admirers--people who speak very highly of its recreational opportunities, celebrating the area as a mecca for fishing, hunting, and boating. I respect those views.

But Williston is not without problems. Forty years after the construction of the Bennett Dam, heavy waves and wind are still causing erosion problems for some property owners on the Peace Reach.

Due to the rinsing and washing effect of the reservoir, land owners along Dunlevy Road have been watching their property “literally crumble into the lake” (“Erosion,” Alaska Highway News, March 2, 2009). Williston reservoir is nowhere near stabilizing under current conditions, and we might ask whether the rate of erosion is actually accelerating.

The picture below shows a cabin on land adjacent to the yacht club. Just a few years ago, there was approximately 100 feet of land between the cabin and the shoreline.




Dust storms are also a problem. The next picture depicts a dust storm on the shores of Peace Reach.



No one has suffered as much from dust storms as the Tsay Keh Dene people at the far north end of Finlay Reach. In a study conducted by Baker et al. (2000), eighty percent of the band members who were interviewed “indicated that the dust storms were responsible for adverse health effects" such as "eye irritation, respiratory tract problems, and skin rashes" (p. 571).

Approaching Tsay Keh Dene Village at sunset in early June, I saw what looked like a thick bank of fog hanging above the community on an otherwise clear evening. Within the village, fine, silty particles of dust create a thick accumulation on window screens.

Granted, even without human interference, change and the need for adaptation are basic principles of nature. And few things in the natural world ever fit human notions of perfection. Yet we shouldn’t downplay the often troubling impact of massive industrial development.

Legitimate concerns about the recreational potential of a new dam go beyond erosion, landslides, and dust storms. The prospect of a Site C pondage area also raises serious questions about debris from tributaries, fog, rough water, elevated levels of methylmercury, and loss of critical animal habitat.

At the end of the day, a uniquely beautiful river valley would be permanently destroyed, and it’s impossible to “mitigate” that loss.

So the next time we hear about a nice lake that’s supposed to accompany Site C, critical reflection would be wise. Patrick McCully, author of Silenced Rivers, has observed that recreation is typically promoted as one of the “add-on benefits” of large hydro-electric projects, and that such benefits are often exaggerated in order to gain public acceptance (pp. 155-157).

Postscript: More pictures of Williston Reservoir, followed by an image of the fourth annual Paddle for the Peace.

Dunlevy boat launch unusable in spring, at low water level

Erosion along road

Erosion and submerged log

Dunlevy boat launch in disrepair



Hundreds of Peace region residents turn out for the annual "Paddle for the Peace," showing their opposition to Site C.

Geothermal Energy is the Way of the Future

(Published in the Northeast News, July 1, 2009, p. 13)

If Site C goes ahead, we’d see the culmination of a plan that was developed in the 1950s. Rather than continuing to rely on an outdated, postwar vision of energy development, we can embrace new options. Geothermal power is one of the best.

Accessing geothermal resources involves drilling down into subterranean pools of hot water or steam, a process requiring the kind of expertise that exists in our oil and gas industry. The most familiar geothermal applications provide space heating for homes and offices.

Using geothermal reservoirs for the large-scale, commercial production of electricity is still a fairly new process in North America. At a typical project site, a group of wells are connected to a central production plant. The heat drawn from the earth turns generators, creating electricity.



In British Columbia, we live along the Pacific-Rim earthquake zone where moving tectonic plates bring molten rock and water closer to the earth’s surface, enhancing the potential for geothermal extraction. Canada is “the only country” on this “ring of fire” that “has not developed its high-temperature geothermal resources on a commercial scale” (Hamilton, “Canada’s Ground Temperatures Rising,” Toronto Star, 2009).

The United States is leading the way. In December 2006, there were 61 geothermal power plants operating in five western states. Such plants typically vary in size from 10 to 260 megawatts. The Calpine plant that appears above-left is in the Mayacama Mountains of California, 72 miles north of San Francisco, amid a field of steam reservoirs known as "the Geysers."

In total, the US has nearly 3,000 megawatts of geothermal capacity. This is a small fraction of the national energy supply, but geothermal power could meet 13.9% of all new US demand by 2015. Within this same time frame, geothermal could also meet over a quarter of total energy consumption in “hot” states such as Nevada and Idaho (Research Reports International, Geothermal Power Generation, 2007, pp. 62-63)

Like any energy option, geothermal has drawbacks and benefits. One of the challenges is that reservoirs can be hard to locate, especially in rugged volcanic terrain. This means that “costly exploration and confirmation drilling is necessary at the outset of a project to determine” the qualities of a potential site.

And “it is difficult to know with certainty how the industry will be governed in the future, so investment entails added risk” (BC Hydro, Green Energy Study, 2002, p. 21). Because geothermal resources are often in remote locations, a costly transmission infrastructure may also need to be developed.

On the positive side, once a transmission infrastructure is in place, geothermal plants located around the province, designed to meet local demand, would increase the security of our energy supply.

Geothermal energy is also efficient. While some reservoirs may “run out of steam,” large pools tend to provide a consistent supply, allowing individual plants to operate near 100% capacity. This makes geothermal plants “ideally suited” to supply firm, “base-power requirements” (BC Hydro, Green Energy Study, 2002, p. 21).

Further, geothermal energy tends to be “environmentally benign.” Its land-based footprint is relatively light and C02 emissions are minimal, making it a genuinely green technology that presents an attractive solution to both climate change and environmental degradation.

All things considered, geothermal energy deserves serious consideration as a major resource option in BC, but you’d never know this after reading the deeply biased public consultation literature for Site C, which has little to say about geothermal as a promising resource alternative.

In tables listing BC's options, the Stage One Feasibility Review (pp. 18-19) and the Stage Two, Round One Discussion Guide (p. 8) completely ignore geothermal. A similar table in the Stage Two, Round Two Discussion Guide finally acknowledges geothermal, but only notes the “South Meager” project.

Conversely, BC Hydro’s own Green and Alternative Energy Division identifies sixteen potential sites around the province. Six of these offer the greatest opportunity for commercial development and could in total generate over 1,000 megawatts of power (Green Energy Study, 2002, p. 20).

Among the six most promising sites, Western Geopower’s South Meager project, in a volcanic field near Pemberton, about 175 kilometres north of Vancouver, is clearly in the lead. Results of exploration work indicate the presence of a large geothermal reservoir with an area of 4.5 to 7.5 km² and an average temperature of 220 to 240°C.

South Meager promises to be a major resource, with approximately 100 to 250 megawatts or more of potential development capacity, and could start production as early as 2010 (Pembina Institute online).

Although the Site C team would have us believe otherwise, we do have a mix of options and choices—choices that would enable us to save a beautiful valley with a rich history and important agricultural capability. Indeed, the Globe Foundation’s Endless Energy Report (2007) states that “in British Columbia the potential exists to generate a significant proportion of the province’s energy needs from geothermal resources” (p. 40).

Building big dams and flooding river valleys belong to the past. Geothermal energy is the way of the future.

Wind Power Could Help Us Preserve the Valley

(Originally published in the Northeast News June 24, 2009, p. 15)

During public consultation for Site C, BC Hydro provided a cursory survey of energy-supply options, stressing the advantages of hydropower and the disadvantages of other choices. However, options such as wind energy deserve more impartial and sustained public discussion.

In British Columbia, with our long tradition of hydroelectric development, wind power may seem exotic or fanciful, yet we’re behind the times. Although BC doesn’t have a single commercially-operational wind turbine, wind is the fastest growing electricity resource in the world today.

According to Energy Tech Magazine (Feb. 3, 2009), “in 2008, more wind power was installed in the European Union than any other electricity-generating technology.” Denmark, for example, relies on wind power for approximately 20% of its current electricity production and hopes that wind power will supply 50% of national electricity needs by 2030. Across Europe, an average of 20 wind turbines were installed each working day in 2008.

Globally, while the construction of large dams has declined sharply, wind power is a booming, multi-billion dollar, high-tech industry, in which countries such as Germany have become world leaders.

Independent academic research discusses the merits of wind power. Mark Jacobson (2008), Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University, identifies wind power as the best way to promote energy security while mitigating climate, land, and health impacts.

According to Jacobson, wind turbines have the lowest lifecycle CO2 emissions among available energy technologies. In general, the relative overall impacts of wind farms also look pretty good when compared to mining, flooding, and nuclear waste.

Jacobson’s work is particularly significant because it qualifies BC Hydro’s description of wind as “intermittent” power.

Jacobson grants that wind power “at one location and time” is naturally intermittent. Yet he also says that “whether or not intermittency affects [wind power] depends on whether efforts to reduce intermittency are made.” An interconnected, coordinated transmission grid among wind farms over regions just a few hundred kilometers apart “can eliminate hours of zero power.”

Also, developments in turbine technology are constantly improving efficiency. Today’s gearless or direct-drive turbines minimize mechanical wear, generating power like a dynamo on a bicycle wheel. Meanwhile, individual turbines are becoming bigger and more powerful: six megawatt machines are being built and many are three megawatts.

The picture to the left shows the Enercon E-126, one of the largest wind turbines in the world, under construction in Emden, Germany. Big turbines like this will produce 20 million kilowatt hours per year, providing enough electricity for 1,776 North American homes.


But when it comes to energy production, there are no free lunches. Powerful wind farms are large industrial projects that can raise significant environmental concerns, depending on the location.

Here in the Peace country, for example, the proposed Hackney Hills wind project is controversial largely because it will disrupt sensitive alpine habitat for the threatened Graham herd of woodland caribou.

And even if intermittency can be mitigated by large-scale development in multiple locations, the inherent variability of wind creates a gap between actual output (the so-called “capacity factor”) and combined nameplate or “installed” capacity.

The best individual sites may have a capacity factor of 20 to 40%. The average capacity factor among multiple wind farms connected to a regional grid tends to be lower: Germany has an average capacity factor of 16.9%; in the US, where only the best sites have been developed so far, the average capacity factor is 28.8% (De Wachter, 2008).

Nor can wind be stored or banked like hydropower. Moment by moment, we use it or lose it.

So what does all this mean for BC’s future? Could wind power help to provide a desirable alternative to Site C? This depends on our goals and priorities. If the priority is to have large amounts of surplus energy on hand for export to the United States, Site C is the answer.

Yet if we’re really focused on domestic needs, on conservation, and on potentially green technology, wind power could, perhaps, be part of a diversified energy portfolio that would help us preserve what’s left of the Peace River valley.

As Jacobson’s work suggests and as countries in Europe have shown, the coordinated output from wind farms in different locations can provide a significant proportion of firm, base-load power. Jacobson and others are also addressing the prospect of wind-hydro integration, whereby existing hydro facilities, with their large storage potential, could act as a “battery” for wind, bolstering supply during peak demand periods.

Our mighty dams have generated abundant, cheap power for many decades, but they’ve also decimated river valleys, fish and wildlife habitat, and people’s lives. As we look to the future, we need to concentrate on diversification and catch up with other countries.

In the right locations, wind power has a lot to offer, but it’s only part of the solution. The answers are not only in the air above us; they’re in the ground below. More on that next week.

Karl Mattson's Film a Rallying Cry Against Site C

(Originally published in the Northeast News June 17, 2009, p. A12)



Based in Rolla, BC, Karl Mattson creates world-class documentary films. Keeping the Peace, one of his latest works, captures the heart and soul of arguments against Site C.

The feel of Mattson’s film is established early on, by wide skies, fertile valleys, and running water. A deeply reverberating drum song evokes the primordial necessity of water, “the main ingredient for life.”

The film’s overarching thesis is that there is no proper management plan to deal with the cumulative effects of industrial development in the vast Mackenzie drainage basin. The prospect of Site C is presented as a major example of our failure to protect a sensitive ecosystem that sustains fish, wildlife, and people.

Throughout, there is a marked contrast between the office-based bureaucrats who come and go, and the people for whom the Peace River valley is home.

Hugo Shaw, BC Hydro’s former Site C Project Director, talks about the dam’s design specifications and costs, but his managerial perspective is detached from the cultural and environmental significance of the valley. Shaw’s comments reflect what UBC historian Tina Loo calls a “high-modernist schematic.” Such rhetoric objectifies place, focusing on technical challenges and details while ignoring the real costs of development.

Shaw has since left BC Hydro and moved on to TransAlta, a power generation and wholesale marketing company that sells electricity to customers in various regions of Canada, the United States, and Australia.

Richard Neufeld also makes an appearance. Speaking as the province’s former Minister of Energy, Mines, and Resources, Neufeld implicitly defends Site C by saying “At the end of the day, we need to keep the lights on. And I can tell you when the lights go off, I get lots of calls. Big calls.”

I see this bristling observation as a mix of fear mongering and blunt intimidation. Neufeld seems imply that our backs are against the wall, that we have no choices. Nothing could be further from the truth.


If the interviews are a measure of thoughtful reflection, the critics of Site C win hands down.

Max Desjarlais, an elder of the West Moberly Lake First Nations, speaks as someone who has lived close to the land his whole life. “All we have to do,” he confirms, “is look after what we have.”

Roland and Clarence Willson, also of West Moberly, explain “there’s a standard concept” that the reservoir will be “a nice clean body of water, a nice lake for fishing and boating.” Scenes of debris and erosion at Williston suggest otherwise. Furthermore, the Willsons point out that another reservoir would flood critical wildlife habitat.

Keeping the Peace then takes viewers into the kitchen of the Ardill family, whose Peace Valley ranch dates back to 1920. Dick Ardill, the family patriarch (pictured lower right), talks movingly about the importance of agriculture and what stands to be lost if the dam goes through.
Karen Mckean, who has worked on the Ardill Ranch for about thirty years, offers a more personal perspective. Speaking of the ranch and the valley that she lives in, Karen says “It’s your life and everything around you.”

We also hear from Larry Peterson, one of the most informed, eloquent, and passionate opponents of Site C. Another long-time valley resident, Peterson has been fighting Site C most of his adult life. Sifting rich alluvial soil through his hands, Peterson says the land in the Site C pondage area can produce “enough vegetables to feed the entire north for the next 100 years.”

Mattson’s film follows the Mackenzie drainage basin east, into the industrial nightmare of Alberta’s Tar Sands, to Lake Athabasca, then to the Slave and Mackenzie rivers that lead to the Arctic Ocean. This macro-perspective highlights the interconnectedness of all things, stressing a failure to adequately consider the cumulative impacts of industrial development.

Commenting on his work, Mattson says “I personally think that concerned residents and grassroots groups within the watershed need to compile their efforts and join forces and really focus on government regulations as this is where the issues with industry are created.”

Keeping the Peace is currently available at locations such as the Dawson Creek Art Gallery, Northern Lights College Library, and the Hudson's Hope Museum. The documentary will also be showing on CHET TV and SHAW cable. Copies can be requested by e-mailing karlbmattson@yahoo.ca

Ultimately, Mattson’s film speaks to each one of us who thinks of the Peace River country as home. It’s a call to look past short-term gains, to think of the future and of the home we want to leave for our children’s children. Thank you Karl.

BC Geographers Link Big Dams with Topocide

(Published in the Northeast News, March 17, 2009)

Jim Windsor is a geographer who now teaches at the University of Northern British Columbia. Alistair McVey, also a geographer, worked at the College of New Caledonia and North Island College, and is now retired. In an article published in The Geographical Journal, Windsor and McVey (2005) link big dams to a form of “place annihilation” known as “topocide.”

Topocide involves not only a loss of place, but a loss of “sense of place.” It is a sobering, double-barrelled concept that provides a way of understanding the consequences of Site C.

If Site C proceeds, the loss of place is a given. Over 80 kilometers of river valley would be flooded, submerging more than 5,000 hectares. That sounds like a lot of land, but the figure might not mean much to some people. Think of it this way: 5,000 hectares is roughly equal to 10,000 CFL football fields. The scale and totality of such destruction are difficult to comprehend.

Five-thousand hectares or 10,000 football fields is actually a very conservative estimate because this figure doesn't include land that would be affected by reservoir set-back lines, transmission lines, earth-fill quarries, etc. It is also important to note that we would be losing four major alluvial flats along the river bottom, roughly 1,300 acres of some of the best agricultural land in BC.

Ironically, the severity of the devastation would be increased if BC Hydro corrects past errors by executing a thorough “clearing plan” whose primary objective would be to remove as much organic matter as possible.

Affirming a connection made months ago in this column, Windsor and McVey note that dam construction leads to the kind of treeless, barren “deathscapes” typically associated with the scorched-earth tactics of total warfare. Photo 1 (below left) shows a World War I battlefield. Photo 2 (below right), courtesy of Donna Smith, shows some of the clearing that occurred during the construction of the Bennett Dam.

Furthermore, as people in this region know, reservoirs do not wash away the problem, exchanging a river for a nice lake. In the case of Site C, we would we would be left with a hazardous impoundment area potentially subject to debris from tributaries, accelerated erosion, an increased likelihood of landslides, increased fog and wind turbulence, and, depending on the effectiveness of the clearing plan, elevated levels of methylmercury, a neurotoxin that spreads through the food web.

Nor would wildlife in the valley simply move to higher ground. Wildlife biologists tell us that most of the animals will die.

The totality of the devastation associated with large dams leads to the second aspect of topocide. By killing everything in sight, we also destroy our own “sense of place,” our sense of belonging: “homes, fields, and roads are no longer there; the entire landscape has been obliterated.” And even if a reservoir is drained, “no landmarks, no cherished reminders of home” would remain visible beneath the sediment (Windsor and McVey, p. 156).

During the flooding of Williston, for example, the Beattie family’s Gold Bar ranch, famous throughout the north, was wiped off the face of the map. BC Hydro burned the main house, a beautiful, three-storey log home, “just before they started backing the water up behind the dam” (Pollon and Matheson, This Was Our Valley, pp. 210-221). Photo 3 (below left) shows the Gold Bar Ranch before the flood. Photo 4 (below right) shows the obliteration of the Gold Bar Ranch after the flood. Both images appear in This Was Our Valley.

Focusing on northwestern BC, Windsor and McVey tell how the people of the Cheslatta T’En First Nation were displaced by Alcan’s Kenney Dam on the Nechako River, during the early 1950s. The story has much in common with Tsay Key Dene Band’s experience of Williston Reservoir (see "Dust Has Not Settled for the Tsay Keh Dene," Northeast News, February 18, 2009, p. 18).

After the Cheslatta people were abruptly evicted from their ancestral lands, “their buildings were razed and their ranches bulldozed.” Eventually, a community church was also destroyed. Particularly disturbing to the Cheslatta was the eventual destruction of [a] cemetery . . . and the erosion of grave sites, which resulted in several coffins being carried downstream in the current” (Windsor & McVey, p. 155). The following two pictures, from Windsor and McVey's article, show the Chestlatta cemetery before and after the flooding: "The Cheslatta graveyard had, until its destruction, provided the [the people of the] community with a sense of identity and continuity with their past" (pp. 155-156).

Citing Justice Thomas Berger's findings during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, Windsor and McVey explain that dam-induced topocide has taken a particular toll on the people of First Nations communities, who "regard themselves as inseparable from the land, the waters, and the animals with which they share the world. They regard themselves as custodians of the land, which is for their use during their lifetime, and which they must pass on to their children and their children’s children after them."

In the heyday of dam construction, roughly forty years ago, society at large was somehow prepared to overlook the realities of topocide. It was acceptable to see the world through WAC Bennett’s eyes and believe that river valleys were there for the taking, that dams were monuments to progress. That day is over.

Recounting the wisdom of human geography, Windsor and McVey tell us that place is essential to personal and cultural identity, providing “a centre of human meaning, intentions, and values. Place is where commitments are made and obligations met.”

It’s time for all British Columbians to become more mindful of the Peace River region and to speak up in defence of the river after which this place is named.

Orwell's Windmill Sounds Familiar

(Originally published in the Northeast News, March 4, 2009, p. 19)

George Orwell’s Animal Farm, published in 1945, is one of the great novels of the twentieth century. It is typically read as an allegory, as a symbolic narrative in which the literal subject corresponds to another subject.

In Orwell’s novel, talking animals take control of the farm on which they live. The allegorical meaning the story is based on parallels to Stalinist Russia. The brilliance of great literature, though, is its peculiar relevance to all people in all eras.

Indeed, Orwell’s novel involves a windmill that brings to mind the potential Site C dam, providing an allegory for our times.

After taking control of their farm, the animals, led by clever pigs, consider their own megaproject, a windmill that will “supply the farm with electrical power.” The official justification is grounded in a vision of domestic well-being: the windmill is supposed to light the stalls (or homes), warming the populace in winter.

But the project is controversial: “The whole farm was deeply divided on the subject of the windmill.” The aptly named Snowball, a pig who dreams big, is one of the project’s early advocates.

Snowball is a visionary, a good talker with big ideas, an expert at forming committees. Snowball concedes that construction will be “a difficult business,” involving many logistical problems.

Another community leader opposes the windmill, contending that “food production” is “the great need of the moment.”

The animals become divided into factions, but the dream of the windmill wins out, long after Snowball’s exile, and all of the animals work “like slaves” to turn the vision into a reality: “they grudged no effort or sacrifice,” believing everything they did “was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them . . .”

As the project continues, however, the official goal of domestic well-being gives way to cross-border, capitalistic notions of free trade and commercial profit. Thus, even as the leaders deny their true motives, there is a kind of mission creep that possesses the ideology of a cancer cell: growth at all costs.

“One Sunday morning,” the animals are told that their farm “will engage in trade with the neighbouring farms: not, of course, for any commercial purpose but simply in order to obtain certain materials which were urgently necessary.”

In time, “the needs of the windmill” come to “override everything else.” And, long after its completion, the windmill is never put to its originally stated use: “The windmill . . . had not after all been used for generating electrical power [for the animals themselves]. It was used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit.”

In the moral universe of Orwell’s fiction, the narrator expressly acknowledges that it’s hard to tell pigs from men and men from pigs. As the novel concludes, the animals are “hard at work building yet another windmill.” By this point, development has a momentum of its own, and genuine domestic needs are “no longer [even] talked about.”

George Orwell lived in tyrannical, violent times and was inclined to regard cynicism as the only healthy alternative to fanaticism. In our case, let’s hope that real life turns out better than fiction.

The Many Faces of BC "Hydra"

(Originally published in the Northeast News, February 25, p. 24)

Hydra: Greek mythology. A mythical, nine-headed monster. When a head was struck off, it was replaced by two new ones. The Hydra was eventually slain by Hercules.

The thing about BC Hydro’s Chief Executive Officer, Bob Elton, is that he really gets it. Elton understands that when it comes to energy consumption, we need something akin to a conservation revolution—a dramatic paradigm shift that would actually reverse rising domestic demand for electricity.

I don’t know much about Bob Elton, but I admire his courage. Not your ordinary CEO, he is a Chartered Accountant who also has a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University, where he studied English literature. Elton has attributed his keen moral awareness to his training as an accountant. Surely, his background in the humanities also helped to shape his social conscience.

The problem is, other elements in BC Hydro’s corporate culture appear inclined to regard steadily increasing demand less critically, as a “requirement” that must be met. This position, in turn, is used to support a purported need for projects like Site C.

The different faces of BC “Hydra” (serious conservation vs. an expansionist agenda ultimately linked to export) are vividly revealed by two BC Hydro graphs that imagine BC’s future energy needs in very different ways.

Figure 1, below, appears as part of a cover letter, signed by Bob Elton, accompanying BC Hydro’s 2007 Conservation Potential Review: Summary Report. In this letter, Bob Elton describes “a visionary approach” that looks at how “electricity demand in British Columbia could be reduced.”

Figure 1

“Our goal,” Elton writes, is to develop and foster a conservation culture in BC that leads to customers choosing to make a dramatic and permanent reduction in electricity [use].” Pursuing this vision, Elton “strongly” believes “we can go beyond” the “conservation target set out by the 2007 BC Energy Plan and lead a change such that in 2027 we would return to 2007 electricity consumption levels while allowing for growth and economic prosperity.”

“In British Columbia,” Elton says, “saving energy must be more than a technical solution. We must also address the issue of wasted electricity. We use more electricity per capita than almost anywhere else in the world.”

According to Elton, “some progressive European communities use 60% less electricity in their homes than comparable communities in BC without compromising quality of life. What seems like an amazing conservation feat is really quite possible. It’s due to efficient lifestyle choices that are rooted in the culture.”

Industry, Elton notes, “can play an important part too. Current world leaders in industrial production are over 40% more efficient than most industries in BC.”

Figure 2, below, also from BC Hydro, imagines a very different future. What you see here is my partial recreation of a demand-supply graph that appears in the Site C Feasibility Review (p. 2). For the purposes of this article, I’ve simply highlighted the demand outlook presented by the Site C team. The steadily rising dotted line indicates a “mid-range demand forecast.”

Figure 2

According to Hydro’s Feasibility Review, “The current forecast for electricity demand indicates that BC’s electricity requirements will grow by between 25 per cent and 45 percent over the next 20 years. . . . While the magnitude of the [supply-demand] gap in any particular year is uncertain, there is a consistent trend of steadily rising demand” (p. 2; emphasis added).

The implied justification for new, large projects like Site C is clear: “the province needs to examine some large projects to meet growing demand . . .” (p. 2). Here, long-term, growing demand is presented as a given, as an unquestioned reality that must be accommodated.

Seen in this way, the Peace River is valued primarily as a potential resource for hydro-electric development, not as an inherently valuable aspect of a fragile ecosystem. It is, in fact, very evident that the recently completed "public consultation" for Site C was largely an exercise in public relations, a multi-million-dollar sales pitch that framed the issues from a pro-development perspective.

Take another look at the two graphs. The difference is remarkable. In Figure 1, we find a way to eliminate unconscionable waste and help save the best place on earth. In Figure 2, that little, wandering, dotted line of increasing demand goes on and on, up and up, seemingly without end. And “that way,” to quote Shakespeare, “madness lies.”

Of course, the difference in the two forecasts is a result of different macro-modeling assumptions. The steadily rising line in Figure 2 reflects the pattern in a “reference case” also described in the 2007 Conservation Potential Review (p. 10). This reference case relies on estimated population and economic growth, but does not factor in “new [demand-side-management] initiatives (pp. 5, 9).

Just as BC Hydro makes choices in deciding how to imagine the future, we too need to make some choices. It's high time to see through expansionist propaganda that will turn BC into an energy farm for California. Let’s embrace the visionary goals of the CEO and choose a path that would help to mitigate the need for massively destructive projects like Site C.

The 2007 Conservation Potential Review: Summary Report (appropriately abbreviated as “CPR”) is available on the web and should be required reading for everyone who cares about “generations” to come.

For a discussion of Hydro's export motives, see the column archive for "BC Hydro Has History of Overbuilding for Export" (Originally published in the Northeast News, Wednesday, September 24, 2008, p. 32).

Dust Has Not Settled for the Tsay Keh Dene People

(Originally published in the Northeast News, February 18, 2009, p. 19)

"Those who control the past control the future."

---George Orwell, 1984.

The experience of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation is a little-known story that reflects the historical realities of large dams. All of my information comes from scholarly studies in the public domain. In particular, I’ve relied on an outstanding Masters Thesis by Mary Christina Koyl, entitled Cultural Chasm: A 1960s Hydro Development and the Tsay Keh Dene Native Community of Northern British Columbia (UVic, 1992).

The Tsay Keh Dene, like the McLeod Lake Band and Kwadacha First Nation, are Sekani peoples who have lived in the Rocky Mountain Trench since time immemorial.

In the early 1960s, when construction of the Bennett Dam began, several hundred Tsay Keh Dene occupied the Williston flood zone (Koyl, p. 69). Living a semi-traditional way of life, they moved with the seasons and available wildlife, inhabiting villages at places such as Old Ingenika, Fort Grahame, and Finlay Forks (Koyl, pp. 45, 69).

Koyl points out that BC Hydro and federal government officials tried to inform the Tsay Keh about what was happening, but, at the time, no one fully understood how massive the devastation would be. Furthermore, cultural differences negated effective communication (Koyl, pp. 53-56, etc.).

When the flooding began to occur in 1968, Koyl notes, “it was a tremendous shock and left many distressed as they saw their lands disappear (p. 70).

Returning to Fort Grahame from a hunting trip, a group of young men “could not believe what they saw: They stood on the hillsides and stared in disbelief. In the distance, the valley was slowly disappearing beneath a flood of rising water. They hurried to the abandoned Hudson’s Bay Company post at Fort Grahame to find their homes deserted, burned to the ground” (Glavin; as cited by Koyl, p. 26).

According to Koyl, “the band tried to save as much of the wildlife as possible, but once the flood was unleashed, animals drowned even as the band members attempted to rescue them. Elders still remember the stench of rotting moose and other animal carcasses floating on the water’s surface. Around them, the pristine environment had become a living nightmare” (p. 75).

In addition to destroying land, the timber-clogged reservoir formed a physical barrier, impeding communication among First Nations in the area (Koyle, p. 76). For societies whose spiritual and physical survival depends on a close connection to the land, the changes were devastating.

Koyle further notes that band members “were shocked at the element of force [involved in the directive to move]. Some Tsay Keh Dene people had to be physically evacuated from their homes as the water rose around them. As well, no options were presented to the Native community other than to move” (p. 16).

After the old settlement of Fort Grahame was flooded, “some forty or fifty members of the Tsay Keh Dene” were “relocated to so-called ‘model reserves’ near Mackenzie, at the south end of the reservoir.” Life on the new reserves was not good. Unable to pursue their traditional way of life, band members faced alcoholism, despondency, and family violence (Koyl, p. 76).

By the end of 1971, The Tsay Keh Dene had abandoned the southern reserves and returned to an unflooded portion of their traditional territory at Ingenika Point. Things were better temporarily, but the move back to Ingenika brought “a maze of bureaucratic technicalities. Technically, the Band was squatting on provincial crown land” (Koyl, pp. 77-79).

Despite community growth, by the spring of 1986, the band also faced “a serious outbreak of intestinal disease. Health and Welfare Canada identified the cause as high levels of samonella and other [bacterial] diseases.” Among other problems, “there was no potable water or a community water distribution network” at the village (Koyl, p. 106).

In October 1986, Gordon Pierre was elected Chief and the Tsay Keh Dene turned to government, the media, and the judicial system in efforts to address their situation. Over twenty years later, Ella Pierre, Gordon’s cousin, is now the band chief, and the search for justice continues.

The New Relationship Review (Summer 2007), a glossy provincial government brochure, celebrates a new “agreement-in-principle” with the Tsay Keh Dene and Kwadacha First Nation, describing cash settlements and “further commitments” (p. 3). The Kwadacha finalized their agreement in late November 2007. A final agreement has not yet been reached with the Tsay Keh Dene.

Today, the Bennett Dam still impacts the lives of band members. For the resilient people who now live in Tsay Keh village, at the north end of Williston reservoir, dust storms are a major health problem.

In spring, when reservoir water levels are low, strong southeasterly winds raise severe dust storms on the barren flats of the reservoir foreshore, causing thick clouds of silt-sized particles to sweep through the village (Littlefield et al., 2007, pp. 44-46; Baker, Young, & Arocena, 2000, p.565).

Approaching the community at sunset in early June, I saw a thick cloud of dust hovering above the reserve on an otherwise clear evening. The photograph below-left shows dust-monotoring equipment on the flats in front of the village.


Many band members, particularly children and elders, have respiratory and skin problems. Furthermore, debris on the reservoir continues to create a transportation barrier, the water is undrinkable, and the fish, part of the traditional Tsay Keh diet, are contaminated with high levels of mercury and cannot be eaten.

In short, for the Tsay Key Dene, Williston reservoir is “a health hazard” (Littefield et al., p. iii), and no cash compensation can truly redress the hardships they have endured.

BC Hydro has confessed to past mistakes and promised to do things differently this time around, but the fundamental realities of large dams remain the same. The Site C project, if it proceeds, would cause unnecessary, permanent, large-scale environmental destruction and forever disrupt the lives of those who depend on what’s left of the valley. We need the wisdom to say no.

Postcript: 17-year-old Garrett Seymour of the Kwadacha First Nation at Fort Ware has written and narrated a short documentary film about the effect of the Bennett Dam on his people. This film is available on the web, as part of the "Aboriginal Curriculum Integration Project," sponsored by School District 79.

Garrett says "the best kept secret in Canada is how the Bennett Dam came into being." He notes that "the people who built the Bennett Dam never knew we existed at all." To view the video, click on the address below, then scroll down to the bottom of the web page and choose the Mac or Windows "Video" link.

http://www.sd79.bc.ca/programs/abed/ACIP/grade7/socials7_Lessons/human_impacts/human_impacts7.html

Landslide Considerations in the Site C Flood Zone

(Originally published in the Northeast News, February 4, 2008, p. 24)

BC Hydro’s Site C public consultation literature provides some information on landslide risks associated with the formation of the potential reservoir. Hydro’s Feasibility Review offers the most nuanced assessment, stating that “flooding would increase the likelihood of small slides (less than 20,000 cubic metres) along the low bank areas, though the effect on high bank areas would be minimal” (p. 46). This article elaborates on landslide concerns in the Site C flood zone.

Many of the slopes along the Peace River and its tributaries are marginally stable. This is evident from recent, large landslides on the Beatton River, the Halfway River, and on the Peace River itself.

The picture (above-right), courtesy of Diane Culling, shows cutbank erosion along the lower Halfway River.

The most well-known landslide on the Peace River is the Attachie Slide, which occurred on May 26, 1973. In this case, a slope opposite the Halfway River bridge “had been slowly failing by compound sliding for many decades,” if not thousands of years.

“Suddenly, following a period of heavy rain, 7 million cubic metres of the disturbed mass liquefied, descended a bedrock scarp at the foot of the slope and flowed across the kilometre wide floodplain,” completely blocking the Peace River for about six hours (Fletcher; as cited by Hungr et al., 2005, p. 100).

In the language of landslide specialists, “this is an example where [water-softened clay] produced material that is very sensitive in its bulk behaviour” (Fletcher; as cited by Hungr et al, 2005, p. 100).

Geertsema et al. (2006) note that most of the large, soil landslides in BC, such as the Attachie Slide, involve preglacial lake sediments. At Attachie, the failure surface occurred high above the river but deep in the soil sequence.

Other large slides on the Peace River have occurred at Bear Flat and Cache Creek. In fact, almost all of the unconsolidated sediments in the Peace valley can host landslides.
Landslides can also occur in weak shale bedrock below glacial sediments, such as at Taylor, during the bridge collapse in 1957.

In regard to Site C, reservoir formation could play a role in the frequency of landslides because higher surface and ground water levels, seepage, and wave action can contribute to natural instability.

Yet the business of predicting landslides, in the Site C flood zone and elsewhere, is not easy. The slopes along the Peace are probably complex in that there may be both shallow landslides as well as deep-seated landslides lurking behind some of them. In many cases, movement will be slow. In the case of the Attachie Slide, rapid movement created a large displacement wave (Hungr et al., 2005, p. 100).

The most famous example of a reservoir landslide causing a large displacement wave occurred in the Italian Alps, at Vaiont, Italy, in 1963. As the reservoir behind the enormous Vaiont Dam was being filled, a block of approximately 270 million cubic metres detached from one wall and slid into the lake at velocities reaching 110 kmh. The resultant wave over-topped the dam by 250 metres and swept into the valley below, destroying villages and killing approximately 2,500 people.

While BC Hydro’s Round 1 Feedback Form discusses risk zones for landslide-generated displacement waves (pp. 11-12), there is no mention of how big the waves might be, the anticipated consequences, or whether they could affect the integrity of the Site C dam.

Responding to questions on the subject, BC Hydro notes that it has “carefully considered” the issue of landslide-generated waves, using "physical hydraulic modelling [for] various known landslide areas along the Peace River.”

“The characteristics of landslide generated waves,” BC Hydro observes, depend on “many different variables. Specifically, the volume, thickness, and velocity of the landslide, the topography and slope of the slide, the mechanism of failure (deep seated slides vs. shallow slides), and the [underwater depth] and shape of the reservoir are all important factors [that] may affect the resulting landslide-generated wave height. Wave heights also tend to decrease with distance travelled by the wave.”

BC Hydro also states that “by far the majority of the slides in the Peace valley have been too slow and/or too small to generate significant waves. Model testing was directed towards the much less frequent, larger, faster slides such as the Attachie slide.”

Drawing on existing studies, BC Hydro further states that “the current design of the potential Site C Dam has the required freeboard (vertical distance between the top of the reservoir and the dam crest) to accommodate the risk of landslide generated waves.”

Currently, BC Hydro is using “international standards and best practices” to update historical estimates of landslide generated waves in the Site C flood zone. This work will continue if the project proceeds to Stage 3.

In regard to displacement waves, it should also be noted that something Site C has in its favour, compared to other reservoirs, is the relatively low relief of the valley, which means less energy and momentum transfer for potential slides.

To summarize, concerns about landslides in the Site C flood zone deserve serious consideration and involve some of the most complex technical questions associated with the potential project. BC Hydro’s general message to the public, as I understand it, is that “the potential Site C reservoir would have little effect on the frequency of landslides or sloughing other than during the development of beaches at the new water level” (Feedback Form for Round 1 Project Definition, May/June 2008, p. 10). Hydro’s consultation literature also stresses that careful study will continue.

Local First Nations Have a Key Role in the Future of Site C

(Originally published in the Northeast News, January 28, 2009, p. 24)

For more than 10,000 years, the Peace River valley has held great significance for the Dane-zaa people, whose traditional values and way of life are closely linked to river systems. The Peace River was the first “highway” in this region and is one of the richest areas for archaeological recovery in all of British Columbia.

Today, the Dane-zaa and Cree communities of Treaty 8 participate in resource development and are working to build the prosperity that has come with it. The First Nations of Treaty 8 also recognize the need to pursue ecologically sustainable development (Northeast News, March 19, 2007, p. 5).

Seeking this critical balance, some First Nations representatives have historically voiced opposition to Site C. Such opposition was clearly expressed at a First Nations meeting held in Fort St. John on November 3, 2005, as part of the consultation process associated with the 2006 Provincial Integrated Electricity Plan.

At the November 3 meeting, First Nations participants “made it clear that they [were] adamantly against the development of Site C.” Participants noted that they have “significant historical grievances” related to the “original impacts” of the Bennett and Peace Canyon dams” and that they still “experience impacts from the operation of these dams” (BC Hydro’s “Final Meeting Notes,” available on the web).

More recently, a 2007 resolution passed by the Assembly of Treaty Chiefs for Treaties 6, 7, and 8 (Alberta) acknowledges “ongoing opposition of First Nations governments to further development of hydroelectric dams within the Peace River watershed” (Resolution 26-10-2007/#004R).

Currently, six western Treaty 8 First Nations (Fort Nelson, Prophet River, Halfway River, Doig River, Saulteau, and West Moberly First Nations) continue to review the impacts of the Bennett and Peace Canyon dams as they begin to assess possible impacts from the potential Site C dam while participating in BC Hydro’s First Nations consultation process.

Given recent decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada, the province is bound by a legal duty to consult with and accommodate Aboriginal groups that could be affected by land and resource development. Procedural aspects of this consultation process can be delegated to the project proponent.

The key judgements in this respect are Haida Nation v. British Columbia
and Taku River Tlingit First Nation v. British Columbia (2004).

Summarizing the legal situation, Rosanne M. Kyle, an Aboriginal law specialist with Miller Thomson, explains that “the extent of the duty to consult will depend upon the circumstances of the case. The [Supreme] Court was clear in stating that the duty to consult does not provide First Nations with a veto right.” Thus, as a general rule, “government is not required to obtain Aboriginal consent to a project before it approves it” (“The Duty to Consult,” Aboriginal Law Update, 2005; available on the web).

In Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (1997), however, the Supreme Court indicated that “Some cases may even require the full consent of an Aboriginal nation, particularly when provinces enact hunting and fishing regulations in relation to Aboriginal lands.” It is an open question whether the Court would consider the potential impacts from a project the size of Site C as comparable to impacts caused by hunting and fishing regulations affecting Aboriginal lands.

Practically speaking, obtaining Aboriginal consent in development situations may figure more as a matter of respectful, good business practice. There is a growing realization that long-term project success is enhanced when Aboriginal consent is secured, and project authorities have increasingly sought mutually desirable business agreements as a means of securing acceptance.

In my view, obtaining Aboriginal consent could also be regarded as a moral issue. In the spirit of Article 32(2) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Resolution No. 43 of the recent Annual General Assembly of First Nations (2008) calls, in part, on the governments of Canada and British Columbia to “Refrain from any development of the Site C dam” without both consultation and “the free, prior and informed consent of the West Moberly First Nation and other affected BC Treaty 8 First Nations.”

Closer to home, in 2006, BC Hydro’s Integrated Electricity Plan Committee advised that “support from local people (First Nations and others)” should be “a prerequisite” for “starting investigations into this project” (2006 IEP Stakeholder Engagement Report, pp. 144-145).

While legal, financial, and ethical considerations relating to First Nations and hydroelectric development are still evolving, it is clear that Aboriginal people have a critical role to play in the future of projects like the potential Site C dam. Treaty 8 First Nations are “rightholders” in the Peace valley, and they regard the current dialogue with BC Hydro as an opportunity to engage in respectful, meaningful discussions about Site C.

Film Offers Lessons for All Dam-Building Nations

(Originally published in the Northeast News, Wednesday, January 7, 2009)

Up the Yangtze (2007), a feature-length documentary film by Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, explores the social consequences of China’s Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world.

Upstream of the dam, the Yangtze River flows through three steep and spectacular gorges collectively known as the “Sanxia,” from which the project takes its name.

Yung Chang is primarily concerned about the human dimensions of such an undertaking. His film is long, somber, and subdued, but, as the creeping water of the reservoir slowly and relentlessly rises, we witness a poignant depiction of large dams as silent killers. Amid the benign rhetoric of nation-building, we learn that large dams destroy people’s lives, that families and individuals matter.

Web discussions align Chang’s work with rich traditions in literature and cinema, characterizing the documentary as a “surreal journey” into a “heart of darkness.” The narrow ship locks in which the film begins and ends have been likened to the gates of hell.


Fellow passengers on one of China’s “farewell cruises,” we travel downriver toward the dam, through the cradle of ancient Chinese civilization, glimpsing forgotten temples and deserted cities in “a strange landscape of chaos and decay.” Mist and rain are everywhere.

The journey opens with a quotation from Confucius: “By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection which is noblest; second, by imitation which is easiest; and third, by experience which is the bitterest.”

Yu Shui and her family are at the centre of the film. Shui is a sixteen-year-old girl who wants to continue her education, but her parents are among the millions of farmers displaced by the reservoir and cannot afford to send their daughter to school. Ironically, Yu Shui must take a job below-decks on one of the cruise ships, where, cleaning dishes for American tourists, she is renamed “Cindy.”

Chen Bo Yu (renamed “Jerry”) comes from a middle-class family and also goes to work on the cruise boat. He is “tall and good-looking,” “spoiled and cocky.” Because he knows English, Bo Yu has a favoured position as baggage boy and lounge singer, but his all-important career aspirations are thwarted when he is fired for being too conceited.

And what is progress? Campbell, a Chinese tour guide who is fluent in English, tells the story of an American leader and a Chinese leader, both of whom are riding in the back of a limousine, on the road of life. They come to a fork in the road. The American leader says “turn right.” The Chinese leader also says “turn right, but keep the left indicator on.”

Rather than pursuing a socialist vision of equality, Yung Chang’s China is building a society of haves and have-nots, a world in which Chen Bo Yu’s notion of success is measured by neon dreams of Vegas-like materialism.

Meanwhile, those pudgy, middle-aged American tourists are passive spectators and consumers, complicit with the whole enterprise.

Perhaps the most compelling scenes in the film occur near the end, as the latter-day love boat approaches the great Three Gorges Dam and Yu Shui’s impoverished parents show up for a visit. Speaking in English, the dam official insults Yu Shui’s father, telling the camera that this farmer is “suspicious of the government” and, like most farmers, “really knows nothing about the dam.”

But Yu Shui’s father remains a sympathetic character, a humble man who seeks a simple, healthy, happy life for his family. As the creeping waters of the reservoir submerge the makeshift family home on the lower banks of the river, Yu Shui’s father carries the family possessions on his back, up the steep slope of the reservoir, to an uncertain life in the city, where the family must buy food rather than grow their own.

Ultimately, Yung Chang’s story of the Three Gorges Dam can tell us something about our own world. In many ways, perhaps, modern China has become our shadow self, an example of unsustainable development writ large. In entertaining the destructiveness of projects like Site C, we, too, may be headed for trouble.

According to Yung Chang, “All serious studies show that mega-dams like the Three Gorges ultimately have greater negative effects than positive. . . . The growing consensus is that [large dams] simply don’t work in the long run. They cause terrible damage to the environment and destroy the livelihoods of local people.”

Up the Yangtze (available at local video stores and libraries) is well worth seeing, but watch for a coming attraction. Karl Mattson’s Keeping the Peace, due out soon, is a homegrown masterpiece that will become a landmark event in the public awareness of Site C. More on Mattson’s film in a coming article.

Other Hydroelectric Jurisdictions Show Better Ways of Doing Business

(Originally published in the Northeast News, December 3, 2008, p. 22)


Best-practice principles for stakeholder engagement in hydroelectric development offer more than purely theoretical, pie-in-the-sky dreams of how things could be. There are precedents for the application of such principles, both within Canada and elsewhere in the world.

The best-practice model discussed here in recent weeks recognizes the importance of public participation in screening specific projects such as the potential Site C dam. Such screening should occur early in the planning process and should involve stakeholders in a comprehensive dialogue on matters related to project justification and acceptability.

In particular, gaining the support of project-affected communities and individuals has become a key consideration. The new model moves from mere “consultation” to genuine “collaboration,” and calls on project authorities to recognize that alternatives to dams often do exist.


Studies emerging from the World Commission on Dams (WCD) point to Hydro-Quebec as a public utility that has made “pioneering” reforms in the way it does business, becoming a leader in progressive approaches to stakeholder involvement (Thayer Scudder, The Future of Large Dams, 2006, pp. 200, 204-210).

In the aftermath of the public relations nightmare that occurred during the first stages of the James Bay Project during the 70s and 80s, Hydro-Quebec’s 1998-2002 strategic plan adopted a “Triple Bottom Line” for dam development, stating that “community agreement had to be secured, projects had to be economically feasible, and projects had to be environmentally acceptable.”

Under Hydro-Quebec’s strategic plan, “the normal cycle of preparing project studies to confirm environmental and technical feasibility was commenced only for those sites where community acceptance had been reached” (Stakeholder Involvement sourcebook, 2003, pp. 107-108, 133).

This marks a significant departure from the traditional, proponent-driven practice that we’re seeing with Site C, where economic and environmental studies have been undertaken without any formal mechanism for securing community consent. In fact, as noted in previous articles, BC Hydro has essentially removed foundational questions about project acceptability from the current round of so-called consultation.

Another case of exemplary collaboration occurred in Botswana, Africa. During the late 1980s, the government began planning a network of dams that were intended to increase food production through irrigation and improved flood recession along the Okavango River, one of the most magnificent wetlands in the world. Like the James Bay project, this one started badly.

Scudder notes that “members of the responsible ministry became project ‘boosters’ to the extent that they stigmatized the critics and refused to acknowledge project defects or consider alternatives” (The Future of Large Dams, p. 200).

The outcry from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local villagers was both immediate and intense. In response, the Botswanan government took the brave step of inviting an external, international agency to evaluate the project. The external report found that the project was flawed in many ways, and the government decided to cancel the proposed development.

Furthermore, based on the external evaluation, the Botswanan government declared the Okavango wetlands “the world’s largest Ramsar [i.e., protected] site—a decision that makes the initiation of future large-scale infrastructure projects in the delta more difficult” (The Future of Large Dams, pp. 200-204).

But the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. In the volatile world of hydroelectric development, misunderstandings and disagreements often come with the territory. And development pressures around the world, in places as diverse as Quebec and Botswana, mean that there are few guarantees.

Once planned, Scudder observes, dam projects “are like vampires in their ability to rise from the dead, [so] local populations must remain ever vigilant” (The Future of Large Dams, p. 199).

Closer to home, BC Hydro has been recognized for a progressive approach to stakeholder engagement in its Water Use Plans (WUPs). The World Bank’s Stakeholder Involvement sourcebook cites a prototype WUP exercise during the late 1990s, when a multi-stakeholder Consultative Committee was struck to develop a water use plan that would guide operation of the newly renovated power station at the Stave Falls dam (pp. 187-196).

In cases such as this, though, the stakes are considerably lower because public participation is limited to “within-project” alternatives, where hydroelectric facilities are already in place. When the stakes are higher, as in the case of moving ahead with Site C, BC Hydro has actually stifled stakeholder engagement with project acceptability, particularly within project-affected communities, where concern is the most intense.

Interestingly, the Site C Feasibility Review (December 2007) does refer to the proposed establishment of “multi-party consultative committees” that would include, among others, “First Nations and interested stakeholders” (Section 7, p. 60). Yet this proposed component of the consultation process is underdeveloped and fails to represent the concerns of the many “interested stakeholders” who attended the last Open House in Fort St. John.

To summarize, the proponent-driven, top-down version of consultation that we’re seeing today, in regard to Site C, does not reflect internationally recognized best-practice principles of stakeholder involvement, creating a profound sense of procedural injustice. Sadly, the process further indicates that BC Hydro has retained much of the arrogance that typified its approach to hydroelectric development from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Let’s hope it’s still possible to teach an old dog new tricks.

Project-Specific Consultation on Site C Deeply Flawed

(Originally published in the Northeast News, November 26, 2008, p. 30)

As noted last week, public participation in screening specific projects, such as the potential Site C dam, is now an important aspect of best-practices in hydroelectric development. Such screening should occur early or “upstream” in the planning process; should include key stakeholders in project-affected communities; and should involve a comprehensive dialogue on matters related to project justification and acceptability.

While ultimate decision-making authority typically remains with governments, the most progressive approaches to public participation reach beyond mere “consultation” to genuine “collaboration,” meaning that the consent of affected communities becomes an important consideration.

Looking at recent history, valuable public discussion of Site C occurred within the larger context of the 2006 Integrated Electricity Plan (IEP). During the IEP process, Site C proved to be very controversial, and a stakeholder advisory committee stated that “support from local people (First Nations and others)” should be “a prerequisite” for “starting investigations into this project” (2006 IEP Stakeholder Engagement Report, pp. 144-145).

Since then, however, BC Hydro’s handling of Site C has both evaded and marginalized public involvement in the fundamental issue of project acceptability, creating deep resentment.

During “Stage One” of the current project-specific investigation, BC Hydro reviewed the feasibility of Site C. At this point, key considerations included the following questions: (1) “Have any project characteristics been identified to date that suggest Site C should not be considered further as a resource option?” (2) “Does Site C appear to offer sufficient overall benefits relative to the alternatives to justify further investigation?”

These are precisely the kind of fundamental questions that deserve meaningful stakeholder engagement. However, BC Hydro acknowledges that “the preliminary analysis was conducted primarily as a desk-based exercise using information and materials available internally” (Feasibility Review, pp. 1-3).

Thus, BC Hydro lost (or avoided) an opportunity to follow through on the best-practice model described above. Indeed, the review of Site C was an insular process driven by the pro-construction bias of the project authority. Given this situation, it is almost humorous to encounter BC Hydro’s conclusion: “BC Hydro recommends moving to Stage Two” (Feasibility Review, p. i).

No kidding. Asking my beloved grandmother whether The Lawrence Welk Show should be recommended viewing would elicit an equally predictable conclusion.

“Stage Two” of the Site C consultation process began with what Hydro called “preconsultation.” The stated purpose of the preconsultation meetings was to gather feedback that would be used to establish a framework for forthcoming discussions. People were asked “how” and “on what” they wished to be consulted.

BC Hydro’s Pre-Consultation Summary Report indicates that respondents expressed considerable interest in discussing alternative projects (bar graph, p. iv).

In response to a question about potential “community benefits,” a relatively large number of respondents stated that they were “opposed to Site C” and saw “no benefit” (bar graph, p. vi). Yet the summary comments that immediately follow the graph ignore such opposition while emphasizing more favourable responses. This is indicative of Hydro’s larger tendency to push project acceptability beyond the scope of the discussion.

Clearly, pre-consultation feedback indicated that project justification was a key concern among a significant number of stakeholders, presenting BC Hydro with another opportunity to foster public engagement in comprehensive, project-specific options assessment.

Instead, BC Hydro proceeded with its own agenda by focusing on “Project Definition” in the next phase of Stage Two consultation. The problem here is that Project Definition focuses on “within project” alternatives--on refining design elements related to construction.

In some respects, therefore, preconsultation was a hollow exercise. The many voices that called for a serious discussion of project justification and acceptability have had no meaningful influence in shaping the consultation process.

In an apparent attempt to redress the error of its ways, BC Hydro has rolled a little more commentary on strategic options assessment into the latest round of Project Definition meetings, but the gesture is too superficial--too transparently influenced by BC Hydro’s own project boosterism. In a cursory overview of alternative forms of power, Hydro officials tend to emphasize the purported shortcomings of everything but hydropower—before carrying on with Project Definition.

Accordingly, at all three of the October 2008 consultation meetings in Fort St. John, there was an obvious disconnection between the kind of questions coming from the floor (many of which dealt with project acceptability) and BC Hydro’s own sense of priorities.

Make no mistake: people have good reason to be frustrated. While Hydro repeatedly says that no decision has been made to build the dam, that very deferral has become part of the problem, enabling BC Hydro and the provincial government to deflect ongoing concerns about project acceptability while simultaneously moving toward the critical decision to proceed.

Put simply, we’re told that no decision has been made to build the dam, but, at the same time, project-specific consultation has essentially bypassed public discussion about whether to proceed.

There’s a better, braver, more ethical way of doing business—one that promotes a sense of procedural fairness, particularly among project-affected communities. Next week’s article will discuss situations in which hydroelectric utilities have adhered to best practices and done the right thing.

2006 IEP Upheld Best Practices for Stakeholder Engagement

(Originally published in the Northeast News, November 19, 2008, p. 30)

A previous article in this column (“Manufacturing Consent,” Northeast News, July 2, 2008) was critical of BC Hydro’s Site C consultation process. Here, I return to the theme of public consultation, measuring BC Hydro’s conduct against a core principle of contemporary best-practices.

That core principle is evident throughout a 300-page report commissioned by the World Bank and published in July 2003, entitled Stakeholder Involvement in Options Assessment: Promoting Dialogue in Meeting Water and Energy Needs .

This state-of-the-art report, a self-described “sourcebook” for energy managers, observes that public participation in “screening” specific projects is now an international trend in hydroelectric development (p. 4). Such screening should occur early in planning processes; should include key stakeholders in project-affected communities; and should involve a detailed, comprehensive consideration of matters bearing on project justification and acceptability.

The report further acknowledges that while ultimate decision-making authority typically resides with governments (p. 14), early stakeholder involvement in a thorough examination of project acceptability opens the decision-making process, promoting a sense of “procedural justice” (p. 18).

In other accounts of best-practice management, the principle at issue here is described as stakeholder engagement in project-specific, “comprehensive options assessment” (Thayer Scudder, The Future of Large Dams, 2005, p. 309).

Focusing on recent history, BC Hydro’s efforts to engage stakeholders in discussions about the acceptability of Site C date back to preliminary work on the province’s 2006 Integrated Electricity Plan (IEP).

The overarching objective of IEP procedures is to identify and continually update a preferred, long-term portfolio for the acquisition of resource options. In 2005, BC Hydro developed an initial First Nations and Stakeholder Engagement Plan , establishing a framework for dialogue within the 2006 IEP.

To BC Hydro’s credit, the 2005 Engagement Plan (which underwent minor revisions in 2006) is a model document that clearly reflects elements of the best-practice standard described above. The plan calls for various “engagement streams,” including an IEP Committee consisting of approximately fifteen members (plus alternates) representing various interests throughout the province.

Good opportunities for a deep dialogue on the acceptability of Site C occurred within the IEP Committee meetings. After interviewing five members of the committee and reviewing the 2006 IEP First Nations and Stakeholders Engagement Report (available on request), I believe that within the context of high-level planning, BC Hydro effectively facilitated meaningful, preliminary discussion of Site C as a potential resource option.

At the end of the day, however, the IEP Committee did not reach consensus on the acceptability of Site C. Nor did it reach consensus on “one resource strategy that was acceptable to all members.” There were varying degrees of support for four different scenarios: two involved Site C; two did not (see chart below):

____________________________________________________________

Strategy 1

• Self-Sufficiency: A small buffer, for insurance
• Resource Mix: Green
• Demand-Side Management: Power Smart 5
• Site C: No
• Burrard Thermal Plant: Retire

Strategy 2

• Self-Sufficiency: A small buffer, for insurance
• Resource Mix: [Mostly] green
• Demand-Side Management: Power Smart 5
• Site C: Yes
• Burrard Thermal Plant: Maintain for capacity

Strategy 3

• Self-Sufficiency: A small buffer, for insurance
• Resource Mix: Low cost mix, including green, coal, and others
• Demand-Side Management: Power Smart 5
• Site C: No
• Burrard Thermal Plant: Maintain for capacity

Strategy 4

• Self-Sufficiency: A small buffer, for insurance
• Resource Mix: Low cost mix, including green, coal, and others
• Demand-Side Management: Power Smart 5
• Site C: Yes
• Burrard Thermal Plant: Maintain for capacity

____________________________________________________________

As part of the 2006 IEP process, public meetings were also held throughout the province, to gather broader stakeholder input on resource options. Two public meetings were held in Fort St. John. Notes from the March 1, 2005 meeting, in particular, reveal “strong opposition” to Site C.

In sum, while BC Hydro’s last IEP effectively engaged stakeholders on a broad range of energy considerations, many issues, including Site C, were contentious. This is not the fault of the IEP process; instead, disagreements reflect the many complexities and values involved in energy planning.

The preceding overview of the IEP process leads to a critical question: what should BC Hydro’s stakeholder engagement plan for Site C have looked like after the 2006 IEP?

In keeping with best-practice principles and case studies described in the Stakeholder Involvement sourcebook (p. 107, etc.), I believe that BC Hydro should have continued to facilitate detailed discussions about the acceptability of Site C as a resource option, particularly in the northeast region where opposition to Site C is the strongest. This position reflects conclusions of the IEP Committee, which also identified local support as a key component of Site C’s acceptability (Stakeholder Engagement Report, pp. 137, 144-145).

If BC Hydro had maintained the original two-year planning cycle for IEPs, perhaps comprehensive options assessment of Site C could have continued in a new round of committee meetings with enhanced regional representation or involvement.

In the absence of a renewed and comprehensive IEP process, the primary opportunities for stakeholder engagement on Site C have fallen to the recently initiated Site C consultation program. Unfortunately, it is here where stakeholder engagement with options assessment has been severely compromised. The next article will elaborate on the flawed nature of the project-specific consultation now underway.

Dam Would Jeopardize Successful Ranch

(Originally published in the Northeast News, November 4, 2008, p. 39)

Renee Ardill runs a family ranch that stretches along the north banks of the Peace River valley, between the Halfway River and Farrell Creek. This portion of the valley is well-suited to the Ardills’ enterprise, but their business and way of life would be severely impacted if Site C proceeds.

The Ardill ranch has been in the family for three generations. Renee’s grandparents, Jack and Betty Ardill, came to Hudson’s Hope in 1919. As a World War I veteran, Jack was eligible for a soldier’s land grant in addition to a homestead, so in 1920 he and Betty moved out to the valley.

They began with 320 acres and slowly expanded. Eventually, Renee’s parents, Dick and Irene Ardill, inherited the operation. Dick and Irene still live on the ranch and are actively involved in the daily work. The ranch is also home to Renee’s brother, Don, and to her aunt, Betty Holoboff.

Today, the Ardill operation has about 350 head of cows. Renee and her family cultivate the rich bottom lands close to the river, raising hay and grain for feed. They use the high breaks as rangeland. It’s rough country and in wet years the cows have trouble accessing some meadows, but Renee says that the rolling hills above the Peace River provide “outstanding natural rangeland.”

The Ardills’ existence is shaped by the seasonal rhythms of ranch life. In the fall, most of the cows come down on their own, and there is a cattle drive to gather up the rest. It’s an event. Family and friends saddle up, participating in a time-honoured ranching tradition. This year’s cattle drive occurred just several weeks ago, in mid-October.

The cows winter in the low-lying fields, where there’s lots of feed. Calving usually starts in late March and runs through May. By the end of May, most of the stock is back up on the rangeland.

When asked about her position on Site C, Renee characterizes it as a “ridiculous project”— not simply because she lives in the flood zone, but for many other reasons: the instability of the riverbanks, the cost of re-routing a newly paved highway, the long-term value of the agricultural land, detrimental effects on wildlife, and the loss of recreational opportunities associated with a unique riverine ecosystem.

“All things considered,” she says, “the trade-offs are too big. Even if we need more electricity, [another large dam on the Peace River] is not the only way.”

As a long-time resident, Renee has firsthand knowledge of just how unstable the riverbanks can be. On May 26, 1973, she witnessed the immediate after-effects of the Attachie Slide, near the Halfway floodplain.

Renee was in town that day. During the evening, she drove back out to the valley with a friend. Preparing to descend the Halfway hill, they looked down and were astonished to see that the riverbed was dry. The Attachie Slide did, indeed, block the flow of the Peace River for about ten hours.

Academic studies help to convey the magnitude of that event. Oldrich Hungr notes that a “slope of clay and silt failed suddenly after a heavy rainstorm. Seven million cubic metres of the disturbed mass liquefied, then descended a bedrock scarp . . . and flowed across the kilometer-wide floodplain of the Peace River with enough speed to raise a violent wave on the opposite shore” (from Landslide Risk Management, 2005, p. 100).

There is a common perception that soil disturbance caused by the creation of a Site C reservoir would increase the possibility of future slides, and BC Hydro has acknowledged bank stability as a concern. According to BC Hydro, however, “the effect on high bank areas would be minimal” (see, for example, Feasibility Review, p. 6-46).

Commenting on the Site C stakeholder meetings, Renee Ardill voices a familiar criticism: “The meetings are designed to direct you to think favourably about Site C. We need to talk more openly and honestly about the pros and cons of the dam.”

The full impact of Site C on the Ardill Ranch is hard to determine: “No one knows how much land would be lost to bank erosion and the relocation of the highway,” Renee observes. “The new water level would be about halfway between the current river level and the ranch buildings, flooding the lowest fields and making the natural springs inaccessible.”

Reflecting on the whole situation, Renee is determined to carry on: “Talk about Site C has been going on most of my life. I’ve listened to all this before and watched the effect on my dad and uncle--the concern, the worry, and the uncertainty. We’ve already lost a lot of valuable time.” Renee says that she’s going to move forward and continue working to make the ranch a success.

It’s hard not to admire that kind of resolve. If we resign ourselves to Site C, we lose more than a river valley. We also lose part of our heritage.

Peace River Valley an Oasis

(Originally published in the Northeast News, October 29, 2008. p. 30)

Ross and Deborah Peck live in the Peace River valley, at the mouth of Farrell Creek, on a high bench of land where they raise grain and horses. The flooding associated with Site C would likely have significant effects on the Pecks’ home, but, for them, the consequences of another dam are much more than personal.

A conversation with Ross Peck leaves you feeling that he’s someone who sees the big picture. As a scientist with an MSc in Wildlife Management and an outdoorsman who’s owned a guide-outfitting operation, Ross has a rare combination of knowledge and experience.

He possesses the kind of wisdom that we need right now, and his opposition to Site C is unequivocal. Flooding the valley, he says, “will destroy the heart and soul of the Peace River country,” decimating a resource whose value far outweighs that of another hydroelectric dam.

BC Hydro has done little to promote the recreational potential of the river valley since it bought large tracts of land in the mid-70s, but Ross Peck points out that the Peace River offers unique recreational opportunities.

Its proximity to regional centres makes it a viable destination for locals and visitors, and the valley ecosystem supports an extraordinary diversity of wildlife, including endangered species. “There’s just so much happening here with wildlife,” Ross says. “It’s an oasis amid a lot of industrial development.”

Ross notes that the valley has been recommended for protected status in the Fort St. John Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) but hasn’t achieved full-park status because of the flood reserve.

And while the myth of “a lake” still lingers in the popular consciousness as a potential benefit from Site C, BC Hydro’s own studies acknowledge that the so-called lake has problems. Pressed on this point, Hydro doesn’t have good answers.

At a recent public consultation meeting in Fort St. John, Hydro engineer Andrew Watson responded to questions about the recreational potential of the reservoir by stating “It comes down to what you’re considering recreation.” The comment evoked incredulous laughter from some in attendance.

Ross Peck also points to the agricultural value of the river valley. The Ministry of Agriculture has estimated that 7,400 acres of agricultural land would be lost if Site C proceeds, including 1,000 acres of the very best land. Such agricultural capacity is arguably becoming scarcer than the electricity that Hydro seeks.

On conservation, Ross observes that “We’re running out of rivers and all the values they support. We need to protect what’s left because we will never be able to mitigate losing [the Peace River].” Such comments are a sharp reminder that big dams are old technology, that renewed interest in Site C involves the resurrection of a plan that originated in the 1950s, when WAC Bennett regarded damming rivers and flooding valleys as a semi-mystical pursuit of progress.

As a former Chair of the Muskwa-Kechika Advisory Board, Ross also knows that responsible industrial development and conservation can work hand in hand, but he doesn’t believe a dam is the way to go because too much will be wiped out.

Nevertheless, Ross, like many others, senses that BC Hydro is largely pursuing its own agenda in the public consultation meetings.

“You’re met with courtesy,” he says, “but get the feeling you have no influence on the decision-making process.” It seems as though “Hydro representatives just have to endure this stage of the process” in order to get on with the dam. “They’re going through the hoops.”

Ross contends that “the discussion has started at the wrong point. We should be talking about the potential of the Peace River valley and its role in the greater context of northern BC. By flooding it, you preclude all that. Think of the value of an undammed valley in twenty-five to fifty years.”

When asked if he would ever willingly sell his own land, the disbelief in his voice is evident. “It’s not for sale,” he says. He then quotes his father, Don, who was asked the same question many years ago. “Just find me another place like [this],” his father once said of family land in the valley. “I don’t think you can because they don’t make them anymore.”

A discussion with Ross Peck is a sharp reminder that the decision to consider Site C is a policy decision influenced by political considerations. “If the Site C project and the valley it threatens were closer to a major population centre,” Ross says, “this thing wouldn’t even get off the drawing board. In some ways, we’re still a long way from the public eye, and this is a last attempt at doing this sort of stuff.”

People like Ross Peck know that we need better energy policies, policies that will find better answers. That also means we need better politicians.

Citizens Can Indeed Change the World

(Originally published in the Northeast News, October 22, 2008, p. 30)

Larry and Lynda Peterson came to the Peace country in 1968, as university students. The following spring, when Lynda’s family purchased farmland in the Peace valley, Larry and Lynda returned as partners in the venture, this time to stay. Agriculture became their life.

They roughed it in those early days. There was no paved highway, no power lines. Living in a small cabin close to the river, they managed with propane lights and a wood stove. The family farm was named Silver Springs, after a stream in a nearby coulee. Soon, the little cabin was also home to three kids.

Through hard work, the Petersons developed the agricultural potential of their land. Cultivating Class 1 soil on the rich alluvial bottomlands of Bear Flat, they began growing potatoes for commercial sale to grocery stores in Fort St. John, Dawson Creek, and Prince George.

Silver Springs Farm became a success, producing 2,000 tons of potatoes per year, plus wheat and other crops. Lynda had 1,500 tomato plants and ran a popular market garden along Highway 29. There were also 250 head of cattle. Nothing was wasted. The potatoes that couldn’t be sold went to the livestock.

By the mid-1970s, BC Hydro helicopters started landing on the property. The Petersons were contacted by the company’s representatives, who said studies were underway for a new dam downstream, at Site C. Information about the project was hard to come by, and the little that was given was not always accurate.

“Things started out on a bad note,” Larry says. “There was a credibility gap from day one.” BC Hydro’s approach disturbed him as much as what the crown corporation was planning to do.

In response, valley residents formed a landowners’ group to oppose construction of the dam. There were twelve original members. Larry was elected chair. About that time, the Peace Valley Environment Association was also formed, and the newly proposed dam started attracting media attention.

Archival film footage shows a young, articulate, dark-haired Larry Peterson helping to bring Site C into the provincial consciousness. In that televised interview from many years ago, he is soft-spoken, yet passionate and informed.

So began years of struggle. BC Hydro wanted to meet individually with valley landowners. The landowners initially objected, and a public meeting was held at the Mackenzie Inn in 1976. The room was packed with people, many of whom spoke at an open mike. “I think the Hydro team was in shock after the meeting,” Larry says. “They were surprised by the strength of opposition to the dam and had to go back and rethink their strategy.”

The unity of the landowners was strong at first, but some eventually agreed to sell, on the understanding that their land could be bought back at the sales price if Site C was cancelled. When the private negotiations were over, BC Hydro’s purchase price for Class 1 farmland ranged from $150 to $650 per acre.

It was a classic case of divide and conquer. To this day, Larry feels the people in the valley were not dealt with fairly.

Eventually, Larry and Lynda also agreed to sell, but in 1979 they purchased back a smaller piece of property where their current house stands, up in a coulee, above the river.

Despite BC Hydro’s push to get the dam underway, the BC Utilities Commission rejected the initial project application in the early 1980s, and Site C has lurked on Hydro’s planning shelf ever since.

Today, much of the land BC Hydro purchased in the 1970s has been leased out, but its agricultural potential has suffered. “Some people look out and see horse pasture and weeds,” Larry observes. “But the land here is a unique and irreplaceable agricultural resource. We shouldn’t destroy this for more electricity, when electricity can come from different sources. We should preserve what we have for the region and the province.”

Reflecting on what he’s seen in recent years, Larry Peterson is concerned about a “gold-rush mentality” in northeastern BC. There’s a lot of industrial activity here, including coalbed methane, conventional gas, and hydro. Yet he sees no coordinated plan for development.

Although the Petersons have travelled around the world, to forty-five different countries, they still regard the Peace River valley as one of the most beautiful places on earth, and they don’t want to see it denuded, then flooded.

Over the years, Larry and Lynda Peterson might have become cynical, but, remarkably, they are optimists. They believe that people who take the time to learn about the potential dam will oppose it. They also believe in the words of the great anthropologist Margaret Mead, words that greet them everyday in their kitchen: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. . . . it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Battle over Site C Has Raged for Years

(Originally published in the Northeast News, October 15, 2008, p. 33)

Ken and Arlene Boon are third-generation Peace valley residents. For them, and for others whose homes would be directly affected by the development of Site C, no cash buy-out could compensate for the loss of a home, a way of life, and the valley itself.

In the late 1940’s, Arlene’s grandfather, Lloyd Bentley, purchased the Dopp family homestead at Bear Flat. Arlene was raised about three miles from where her house now sits, on a bench of land overlooking the Peace River, just below the Bear Flat switchbacks.

Arlene and Ken met in 1990. He was a guide for an outfitting company, and she looked after the meals. “I must have been a good cook,” she says, smiling at her husband.

As we spoke on a mild, late-summer day several weeks ago, Ken pointed to a flock of geese rising from the woods behind the house, noting that he’d heard elk bugling earlier that morning. The day before, there were swans on the river.

The Boons own about three quarter-sections at Bear Flat, roughly 480 acres. They put up hay and also use their property as a base for Ken’s log-home construction business. Arlene’s mom lives in an adjacent house.

Agricultural production on the Boons' land could be diversified. The longer, hotter growing season in the valley would support crops such as potatoes or corn, particularly with an irrigation system. Arlene sees great potential for reviving a market garden along the highway. However, the lingering threat of Site C is a deterrent to such plans. If the dam is built, much of the best land would be lost.

Still, the Boons have persevered. The longer they live here, the more they appreciate the valley for its rich, river-bottom soil, its beauty, and its history.

Ken has restored the old Bear Flat schoolhouse, originally constructed in 1920. In 2004, Blanche Hipkiss (née Dopp), a daughter of the first homesteaders, came to visit the school where she studied as a girl. Now in her 90’s, Blanche picked up a reader and began reciting verses she had learned in her youth.

For the Boons, opposition to Site C goes back three generations, to the mid-seventies, when planning for the dam began in earnest. There is a colourful story about an encounter between Lloyd and some BC Hydro employees who ventured onto his property. They didn’t come back. On September 30th, 1976, Arlene’s grandfather wrote a letter to BC Hydro staff.

Excerpts from that letter, which is now more than thirty years old, read as follows: “I will not give you any permission to come on my land . . . . You don’t need any dam. You are selling power to [the] U.S.” Some things, it seems, haven’t changed. In closing, Lloyd wrote: “I have been in the Peace for 64 years and this is the worst thing that is happening.”

Ken and Arlene’s relationship with BC Hydro is less volatile. The Boons lease some land from Hydro, and the crown corporation has asked for permission to conduct bat and fish studies on the Boons' property. In keeping with BC Hydro’s passive land acquisition policy, no one has approached the Boons with an offer to buy.

In fact, Ken and Arlene hear very little from BC Hydro. Even in the mid 1990’s, when a sinkhole was discovered in the Bennett Dam, no one approached them with details of an evacuation plan, although Ken did see helicopters removing deer from the islands.

Today, the Boons attend the Site C stakeholder meetings, but Ken is not impressed. They listen, he says, but nothing really seems to register. And it’s hard to get straight, clear answers.

According to Ken, a lot of people in the valley have become embittered by the long fight against Site C. “It wears you down, tires you out. There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

But the Boons are people who know the land, and they believe in the struggle to preserve the valley. “It’s not just a matter of keeping our own little piece of paradise,” they say. “This valley is here for everyone. The time for dams is over.”

Site C Raises Human Rights Issues for Valley Residents

(Originally published in the Northeast News, October 8, 2008, p. A24)

Throughout the twentieth century, 40 to 80 million people around the world have been forced to move because of dam construction. A growing body of research is helping us to understand the human costs of this global situation.

Anthony Oliver-Smith describes “development-induced involuntary resettlement as a ‘totalizing experience’” involving an “acute” sense of “powerlessness because it constitutes a loss of control over one’s physical space.” Dolores Koenig notes that such displacement “is also impoverishing because ‘it takes away economic, social, and cultural resources all at the same time,’ and ‘it takes away political power, most dramatically the power to make a decision about where and how to live’” (cited by Thayer Scudder, The Future of Large Dams, pp. 22-23).

The circumstances in late-industrializing countries, such as China and India, have been particularly bad. Often marginalized by income, caste, and geography, rural people in other parts of the world have paid an unconscionably high price for dam development. But the history in North America is pretty appalling too.

In Delusions of Power: Vanity, Folly and the Uncertain Future of Canada’s Hydro Giants (Douglas and McIntyre, 1997), Wayne Skene discusses hydroelectric development on the Columbia River and the forced relocation of Arrow Lakes residents in the mid-1960s, noting that “BC Hydro representatives generally conducted themselves like sixteenth-century explorers” in their acquisition of lands (p. 160). For Skene, the bitter historical lesson is this: in a “march to that glorious destiny of ‘power at cost’ or ‘power for the people,’” Canadian hydroelectric authorities have never allowed “people to stand in [their] way” (p. 157).

The conventional justification for development-induced relocation is grounded in notions of “the greater good,” and, as a matter of general principle, many would agree that there are times when individual freedom must give way to collective well-being. Other times, however, “the greater good” or the larger “public good” is invoked as a hazy excuse for political choices that do not give adequate consideration to environmental, communal, and individual well-being.

As Wayne Skene notes, government and BC Hydro officials have claimed that “the flooding of the Arrow Lakes was all for ‘the public good.’ But the question leaps forward: Whose public good? And if the citizen to be relocated does not qualify as ‘public,’ who then are we talking about? And who decides which public gets the benefits of hydroelectric development and which public gets to carry the costs?” (p. 162).

With such concerns in mind, The World Commission on Dams has presented a best-practices development model that places greater emphasis on the human rights of people who would be directly affected or displaced by dam construction. This “rights based approach” sets high goals that may be difficult to achieve in practice, but it points to what is arguably a new and better way of considering dam development.

The WCD advises project authorities to seek consensus through genuine negotiation. Specific recommendations include a comprehensive, public examination of project justification; early funding of key stakeholders; open planning; and participatory decision-making throughout. According to the WCD, we need “a process for assessing and negotiating acceptable project outcomes –outcomes that include rejecting a dam in favour of a more acceptable alternative (Dams and Development, p. 208).

In regard to valley residents, BC Hydro has a landowner consultation program to manage communication with individual property owners, but this initiative does not appear to be doing enough to meet the call for openness and transparency, or to level the playing field.

One of the WCD’s most telling criterion for successful decision-making is that “all key stakeholders perceive the process and outcomes to be fair and legitimate” (Dams and Development, p. 210). Here, in particular, both BC Hydro and the provincial government seem to have failed the people whose homes and livelihoods are threatened by Site C.

According to BC Hydro’s historical data, there are 41 remaining landowners who would be directly affected by a decision to proceed with the new dam. In December 2007, BC Hydro sent 120 letters to households that might be affected in any way. The next few articles in this column will tell about some of the valley residents, people whose lives have been forever altered by the prospect of Site C. In these stories, personal frustration and loss are closely linked to the thwarted agricultural potential of some of the best BC farmland north of the Fraser Valley.

BC Hydro Has History of Overbuilding for Export

(Originally published in the Northeast News, Wednesday, September 24, 2008, p. 32)

BC Hydro began with a core vision of providing cheap, reliable electricity for all British Columbians and for BC-based businesses. Yet, from the outset, Hydro’s government-driven policies and projects have also reflected ambitions to generate surplus power that could be exported to the United States. This dual agenda raises fair questions about the much publicized energy shortfall, the emphasis on self-sufficiency, and the need for a project like Site C.

In White Gold (UBC Press 1997), Karl Froschauer examines BC Hydro’s history of “overbuilding for export,” recounting how Premier WAC Bennett’s “two-rivers policy” started a dam-building rush on the Columbia and Peace Rivers in the early 1960’s. Gordon Shrum, one of BC Hydro’s most influential leaders, immediately recognized the “export-dependent nature of the two-river policy.” Shrum pointed to the necessity of “finding a very large market outside the province” for energy that British Columbia could not use, recommending “power hungry” California as the most promising consumer (p. 194).

Throughout the 1970’s, however, neither domestic needs nor access to the American market grew as hoped. By the early 1980’s, British Columbia had a significant power surplus—roughly equivalent to the generating capacity of its newest asset on the Columbia river: the Revelstoke Dam. For this and other reasons, BC Hydro’s initial effort to build Site C was unsuccessful. Later in the decade, more than 5,000 engineering and technical employees were laid off (Froschauer, pp. 195, 201).

Since then, the province has grown and the domestic surplus has dwindled, but BC Hydro’s interest in exporting electricity to the United States is keener than ever. Froschauer, an SFU professor and former BC Hydro employee, notes that the restructuring of Hydro into distinct and separately accountable business units serves export interests (pp. 177, 230).

The emergence of “Powerex,” BC Hydro’s trading subsidiary, is a case in point. Powerex, a member of international transmission groups, has put considerable effort into complying with American regulations in order to become licensed to buy and sell electricity in the western US (pp. 230-231).

Today, participation in the continental energy grid is big business. Really big. Scott Simpson explains that the BC government has embarked on “an aggressive plan to transform the province into a sort of Saudi Arabia of [purportedly] green power, with enhanced transmission lines” sending more electricity to the United States” (Vancouver Sun, June 14, 2008).

The free trade works both ways. We also import power, but that in itself is not a sign of a domestic shortfall. As Marvin Shaffer notes in his detailed analysis of provincial energy policies, BC Hydro chooses to import electricity largely because it is economical to do so. When the time is right, electricity can be purchased in wholesale markets at a lower cost than operating the Burrard thermal plant (see Lost in Transmission @ http://www.civicgovernance.ca/node/187).

Thus, the government’s public emphasis on self-sufficiency obscures the new realities of BC Hydro’s enhanced access to a continental energy grid. The protectionist rhetoric of self-reliance (with lots of insurance power to boot) sounds good because it creates an impression that the government is sheltering us from the rock’em-sock’em world of the international energy trade, but, ironically, the development initiatives associated with such a policy will increase our participation in that very game, promoting the surplus conditions that enable export.

Scott Simpson explains the situation this way: “The official line from the provincial government is that B.C. has a modest ambition to be self-sufficient in electricity production by 2016, with a proposed surplus of 3,000 gigawatt hours by 2026. The province's stated intention is to curtail B.C.'s exposure to the volatile electricity spot market - and the risk of sudden price jumps - on North America's western power-trading grid.”

“Yet That 3,000-gigawatt-hour surplus,” according to Simpson, “is the baseline, not the average amount. In years when BC Hydro dams are brimming with water, the electricity surplus will be 12,000 gigawatt hours - enough to power the entire B.C. grid for three months a year at present rates of consumption” (Vancouver Sun, June 14, 2008). If things play out the way Simpson predicts, history would be repeating itself, but this time Gordon Shrum’s dream of an abundant surplus for transborder use may come true.

Granted, there may be nothing inherently wrong with BC Hydro aiming to increase profits through export. The additional revenue would go into provincial coffers, potentially creating millions of dollars for British Columbians. However, the lure of foreign markets also creates a temptation to inflate domestic needs and to lose sight of the social and environmental consequences linked to particular development opportunities.

The basic ethos of a public utility is that it’s there to serve us--that it answers to a somewhat different calling than more narrowly profit-oriented private companies, but BC Hydro’s continentalist ambitions blurs these distinctions, reflecting a corporate opportunism that may actually compromise the public good by destroying a unique river valley and displacing its residents.

Site C Debate Ultimately about Values

(Originally published in the Northeast News, September 17, 2008, p. 14)

“Down the River” is a column that deals with various aspects of Site C, a potential third dam on the BC portion of the Peace River. So far, eleven articles have dealt with the following subjects:

*getting started
*the Columbia River Treaty
*greenhouse gas emissions
*the Peace-Athabasca Delta
*methylmercury
*the status of dams as clean energy
*the World Commission on Dams
*BC Hydro’s consultation process
*a history of dams
*recreational implications
*independent review panels

Past and future articles are archived on this blog. The Northeast News website provides another archival resource at http://www.northeastnews.ca/ (see “Search the Archives” and enter “Down the River” as an exact phrase search).

As the discussion of Site C continues, it’s worthwhile to recognize how values shape the discussion. BC is a growing province with growing energy needs, but there are many choices to make in determining how to meet such needs.

The complex process of options assessment, at both governmental and personal levels, is guided by beliefs about what is acceptable and what is not. We can muster an array of “facts,” but facts tend to be like socks: they don’t really stand up until you put something in them.


The relationship between dams and values was a central insight of the World Commission on Dams, which tells us that “the fault lines of the dams debate . . . touch upon many of the fundamental norms and values that affect our lives as citizens and communities (Dams and Development p. 198). According to the WCD, “the debate about dams is a debate about the very meaning, purpose, and pathway of development” (pp. 198-199).

This means that our response to Site C says something about who we are as individuals and how our moral compass is set--about what we believe in and what matters most to us.

A good example of the way values shape the discussion appears in the MacDonald Report, a recreational impact study conducted back in 1979. The authors of this report state that “the dam and generating structures of the Site C development can be considered a visual feature which will be more popular and remarkable than the river basin in the vicinity of the proposed dam site” (p. 59). Not everyone would agree, but that’s how things are when it comes to values.

Ted Scudder, one of the WCD commissioners, notes that communities affected by the prospect of dam development increasingly “tend to be split between those who might favour a dam because of assumed employment, commercial, and other opportunities, and those who are more likely to oppose it” for reasons linked to social disruption and environmental degradation (The Future of Large Dams, p. 303).

Unfortunately, there is no easy way out of this gridlock, but global trends are apparent. Whereas big dams were once regarded as a relatively benign form of development, there is a growing awareness of their “monumental destructiveness” (Jacques Leslie, Deep Water, p. 5).

Accordingly, the “true profitability” of big dams has been called into question. The World Commission on Dams urges us to examine “cheaper and less damaging alternatives,” to find better ways of balancing developmental needs with the equally important need to protect biological diversity and human communities that depend on river basins for a way of life (Dams and Development, as cited by Leslie, p. 7).

This new respect for the environment and affected peoples has meant tough times for dam builders. The diminishment of good building sites partly accounts for the global downturn in dam construction, but sharp criticisms of dams are also a factor.

The graph at the beginning of this article, from Patrick McCully’s Silenced Rivers (p. xxviii), shows the twentieth century rise and decline of the worldwide dam industry. Construction figures after the mid 90s are based on incomplete data.

So what will happen here in the Peace country? It’s hard to say, but it’s also clear that big dams like Site C have a profound relationship to conceptions of economic, social and environmental well-being. There’s a lot at stake. Our values are on the line.

All the Fun of the Reservoir?

(Originally published in the Northeast News, July 9, 2008, p. A26)

With summer here and the third-annual Paddle for the Peace coming up on Saturday, July 12th, this is a good time to discuss the recreation impacts of the potential Site C Dam. The recreational potential for “lake-type activities” is a recurring theme in public discussions (Stage Two, Round Two Discussion Guide, p. 26), but such pro-construction optimism tends to downplay the problems that may accompany a Site C reservoir.

Consider access timelines. Hydro estimates that dam construction, including the filling of the reservoir, would take about seven years (Feasibility Review, p. 4-31). During much of this period, massive clearing, burning, and other activities associated with construction would virtually nullify the recreational value of the impoundment area.

Immediately after the reservoir is filled, the instability of the banks would create the risk of potentially hazardous erosion, including the larger, sudden movement associated with landslides. Accordingly, reservoir access would likely be restricted for a number of years following construction.

At a recent consultation meeting in Fort St. John, Hydro Engineer Andrew Watson responded to a question from Ken Boon by acknowledging that if there was a threat to public safety, reservoir shorelines could remain closed for five or possibly even ten years. Watson emphasized that the impoundment area would remain closed as long as there was a possibility of a threat to public safety, however long that might be.

Thus, if construction were to begin, it might take up to twenty years before the reservoir would be safe for some forms of recreation. Furthermore, as Hydro notes, “the development of beaches and the regression of the shoreline is a process that could take many decades” (Stage Two, Round Two Discussion Guide, p. 12). This prolonged erosion presents further challenges associated with the development of waterfront picnic sites and boat launches.

And if we get a reservoir that can eventually be used for recreation--what then?

Over the years, wishful statements have been made about boating. The MacDonald Recreation Impact Assessment (March 1979) claims that a Site C reservoir would be “more conducive to family water-oriented activities than the river, where currents and sandbars require more boating skills” (p. 56).

However, this claim was later challenged in a Blue Paper produced by The Ministry of Lands, Parks, and Housing (October 1981), which notes that “the 80 kilometres reach of open water” would “consistently” result in “rough water conditions, frequently on a daily basis, which in this case compares negatively with the stability and shelter of the river basin” (p. 18).

In reality, a Site C reservoir would be no boater’s paradise. Watercraft would be faced with fluctuating water levels, waves caused by ongoing erosion, and increased fog. Silt and debris pumped in from the tributaries, particularly the Halfway River, would become locked in the reservoir, creating further hazards. The sloughing of treed banks would also contribute to the presence of debris.

Above all, boaters, canoeists, and kayakers would lose the rich diversity of the river environment, with its numerous islands and a relatively warm microclimate that supports abundant wildlife.

BC Hydro indicates that a reservoir would continue to offer opportunities for fishing and may even “benefit some fish.” Hydro also acknowledges that “changes to the aquatic habitat could potentially cause a shift in species composition and a reduction in [some] species” (Feasibility Review, p. 6-53). In certain cases, site-specific “extinction” might be more to the point. Arctic Grayling above the Peace Canyon and Bennett dams are endangered (red-listed), and this is directly attributable to the impacts of the dams.

While more work needs to be done to understand how a Site C reservoir would impact fish populations, in general there is a growing understanding of the detrimental effects associated with dams, particularly in regard to the blockage of spawning movement, turbine and spillway mortality, and the risks associated with methylmercury uptake.

The scenic beauty of the river valley also deserves serious consideration as a recreational resource. This is a place where artists such as Mike Kroecher gain their inspiration, and Highway 29 is one of the few locations in BC where locals and tourists can view the Peace valley landscape from an automobile.

The previously mentioned Blue Paper puts this view into perspective: “The scenery of the Peace River Valley [along Highway 29] is of provincial significance; the striking, long-distance views of the [river] valley, cut into the northern prairie, are unique within the province” (p. 24). If we destroy this, part of our humanity goes with it.

In sum, Patrick McCully observes that recreation is typically promoted as one of the “add-on benefits” of large hydro-electric projects, and that such benefits are often exaggerated in order to gain public acceptance (Silenced Rivers, pp. 155-157). “All the fun of the reservoir” is McCully’s ironic reference to unfulfilled promises.

The best way to remind ourselves of what we have now is to get out there: join the Paddle for the Peace this Saturday and take the time to look around. Registration starts at 9:00 am at the Halfway River bridge, where launch is set for 11:00 am. The take-out point is Bear Flats. A feast begins at 4:00 pm. For more information, contact Danielle @ 250-785-8510 or visit http://paddleforthepeace.ca/.

With recreation in mind, I’ll be taking a break from this column over the summer and getting back to it in September.

Consultation Process about Manufacturing Consent

(Originally published in the Northeast News, July 2, 2008, p. A22)

Editorials and letters to the editor indicate that BC Hydro’s stage-two consultation process is controversial. I believe we can trust Hydro’s claim that no final decision has been made whether to build Site C, but critics are justified in expressing concern about a bias within the consultation process.

A recent stakeholder meeting in Taylor began with BC Hydro’s familiar reassurance that “no decision” has been made to build the dam. Yet the presentations that followed did not proceed to address the case for or against construction, nor did Hydro explicitly request input on this underlying consideration. While there was some mention of potential resource alternatives, Hydro’s attention was focused primarily on precautions, mitigation, compensation, costs, and other matters linked to the potential construction of Site C.

Given that the government has put Site C back on the table, this “project definition” agenda is important, but it should not obscure a more fundamental question about whether the dam should go ahead at all. Indeed, if we take Hydro at its word (no decision has been made), the legitimacy of Site C as a resource option is not a matter that anyone should be bypassing.

Arguably, in fact, such legitimacy remains the most important issue precisely because the upshot of Hydro’s stage-two consultation involves a recommendation to government about whether to file for regulatory approval of construction.

BC Hydro’s explanations for its approach to the public consultation process are not very compelling. In part, Hydro claims that it is simply following a BC Energy Plan directive to enter into initial discussions about Site C, to develop better understandings of the benefits, costs, and impacts of the project. However, this general mandate does not prevent Hydro from posing root questions about project justification. By avoiding such questions in the consultation meetings, Hydro is steering the discussion to subjects that serve construction interests.

BC Hydro has also said that asking for public input about whether Site C should proceed would take away the provincial government’s decision-making authority. This claim is puzzling because answers to questions in documents like the Feedback Form don’t bind the provincial government to anything. Moreover, Hydro acknowledges that it has privately conducted its own public-opinion polls about the acceptability of Site C as a resource option (see Feasibility Review, page 7-59).

In truth, of course, when it comes to the current round of public consultation, BC Hydro is behaving as one would expect a project proponent to behave. As a crown corporation whose historical development is intricately linked to the construction of big dams, BC Hydro really doesn’t want to hear “no,” and its presentations and questions reflect this predisposition.

The design of the Feedback Form is telling. Not a single question asks potential respondents whether they regard the detrimental impacts of the dam as acceptable. Virtually all of the questions again direct attention to precautions, mitigation, potential benefits, etc. Hydro has pointed out that there’s lots of room for “Further Comments” (lots of white space) and has also noted that people can submit letters if the form doesn’t work for them.

Those with broad-based concerns about project justification should use these opportunities to voice their opinions, but the troubling implication is that such concerns seem to be marginalized because they fall outside Hydro’s own frame of reference.


The work of Noam Chomsky, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, offers an insightful view of the consultation meetings. According to Chomsky, democratic societies may not be so democratic after all. Chomsky discusses how big media outlets exert a form of “thought control” over purportedly free people, and this argument readily encompasses corporate public-relations programs.

A standard view would be that exercises like Hydro’s stakeholder meetings enable the public to engage the political process in meaningful ways. Chomsky, however, is adept at showing how vested interests frame the issues, diverting, controlling, and shaping public opinion. Applying Chomsky’s ideas to what we’re faced with here, the consultation process can be reconceived as an exercise in “manufacturing consent,” one in which information and promotion go hand in hand.

So even if an official, final decision has not been made, it isn’t hard to predict where things are headed. Hydro’s apparent lack of interest in consulting about the decision whether to proceed to the next step suggests that its own recommendation to proceed is likely a foregone conclusion.

As noted on previous occasions, the best hope for an objective engagement of the fundamental issues resides in the formation of an independent review panel, as part of the forthcoming environmental assessment process. In the meantime, we should all try to become informed and to participate as effectively as we can. Even Chomsky, whose vision may sound pretty bleak, believes that people have the capacity to effectively challenge government and corporate agendas.

Dams Not A Clean Form of Energy

(Originally published in the Northeast News, June 25, 2008, p. 25; the article is presented here with some revisions)

The case for building Site C is closely linked to the notion that large hydropower projects provide “clean energy” (see BC Energy Plan, 2007, p. 23).Unfortunately, the eco-friendly language associated with Site C is misleading.

Part of the problem resides in ambiguous definitions of the phrase “clean energy.” At times, the BC Energy Plan seems to equate clean energy with renewable energy sources that “replenish over a reasonable period of time” (p. 14). However, “renewable” energy is not necessarily “clean” energy.

The BC Energy Plan also associates clean energy with sources that “have minimal environmental impact” (p. 14). This association is more sensible. A federal government website says that “although there appears to be no strict definition, clean energy is any energy that causes little or no harm to the environment” (www.cleanenergy.gc.ca).

I’m going to work with the minimal-impact/ little-or-no-harm definition because it makes gut-level sense, but be advised that the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources is apparently in the process of updating its own definition of clean energy--and that such definitions can allow for a lot of political wiggle room.

It’s true that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from a Site C reservoir would be minimal when compared to natural gas or coal used to generate the same amount of electricity. Yet the BC Energy Plan is inaccurate when it says that “hydropower produces essentially no carbon dioxide” (p. 23). BC Hydro’s estimate is that the Site C reservoir “could contribute between 70,000 and 140,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalent) per year for approximately the first ten years” (Feasibility Review, p. 6-47).

This figure isn’t very informative because it doesn’t provide a vital “net” value that estimates the emission difference between the pre- and post-dam environment. In any event, the low end of the range we’ve been given is roughly equivalent to the amount of greenhouse gases annually produced by 10,000 to 12,000 cars.

While a lot more work needs to be done to more accurately quantify greenhouse gas emissions from the potential reservoir, it’s reasonably clear that Site C, regarded in and of itself, would not satisfy the provincial government’s declaration that new power projects will have “zero net greenhouse gas emissions” (BC Energy Plan, 2007, p. 3). The only way to reconcile Site C with such a bold-sounding declaration is to water down the policy so that the net calculation applies to the entire provincial energy portfolio, permitting the government to present Site C as a good trade-off for something like the carbon-belching Burrard gas plant.

Yet even if we grant Site C relatively “clean” status in regard to atmospheric pollution, there are many other considerations that disqualify the proposed dam as a “clean” source of energy--as one with “minimal environmental impact.” In fact, when it comes to impacts on land and water, large hydropower projects tend to have far more damaging environmental effects than gas or coal, and Site C would be no exception.

The proposed reservoir would flood about 5,300 hectares of land. That’s 20.5 square miles, about the size of a large conservation area recently created in southwest Saskatchewan. Alternatively, think of the flooded area as being roughly equivalent to 5,000 football fields.

Ironically, if the flooding is to be done “right,” it would have to be preceded by a kind of environmental devastation that most people have never seen. The land would be denuded, turning what is now a fertile valley into a wasteland.

BC Hydro is developing a “clearing plan,” but the rational sound of that phrase masks corporate-technocratic madness. Given the burning that would likely accompany any so-called “clearing plan,” the scorched-earth tactics of total warfare are among the few human activities that can cause such immediate, wide-scale destruction to the earth’s surface.

Traces of such devastation can still be seen along the shoreline of Williston reservoir, where tree stumps, mudflats, tangled cable, and mechanical garbage mark the graveyard of what was once a diverse ecosystem. Below is a photo of Williston mudflats, near Mackenzie, BC, courtesy of Eliza Massey.

At Site C, flooding would cover up most of the mess, but rich animal habitat, valuable farmland, homes, recreational sites, and traditional First Nations’ territory would be gone forever.

We need to wake up and stop pretending that Site C would provide clean energy; that it’s an exception to all the rules; that the destruction of the valley would be an acceptable sacrifice. We have better options. Respected sources like the David Suzuki Foundation tell us this, and we need a government with the will and vision to pursue those alternatives.

For a discussion of alternatives to Site C, see this column archive for additional articles on conservation, wind and geothermal power, and downstream benefits of the Columbia River Treaty.

Columbia River Deal Provides No Simple Answers

(Originally published in the Northeast News, June 18, 2008, p. 24)

The power entitlement or so-called “downstream benefits” associated with the Columbia River Treaty (CRT) are frequently cited as evidence that the purported need for a project like Site C has been constructed under false pretenses.

On September 16, 1964, Canada ratified the Columbia River Treaty with the United States. BC played a key role in the negotiations and, in effect, came to manage the Canadian obligations. Among other things, the treaty called for the construction of three water-storage dams on the Canadian side of the Columbia watershed. The serious social and environmental consequences of the Columbia River Treaty were virtually ignored at the time, but that’s another story.



The photograph at left, taken during the ratification ceremony, shows Premier Bennett flanked by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.

The Canadian dams were to provide flood control in Canada and the United States, and the controlled release of water from these storage facilities would enable both parties to maximize power generation at turbine-equipped dams.

The added hydroelectric generation on the American side of the border came to be known as “the downstream benefits” of the treaty, and these benefits were to be shared equally by the two countries. Yet, because the construction of the Bennett Dam was already underway in the mid-sixties, BC didn’t anticipate needing extra power for some time to come.

Accordingly, Premier WAC Bennett struck a deal whereby BC sold its share of the downstream benefits (the “Canadian Entitlement”) to a consortium of utilities in the US. Proceeds from the sale were used to finance construction of the storage dams.

This “pre-sale” agreement, which would last for thirty years from the in-service date of each Canadian storage dam, saw President Lyndon B. Johnson hand over a cheque for approximately $254 million dollars. Several weeks ago, Ron Horne submitted a copy of that cheque in a Northeast News letter to the editor.

The cash agreement expired in phases over the five year period between 1998 and 2003. Since 1998, therefore, BC has been entitled to receive actual power instead of its cash equivalent, and that’s essentially what’s been happening. Today, energy from the downstream benefits of the Columbia River Treaty is delivered to the US-BC border via several transmission links.

BC has the option to sell this power to the highest bidder and sends much of it back the United States through Powerex, BC Hydro’s trading subsidiary. It’s a lucrative arrangement for the provincial government, but the situation has become contentious in relation to BC’s purported energy shortfall.

Conor Mackenzie, a member of the BC Creek Protection Society, sums up the critique this way: “Rather than utilizing [electricity from the downstream benefits of the CRT], the Campbell government has chosen to reap the economic benefits, while simultaneously claiming that in order to meet BC’s domestic energy needs, a greater generating capacity must be developed. . . . By choosing to ignore the benefits of the Columbia River Treaty . . . the Campbell government has strategically led British Columbians to believe that our province faces a dire energy crisis.”

Critics such as Mackenzie also point out that, ironically, the Columbia River parcel amounts to about 4,500 annual gigawatt hours, roughly the amount of power that would be generated by Site C (for the 2007-2008 operating year, the Canadian Entitlement comprised 4230 GWh).

There is, in fact, nothing in the treaty that prevents BC from using the power for domestic purposes. Unfortunately, however, the CRT power entitlement does not, at the moment, provide a reliable, long-term means of alleviating BC’s purported energy shortfall because there is simply no guarantee that this entitlement will continue indefinitely.

Indeed, while the CRT has no official expiry date, either party is able to terminate the treaty (and the Canadian Entitlement) by 2024 or beyond, with ten years notice. In other words, BC can’t count on receiving power after 2024. Nor can we be sure what a renegotiated deal might look like, if one is signed at all.

In sum, CRT considerations are not as straightforward as much of the criticism implies. What we need is a more sophisticated kind of analysis, one that ultimately questions how the provincial government is framing our energy needs and options through concepts such as “electricity self-sufficiency,” “insurance power,” and large hydro as purportedly “clean” energy with minimal environmental impact.

A good needs analysis can be found in documents like Martin Shaffer’s Lost in Transmission (http://www.citizensforpublicpower.ca/node/213). Through work like Shaffer’s, it might be possible to thoughtfully re-engage whatever possibilities could be associated with a renegotiation and extension CRT downstream benefits.

Bennett Dam Not Responsible for Drying of the PAD Delta

(Originally published in the Northeast News, June 11, 2008, p. A22)

Rivers and wetlands are wild things, and it can be hard for us to understand the forces that drive them. Recent changes on the Peace-Athabasca Delta (PAD), the largest boreal wetland in the world, are a case in point.

The Peace-Athabasca Delta is located in northeastern Alberta, where the Peace, Athabasca, and Birch Rivers approach Lake Athabasca. This vast area is recognized as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention and provides habitat for large populations of waterfowl, muskrat, beaver and wood bison. It is also home to First Nations people, who hunt, fish, and trap on the delta.


Over the past forty years, this complex and dynamic region has undergone a drying trend that has become the object of prolonged scientific investigation. Because this recent drying trend roughly coincides with the Bennett Dam era, studies from the early 1970s to 2000 frequently focused on what, if any, impact the dam could be having and how potential impacts could be mitigated.

The earliest research supported assumptions that the Bennett Dam was a significant factor in the drying trend (Peace-Athabasca Delta Project Group, 1973; Townsend, 1975; Peace-Athabasca Delta Implementation Committee, 1987). For instance, scientists found that when the flow of the Peace River was dramatically reduced during the filling of Williston Reservoir (1968-1971), the shoreline of small, elevated lakes in the PAD “was reduced by approximately 36% and the water-surface area by 38%, exposing some 500 km2 of mudflats” (Prowse & Conly, 2000).

As the drying trend continued, the role of the Bennett Dam became more entrenched in the scientific literature. What emerged, therefore, was a powerful scholarly conviction, supported by popular belief, that the PAD was in trouble largely because of the Bennett Dam.

Dam-related studies of the delta culminated in the mid 1990s, with two major environmental research programs: the Northern River Basins Study (NRBS) and Peace-Athabasca Technical Studies (PAD-TS).To some extent, the NRBS and PAD-TS findings complemented previous work by continuing to see the Bennett Dam as a “stressor” on the hydroecology of the delta. For example, the continued drying of small, elevated basins was attributed to an apparent diminishment of spring ice-jam flooding, a phenomenon that was partly traced back to flow regulation of the Peace River (Prowse & Conly, 2000).

However, another key aspect of the NRBS and PAD-TS findings indicated that the apparent decline in flood frequency since dam construction was also caused by climatic variability related to changes in atmospheric circulation. Warmer weather and a corresponding decline in regional snowfall had reduced spring snowpacks, which in turn reduced annual runoff into Peace River tributaries, another factor in the seasonal restoration of delta water levels (Prowse & Conly, 2000). This acknowledgement of climate was a sign of things to come.

Since 2000, PAD research has taken a dramatic turn toward an emphasis on climate variability as the primary determinant of delta water levels. Partially funded by BC Hydro, such research has involved state-of-the-art, lake-sediment core samples that enable scientists to assess climate variability over extended timescales. These historical studies have produced unexpected results, showing that the current drying trend on the delta does not fall outside the range of long-term, “natural” cyclic variations.

Conclusions drawn from these studies are even more provocative because they essentially reverse assumptions that the delta is in trouble because of the Bennett Dam. Wolfe et al. (2006) have found “the Peace River flood frequency has been highly variable over the past 300 years,” and that there was another prolonged dry period that lasted for several decades in the late 1800s (also see Timoney et al., 1997). From this new perspective, the influence of the Bennett Dam on delta water levels has been characterized as negligible.

Kevin Timoney has been the most vigorous in a rejection of what he calls “the dying delta paradigm.” Timoney (2002) writes: “When compared to other major deltas in North America, the Peace-Athabasca Delta stands out as a paragon of ecosystem health.” The “new paradigm views the delta as predominantly healthy, driven by large-scale natural processes, complex, and dynamically varying.”

If there is cause for concern about the health of the delta, specialists such as Wolfe and Timoney suggest that we should pay more attention to natural and human-induced changes on the Athabasca River, which actually provides a larger direct inflow of water to the PAD.

As far as Site C goes, BC Hydro states that there “would be no downstream effects” on the Peace-Athabasca Delta” (Feasibility Review, p. 66), and the latest research seems to support that position. Dams are big targets, and sometimes they deserve the criticisms aimed at them. But not always.

Independent Review Panel Needed for Site C

(Originally published in the Northeast News, May 28, 2008, p. 25)

Several weeks ago, I suggested an independent review of Site C would be advisable. This article says a little more about that concept.

Currently, BC Hydro, the proponent for Site C, is managing a “stage two” consultation process. The information that BC Hydro collects from various stakeholders and from contracted studies will be forwarded to the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office (BCEAO) and to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA).

These organizations review the information and offer recommendations that ultimately relate to the acceptability of the project. As part of the environmental assessment process, both provincial and federal legislation allows for an independent review panel when certain criteria are met.

Federal law, for example, says that independent reviews may be convened when a project could have significant adverse environmental effects or when the potential for adverse environmental effects is unknown. At the federal level, an IRP may also be appointed in cases where public concerns warrant it. CEAA guidelines further indicate that “review by a mediator or a panel” may be required where a project could have “transboundary” or interprovincial effects. Site C appears to qualify on all three counts.

So why opt for an independent review? The simple answer is that an independent review, particularly if it is jointly struck by the provincial and federal governments, involves special measures intended to ensure an objective, detailed, and far-ranging consideration of project acceptability.

An IRP is “independent” in the sense that it is separate from government. Panel members cannot be bureaucrats or civil servants. Nor can they be consultants who are receiving payment from the proponent to undertake studies. In short, members of an independent review panel cannot have a vested interest in the proposal.

IRP members are appointed at the ministerial level, but these are not “political appointments” in the familiar and unflattering sense of the term. Panel members form an impartial body of experts who are chosen in consultation with stakeholders, and these experts are in a unique position to critically assess the merits of a proposal.


In the case of a jointly struck independent review of Site C, such expertise could relate to environmental, social, cultural, heritage, health, and economic considerations. Ultimate decision-making authority would remain with the provincial cabinet, but an IRP recommendation carries a lot of weight.

As BC Hydro’s Feasibility Report notes, the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) also has an important role to play in the evaluation of Site C. In fact, a BCUC judgement stalled Site C last time around, in the early 1980s. At that time, the commissioners found that BC Hydro did not adequately demonstrate Site C was the best possible project.

Yet it is worth noting that the kind of evaluation undertaken by the BCUC tends to be different from that associated with an IRP. In the early 1980s, before the days of environmental assessment agencies, the BCUC investigation of Site C happened to be very broad, but the Utilities Commission is primarily designed to look at project justification in terms of financial costs and the implications for rate payers.

Thus, as an independent regulatory agency, the BCUC does not typically conduct a comprehensive environmental, social, First Nations, and heritage assessment, and that is precisely what we’d stand to gain through a jointly struck IRP.

As noted in an earlier article, the “Joint Review Panel Report” for the Kemess North Copper-Gold Mine Project provides an outstanding example of what a provincial and federal IRP can bring to the table. The Executive Summary at the beginning of the Kemess report notes that “one of the most important components of a panel review is to integrate public values, as well as government policy expectations, into the review process.”

I’d be glad to e-mail the full report to anyone who’s interested. The point is this: if, at the end of stage two consultation, BC Hydro gets the go-ahead from cabinet to file for applications under the federal and provincial environmental assessment acts, the public deserves an independent review.

A History of Dams

(Originally published in the Northeast News, May 21, 2008, p. 24)

On a warm day after the last snowfall in April, I was walking home and saw neighbourhood kids building a dam at the side of the street, to block running water. Their play suggests that dam building comes to us almost by instinct. It certainly goes back a long way—to the first Egyptian pyramids and beyond.

The heyday of modern dam building in North America began with the federal reclamation program in the United States and the construction of the massive Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, in the 1930s. North American dam building continued through the mid-twentieth century, peaking in the 1960s. By the 1970s, global construction rates peaked.

Throughout these decades of intense development, dams were seen as symbols of modernization, epitomizing a belief that we could control nature and dramatically alter ecosystems without adverse consequences. Often championed by heads of state, dams were regarded as monumental signs of progress toward a better way of life.

In many cases, dams have delivered the promised benefits. As the World Commission on Dams notes, dams have undoubtedly made vital contributions to human development, providing water for irrigation, consumption, and the generation of hydroelectricity. The simple truth is that dams have provided some of the necessary aspects of modern life.

However, just as the dam industry was experiencing unprecedented success in the sixties and seventies, hints of an eventual downturn appeared. In some countries, engineers were running out of good places to build dams, but other things were happening too.

Many people were beginning to think differently about dams, based on a growing recognition of environmental and social costs, huge economic overruns, under-performance, exaggerated predictions about hydroelectric needs, and the problems associated with decommissioning. These new attitudes marked the beginning of what might be called a “paradigm shift.”

The graph above, from Patrick McCully's Silenced Rivers, shows the rise and decline of the global dam industry in the twentieth century.

The growing criticism of dams is reflected in the findings of the World Commission on Dams. Large dams, the Commission says, “have fragmented and transformed the world's rivers, while global estimates suggest that 40-80 million people have been displaced by reservoirs” (“Report Overview”).

According to Ted Scudder, one of the WCD commissioners, “a point inadequately made in the literature is that [larger dams] do not constitute environmentally sustainable development. Not only do they alter river regimes, causing irreversible damage to wetlands and, in some cases, to deltas, but with sedimentation rates averaging between 0.5 % and 1 % per year, they have a finite life span,” and decommissioning costs are rarely factored into project expenses (The Future of Large Dams, p. 16).

The message, quite literally, is sinking in. In the United States today, for the first time in the past century, more dams are being decommissioned than are being built.

But while many dam projects have been abandoned or put on hold, old habits die hard. As if writing about our own experience here in the Peace country, Patrick McCully notes that “once planned, a project never really goes away – even if supposedly cancelled it will lurk on some planner’s shelf, an incubus ever-ready for a propitious time to re-emerge” (Silenced Rivers, p. xvi).

Still, a pattern of decline remains evident, particularly in northern countries. “Increasingly,” McCully predicts, “building a big dam will be seen only as a last resort to meeting a real public need in the rare cases when no better alternatives are available” (Silenced Rivers, pp. xvii). What a global-historical perspective affords, therefore, is an understanding that opposition to Site C deserves to be taken seriously.

While each new dam proposal should be evaluated on its own merits, Site C critics, in principle, are in good company. In fact, they are part of a global community that includes some of the world’s most knowledgeable biological and social scientists. Once touted as an eco-friendly form of power generation, big hydro dams are giving way to newer, greener, smaller-scale technologies. Indeed, a decade from now, our suite of energy options may look very different from how they appear today.

Along Highway 29, signs on the outskirts of Hudson’s Hope welcome travelers to “The Land of Dinosaurs and Dams.” Ironically, the paradigm shift described above may suggest that the concrete and earth-filled giants have also had their day—that we may be living in “The Land of Dinosaur Dams.”

The World Commission on Dams

(Originally published in the Northeast News, May 14, 2008, p. A19)


The current reconsideration of Site C occurs in the aftermath of a landmark event that will have lasting impact on the global understanding of large dams. Between 1998 and 2000, an independent, multi-stakeholder body known as “The World Commission on Dams” (WCD) investigated the many issues associated with large dams around the world.

In applying WCD findings and recommendations to our own situation, we need to be cautious. Many of the dams studied by the Commission were constructed in late-industrializing countries, where the socio-economic and regulatory circumstances are very different from ours. Nevertheless, the WCD’s work did include northern, industrialized countries, and the WCD knowledge base can help us chart the way forward in our own corner of the world.


The twelve Commissioners comprised an international group of experts with diverse backgrounds. The picture above shows WCD Chairperson Professor Kadar Asmal in the company of Nelson Mandela. The Commissioners agreed that “clearly, dams can play an important role in meeting people's needs” (Report Overview). Dams, the commission concluded in its full report, have made important contributions to socio-economic development, meeting needs for irrigation, water consumption, and hydroelectricity.

Yet the Commission was also harshly critical of large dams, stating that the positive contributions of dams have “been marred in many cases by significant environmental and social impacts which, when viewed from today’s values, are unacceptable” (Dams and Development, p. 198). Of course, presenting such criticism is one thing; finding meaningful mitigation measures or better energy alternatives is more challenging.


After reading the WCD report, the message I’m left with is that dam construction should be reserved for crisis situations—that, at best, large dams might be a necessary evil, or the lesser among several evils. Thus, the Commission recognizes that we must assess the necessity of such projects very carefully, and options assessment is one of the subjects on which the WCD offers numerous observations and “practical guidelines for future decision-making.”

The Commission notes that support for large dams often originates with governments or heads of state and that the decision process is typically driven by governments or closely related “parastatal” agencies (agencies or corporations that are owned wholly or partly by the government).

According to the WCD, the “primary concern” with such a planning process, as it has played out in various countries, “is that once a proposed dam project has survived preliminary technical and economic feasibility tests and attracted interest from financing agencies and political interests, the momentum behind the project and the need to meet the expectations raised often prevail over further assessments. Environmental and social concerns are often ignored and the role of impact assessments in selecting options remains marginal” (Dams and Development, pp. 175-176).

What the World Commission recommends, therefore, is an Independent Review Panel (IRP) to evaluate proposals for large dams. The WCD’s terms of reference for an IRP are set out in Chapter 9, Guideline 22, and provide fairly detailed advice about matters such as selection, representation, financing, and reporting (Dams and Development, pp. 302-303). In his follow-up study, Scudder reiterates the need for an IRP: “In addition to whatever agency is driving the options assessment exercise, experience shows the need for an independent facilitator” whose “team of experts” can explain “technical, economic, social, and other details” (Future of Large Dams, p. 303).

The Commission acknowledges that ultimate decision-making authority would likely remain with government, but suggests that independent review might help to foster a more balanced, objective process that gives due consideration to a broad range of stakeholder concerns. Moreover, there would be political costs to ignoring the recommendation of an independent panel.

Looking at the decision-making process as laid out by BC Hydro in the Feasibility Review, my belief is that the best opportunity for the kind of independent review recommended by the WCD resides in the regulatory mechanisms associated with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The criteria that would justify an independent review are pretty broad so a lot of discretion is involved, and there would have to be a political will to take this step.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) website says “a review panel is appointed to review and assess, in an impartial and objective manner, a project with likely adverse [or uncertain] environmental effects. A review panel may also be appointed in cases where public concerns warrant it” (also see BC Hydro’s Feasibility Review, p. 9-70). Since a dam at Site C would likely have some impact in Alberta, it’s worth noting that CEAA guidelines indicate “review by a mediator or a panel may also be required where a project may result in transboundary effects” (Canadian Citizens’ Guide: Canadian Environmental Assessment Process, Section 3.2).

Reflecting WCD best-practices, the CEAA website describes a review panel “as a group of experts selected on the basis of their knowledge and expertise and appointed by the [federal] Minister of the Environment.” The website explains that “Review panels have the unique capacity to encourage an open discussion and exchange of views” (http://www.acee-ceaa.gc.ca/). An IRP was struck very recently to review the Kemess Mine project in BC, and there are actually IRP precedents for hydroelectric projects in other regions of Canada, so we would have some practical examples of how the process has worked.

In light of efforts to harmonize provincial and federal regulatory mechanisms, there are additional provisions for a “joint review panel” that could be struck by both the BC Environmental Assessment Office and its federal counterpart.

Given the intense public controversy that has surrounded Site C for decades, the prospect of adverse environmental effects, social effects, and interprovincial implications, I think an independent review is advisable. In cases like this, where the stakes are so high, political pressures are difficult to avoid, but the possibility of open, balanced, objective assessment, conducted by a panel that operates at arm’s length from government influence, would contribute to a perception of fairness and enhance the integrity of the process.

Ideally, arrangements for an independent panel would take place now, early in Stage Two of the decision making framework, when BC Hydro is still seeking “input into the design of the consultation and participation process” (Feasibility Review 11-81). Such timing would coincide with the WCD recommendations, which state that IRPs should be established by the state, “in agreement with the stakeholder forum, as soon as the options assessment has decided on a dam as a possible option, and prior to project-level impact assessment” (p. 302).

To get a broader appreciation for the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams, see the full final report at www.dams.org.

Methylmercury and Site C

(Originally published in the Northeast News, May 7, 2008, p. 25)

The presence of increased methylmercury in fish that inhabit reservoirs involves complex relationships and debatable judgement calls about risk.

Natural processes such as volcanic eruptions and forest fires add inorganic mercury to the atmosphere. Today, human activities, such as mining and the burning of fossil fuels, have significantly increased the amount mercury that is floating around.

This airborne mercury can travel great distances but eventually sticks to particulates and falls back to earth. In its inorganic state, mercury isn’t much of a problem because it’s not easily absorbed. That’s why many of us still have mercury dental fillings.

However, when bacteria break down vegetation, they naturally take up mercury. Some of this inorganic mercury is converted to an organic form called methylmercury (MeHg). The transformation is triply bad: methylmercury is more easily absorbed by living things; it remains in organisms much longer than inorganic mercury; and methylmercury is well-known as a potent neurotoxin. Unfortunately, reservoirs have an important role to play in this scenario.

When organic material is flooded to create a reservoir, bacteria chew away at dead vegetation and other organic matter, transforming some of the resident mercury into its more dangerous cousin—methylmercury, thus introducing MeHg into the base of the food web.

At this point, the problem spreads. Tiny organisms such as plankton or “waterfleas” feed on the bacteria, aquatic insects and small fish feed on the plankton, and larger fish species, such as lake trout and bull trout, feed on the insects and small fish.

Eventually, when top predators such as loons, ospreys, eagles, otters (and possibly humans) consume fish, they too are exposed to methylmercury. And, as it travels along the food web, methylmercury becomes successively more concentrated through a phenomenon that biologists refer to as “bioaccumulation.” By analogy, imagine throwing a stone into a body of water and seeing the ripple effect get stronger.

The human health risks associated with methylmercury in fish depend largely on the dose: on a combination of the concentration of mercury in the fish, the quantity of fish consumed, and the frequency of consumption. Pregnant women and children are more vulnerable to adverse effects than other people.

In setting Canadian policy, even for sport fisheries, government officials rely on a guideline set by Health Canada, which says that commonly consumed fish such as tuna shall not be sold commercially with levels that exceed half a part per million (0.5) of mercury.

At Williston Reservoir, tests in the 1980’s showed that adult bull trout had mercury concentrations “well above” the recommended guideline: 0.85 ppm in 1980 and 0.87 ppm in 1988. Based on these findings, a fish consumption advisory was eventually posted at Williston in 1991 and has been in effect ever since.

The most recent tests, conducted in 2000, show, at that time, large bull trout (with a mean length of 55 cm) had average readings of 0.56 parts per million, a clear decline since the 1980’s, but still above the recommended benchmark of 0.5 (see Baker, R.F. & R.R. Turner. 2002. EVS Environment Consultants and Aqualibrium Environmental Consulting. Mercury in Environmental Media of Finlay Reach, Williston Reservoir. Executive Summary, p. 3).

In regard to Site C, BC Hydro’s Feasibility Review describes “mitigation measures” intended “to ensure” that methylmercury levels would be kept to a minimum if construction proceeds. Such measures “could include clearing the reservoir and disposing of any non-merchantable timber and vegetation . . .”

The removal of timber may sometimes be a necessary step in the clearing process, but it’s not what really matters here because most of the mercury is in the vegetation, and in fallen leaves, needles, and soil, all of which, when flooded, promote the microbial decomposition associated with methylmercury.

Thus, as noted in an earlier article, effective “clearing” is no small undertaking, and I wonder how practical such an endeavour actually is.

The Feasibility Review also states: “Available evidence from other recently formed reservoirs [suggests] that methylmercury levels in the Site C reservoir could increase during the initial years after impoundment, and decline over time to levels similar to natural lakes.”

Research does support this observation, but the “decline over time” may take awhile. Studies, at least for other boreal forest reservoirs in Canada and Finland, have shown that “methylmercury levels in predatory fish . . . can be expected to return to background levels 20-30 years after impoundment” (see Rosenberg, D.M., et al. 1997. “Large-scale impacts of hydroelectric development.” Environmental Reviews, 5. p. 28).

So what’s really at stake in health concerns about methylmercury? It’s a difficult question to answer because there is a diversity of opinion. Important scientific bodies around the world take the issue seriously, but it’s also true that the word “mercury” can get people excited, and sometimes risks can be sensationalized, particularly in the media. It’s a topic that is poorly understood, especially in British Columbia, where mercury levels in fish tend to be lower than in other provinces.

From what I can see, it’s likely that human health risks related to potential methylmercury problems at Site C could, in fact, be quite effectively managed by timely fish consumption advisories.

However, we would have to accept responsibility for further disrupting the ecological balance of the river basin by adding toxins to the food web, and it’s hard to foresee the full consequences of that activity, particularly when we begin to consider the potential cumulative effects of mercury pollution in our environment, including effects on top predators such as ospreys, otters, or bald eagles.

Perhaps, then, reassurances about methylmercury and Site C are somewhat premature. There has been relatively little work done on mercury levels in BC reservoirs, so what we need (as in the case of greenhouse gas emissions) are more informative studies.

We’re fortunate because the expertise exists right here in Canada, among Canadian scientists who have pioneered research into the relationship between reservoir creation and mercury in fish. Just a few weeks ago, specialists convened in St. John’s, Newfoundland, for a workshop on greenhouse gas emissions and mercury in Canadian reservoirs.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

(Originally published in the Northeast News, April 23, 2008, p. 20)

Traditionally, hydroelectric dams have not been regarded as a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Things began to change in the mid 1990’s, when two Canadian scientists working in Manitoba, John Rudd and Carol Kelly, hypothesized that hydroelectric reservoirs increase GHG emissions in flooded areas.

As many of us remember from school biology classes, plants, trees, and other organic matter absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis, removing carbon from our atmosphere. When we flood an area to create a reservoir, we essentially stop photosynthesis. Organic material that remains or gathers in the reservoir decays, releasing carbon dioxide and methane (CH4), an especially potent greenhouse gas. Numerous studies were undertaken in direct response to the work of Rudd and Kelly, and today there is broad scientific agreement that hydroelectric reservoirs contribute to a net increase in GHGs.1


However, a volatile mix of science and politics has sparked what Patrick McCully describes as “reservoir emission wars.” The debate has been particularly fierce in Brazil, where American ecologist Philip Fearnside has asserted that some tropical reservoirs, such as the Balbina Dam, may be “much larger contributers to global warming” than fossil fuels used to generate the same amount of electricity. In the tropics, broad and shallow reservoirs with relatively high water temperatures accelerate the decomposition of organic matter, becoming “virtual methane factories” because of fluctuating water levels that expose “soft green vegetation,” which “quickly grows on the exposed mud.”2

On the whole, the situation in Canada is far better. Here, partly because of a colder climate that slows decomposition rates, scientists generally agree that boreal forest reservoirs have “a far lower climate impact than fossil fuel alternatives.”3 In fact, BC Hydro notes that “Site C is in the category of reservoir with the lowest potential for greenhouse gas emissions,”4 and this observation deserves to be taken seriously. When reservoirs are nutrient poor, which is expected to be the case at Site C, there is little organic matter available to generate greenhouse gases (methane in particular), and thus emissions are expected to be relatively low from the reservoir surface, as well as at the spillway and turbines.

Yet it’s also important to face the challenges associated with minimizing greenhouse gas emissions in the case of Site C. The Feasibility Review states that carbon emissions will be minimized through the removal of soil and vegetation before flooding. Removing organic matter in the river basin will likely help to reduce GHG emissions, but note that logging alone won’t do the trick. The topsoil, peat, and other organic material (in places like Bear Flat, Watson Slough, and the Halfway confluence) would have to be scraped away as well. I’d characterize such an endeavour as something akin to peeling the skin off the land--a pretty ugly, massive undertaking that carries its own fossil fuel costs.

The Feasibility Review also states that after ten years, GHG emissions “would be negligible.” In Hydro-Quebec studies, similar conclusions have been drawn about reservoir emissions over time, but there appears to be different interpretations of the available data.5 Perhaps, then, we need to be cautious about long-term forecasts.

At a Montreal workshop, which formed part of the information-gathering activities of the World Commission on Dams, experts reached a “general consensus” that “greenhouse gases are emitted for decades from all dam reservoirs in the boreal and tropic regions for which measurements have been made. This is in contrast to the widespread assumption that such emissions are negligible.”6

So how do we begin to sort through such a complex, controversial subject as greenhouse gas emissions? On the one hand, I think we need to acknowledge that the anticipated carbon profile for Site C does look significantly better than that for fossil fuels used to generate the same amount of energy—better by a vast measure.7

Thus, if we accept how our energy needs and options are being framed by government and proceed to narrow our considerations to a choice between fossil fuels or hydropower, it would be difficult to argue, on the basis of carbon emissions alone, that Site C is a bad idea.

On the other hand, it’s also difficult to align Site C with certain aspects of the BC Energy Plan, which says that “all new electricity generation projects will have zero net greenhouse gas emissions.” From what I can see, our Energy Plan overstates the benefits of hydroelectric dams by simply presenting them as a “clean source of energy,” claiming that “hydropower produces essentially no carbon dioxide.”8 Such statements do not acknowledge current trends in reservoir emission studies.

At the end of the day, in regard to greenhouse gases, all stakeholders should appreciate the complexities of the situation and not be too quick to arrive at conclusions. BC Hydro is currently soliciting proposals from independent contractors with the intent of commissioning a study of the potential GHG impacts of construction and operation of the potential Site C reservoir. This study will include emissions associated with the potential removal of organic matter from the river basin and should contribute to an overall understanding of the GHG impact if Site C were to go ahead.
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1St. Louis, V., et al. (2000). “Reservoir Surfaces as Sources of Greenhouse Gases to the
Atmosphere.” BioScience, 50.9, p. 769.
2 Fearnside, P. (2004). “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Hydroelectric Dams: Controversies Provide a Springboard for Rethinking a Supposedly ‘Clean’ Energy Source.” Climatic Change, 66, pp. 1-8. Due to time constraints, I didn’t have time to access this article and thank BC Hydro for the reference.
3Patrick McCully. (2006). “Fizzy Science: Loosening the Hydro Industry’s Grip on Reservoir
Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Berkeley, CA: International Rivers Network. pp. 2-5.
4Site C Feasibility Review: Stage 1 Completion Report. (December 2007). p. 6-47.
5McCully, pp. 5, 7, 12, 15. As a member of International Rivers Network, McCully is opposed to large dams and critical of the hydro industry. Despite this bias, I think he provides a fairly objective account of the controversies surrounding reservoir studies.
6Dam Reservoirs and Greenhouse Gases: Report on the Workshop Held on February 24 & 25, 2000.” Hydro-Quebec, Montreal. Final Minutes. The minutes are described as “a draft working paper” for the World Commission on Dams. Not originally intended “for circulation or citation,” this document is now available on the web.
7 Based on an annual energy production of 4,600 GWh, BC Hydro’s Feasibility Review estimates the Site C reservoir could contribute between 70,000 and 140,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year for approximately the first ten years . . .” (6-47). To contextualize these figures, the Review cites the far higher GHG’s that would be emitted from gas or coal plants used to produce the same amount of energy.
8BC Energy Plan. (2007). p. 2-23.

Getting Started

(Originally published in the Northeast News, April 23, 2008, p. 12; the article appears here with minor revisions)

This is the first article of a column that will address a major social, economic, and environmental issue in northeastern British Columbia: the potential construction of another hydroelectric dam on the Peace River, at a location known as “Site C,” just southwest of Fort St. John.

In our everyday language, “Site C” has become a shorthand way of referring to the potential dam itself, and that familiar usage will appear here.

I offered to write this column as a way of helping to raise awareness about Site C, a proposition so big that it deserves our collective attention. Mega-projects like this, if they proceed, can bolster an economy and help to appease market demands, but they can also change our world in very real and dramatic ways.

For this reason, accurate, thoughtful information is vital. I have a PhD in American literature, not environmental science, but I’ve been studying academic writing across the disciplines for many years. What I can share is an ability to identify good scholarly sources and to clearly summarize complex information for a wide audience.

Be advised that I’m not starting out as a neutral informer. For the time being, anyway, I’m unconvinced that Site C should go ahead. I value what’s left of the river valley, and the social/environmental effects of another dam concern me.

Yet in cases like this, where the stakes are so high, a little scepticism is healthy, even wise. Leading scientific authorities around the world agree that there has been a tendency to underestimate the serious repercussions of large dams. 1



The title of this column says something about my own values and background. “Down the River” is the name of the longest chapter in Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, an autobiographical book that laments the construction of the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River.

Abbey chooses the phrase because of its historical association with American slavery (being “sold down the river”). Writing in the late sixties, he sees another dam on the Colorado as form of betrayal. Harsh words.

Unlike Abbey, though, I wish to insult no one. Frequently, I will feel obligated
to convey a sobering picture of construction “costs” (in the broadest sense of that word), but I will do so in an effort to point out aspects of the proposal that some of us may overlook. And I’m open to all perspectives on Site C, pro and con—to credible, thoughtful data, wherever it leads.


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1See, for example, Thayer Scudder’s The Future of Large Dams: Dealing with Social, Environmental, Institutional, and Political Costs. London: Earthscan, 2005. Scudder, a former commissioner of the World Commission on Dams, believes that dams must remain a necessary development option, but claims they should only be pursued when better alternatives do not exist. “Large dams,” he says, “are flawed for many reasons. Benefits are overstated and costs understated.
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