Site C dam

History

When completed, it will be the third of four major dams on the Peace River that were initially proposed in the mid-twentieth century. The first project is the flagship W. A. C. Bennett Dam 19 kilometres west of Hudson's Hope. The Bennett Dam began operation in 1968 and formed Williston Reservoir, which is 95% larger than the Site C reservoir. Construction of the Peace Canyon Dam was completed in 1980 at a point 23 km downstream of the W. A. C. Bennett dam. The third dam,"Site C," was also proposed at the time for a site 83 km downriver of the Peace Canyon dam, or approximately 7 km southwest of Fort St. John. Site C would flood 83 km of the Peace River, widening it by up to 3 times, as well as 10 km of the Moberly and 14 km of the Halfway Rivers. The fourth proposed dam on the BC segment of the Peace River, Site E, near the BC/Alberta border was taken off the planning process during hearings in 1982.

The Site C dam was turned down after BC Utilities Commission hearings in between 1981 and 1983. The commission was critical of BC Hydro's forecasting methods, as it "neither explicitly [took] energy prices into account nor rely on statistically significant past patterns of behaviour". In 2010, the Clean Energy Act exempted the project from further BC Utilities Commission Review. It subsequently came under review as BC Hydro reconsidered expansion of its dam capacity on the Peace.

In April 2010, the provincial government announced plans to advance planning for the facility, moving it to the regulatory review phase. The review was mandated under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 (CEAA 2012) and the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act (BCEAA). To avoid duplication, the governments of Canada and British Columbia, set up a cooperative federal-provincial environmental assessment, including a joint review panel (JRP) process.

In October 2014, Site C received environmental assessment approvals from the federal and provincial governments after a three-year environmental review, including a federal/provincial Joint Review Panel process. In December 2014, the provincial government announced a final investment decision, approving the construction of the hydroelectric project at a cost of $8.335 billion, as well as a project reserve of $440 million. A notice of Site C construction commencing in 2015 was issued in July 2015.

By March 2016, construction of the dam was well under way. BC Premier Christy Clark's stated intention is to get dam construction “to the point of no return” before the provincial election in May, 2017. BC Hydro estimates that by then construction contracts worth at least $4-billion will be locked in.

The project has sparked controversy for a number of reasons: First Nations treaty rights are at issue, the dam is thought by many to be economically unviable, and there are concerns about the loss of agriculturally productive land and the overall environmental impact. The federal/provincial Joint Review Panel found that the need for the electricity had not been clearly demonstrated, nor were alternatives to the project evaluated.

Cost

A cost estimate produced during the 2007 feasibility study placed the financial cost at a maximum of C$6.6 billion based on the 1981 design, safety, and engineering standards. An updated cost projection was released in May 2011 placing the estimated cost at $7.9 billion, which was revised to $8.3 billion in 2014. This does not include the cost of a transmission line to major population centres, estimated to be in the range of $743 million additional, bringing the total estimated cost to approximately $9 billion. Some experts have stated that the costs may reach as high as $11 to 12 billion.

Economic estimates in 2016 by Harry Swain, former chair of the Joint Review Panel and former BC deputy minister of Industry, projected that as little as $1.8 billion would be returned, and the rest ($7 billion) of the cost would be covered by taxpayers. Power consumption has not been increasing despite increasing population.

Legal challenges

Members of the Treaty 8 First Nations boycotted the official Site C announcement ceremony at the Bennett Dam in April 2010, and the West Moberly First Nation publicly stated that it was considering legal action to oppose the dam. In April, 2016, a group of landowners and farmers from BC’s Peace River Valley launched a legal challenge to the project. The landowners' case states that the Provincial government ignored concerns about the project raised by the Joint Review Panel, including its cost, failure to demonstrate the need for the project, and lack of evaluation of alternatives.

Also in April, 2016 BC Treaty 8 First Nations filed a legal challenge in the Supreme Court of BC. In addition to these two provincial challenges, both the Peace Valley Landowners’ Association and BC Treaty 8 First Nations have initiated actions against the project in the federal court of Canada. A request to expedite these cases by BC Hydro, so as to clear the way for summer construction, was dismissed by the court. Similar cases are being brought by Alberta Treaty 8 First Nations, along with a "sweeping challenge" by the Blueberry River First Nation citing "a century of broken treaty promises to be able to continue practicing their traditions on the land."

Scientists' concerns

In May, 2016 a group of over 200 leading Canadian scholars signed a letter raising serious concerns about the process used to approve the Site C dam. The Royal Society of Canada took the "unusual step" of writing a separate supporting letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The letter from "Concerned Scientists" summarized their concerns in the following statement: "Our assessment is that this process did not accord with the commitments of both the provincial and federal governments to reconciliation with and legal obligations to First Nations, protection of the environment, and evidence-based decision-making with scientific integrity." The scientists argued that the environment impacts of the dam and the lack of First Nations consent, make the dam a "'bellwether' of the Trudeau government's commitment to develop resources in a more science-based, sustainable and socially responsible way." The federal government rejected the scientists' call to halt construction. Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna's office stated that the government had "no intention to revisit the Site C environmental assessment."

Opposition party's position

BC's opposition New Democratic Party has promised that, if it wins the next election, it will have the B.C. Utilities Commission review the costs and the actual need for the project. Hydro critic Adrian Dix called the B.C. Liberal government “reckless” in pushing ahead without such a review, as had been recommended by the Joint Review Panel led by Harry Swain.

Agrarian impacts

The Site C project will result in the largest exclusion of land in the 40-year history of BC's Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). Of the land to be flooded, there are 2,601 hectares (6,430 acres) of Class 2 ALR land within the project activity zone. Permanent losses are estimated at 541 ha (1,340 acres) of currently cultivated land and 1,183 ha (2,920 acres) of land under grazing licence or lease areas. In all, 2,775 ha (6,860 acres) of land will be removed from the ALR for the project. The Joint Review Panel accepted BC Hydro’s assessment that "production from the Peace River bottomlands is small and is certainly not important in the context of B.C." The Panel’s assessment of earning potential in the next several decades led them to conclude that, "the highest and best use of the Peace River valley would appear to be as a reservoir."

The panel's view is not shared by agrologist Wendy Holm, past president of the B.C. Institute of Agrologists, who provided expert testimony before the Joint Federal Provincial Panel on the agricultural impact of the project. According to Holm, the part of the Peace River Valley that would be flooded by the Site C dam could meet the fresh vegetable nutritional requirements of over one million people. Holm stated that the Peace Valley, with its fertile alluvial soils and class one microclimate, is capable of producing the same range of crops that can be grown in the Fraser Valley, 1,200 km (750 mi) to the south. Higher yields are possible due to long summer days, making it "the only large tract of land for future horticultural expansion in the province." She noted the importance of the Valley for future food security of the province in that more than two thirds of B.C. vegetables are imported, mostly from drought-plagued California. The Peace Valley is closer (than California) to the Fraser Valley and is far closer to communities in northern B.C., the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories.

According to David Suzuki, flooding valuable farmland to build the dam will undermine Canada's international commitments under the Paris Agreement. Suzuki considers the farmland essential to reduce B.C.'s dependence on imported foods and minimize the carbon fuels needed to transport those foods: "It seems to me crazy to put farmland in the north underwater," Suzuki said. "We live in a food chain now in which food grows on average 3,000 kilometres from where it's consumed. The transport of all that food is dependent on fossil fuels. Food has got to be grown much closer to where it's going to be consumed."

Alternatives

When BC Hydro buys power from Independent Power Producers they set a price as low as $76.20 per megawatt hour for intermittent power from wind farms, and as high as $133.80 for firm hydropower. The average price paid, as of 2010 was $100 per megawatt hour. Site C is expected to cost $83 per megawatt hour for firm hydropower.