Peace River Valley farmers Ken and Arlene Boon were at a lookout on a neighbour’s property on Sunday when they spotted a fresh landslide at the Site C dam construction site.

Arlene snapped some photos of the latest geotechnical issue to dog the troubled project and posted one on Facebook, with the caption: “just more of the north hill sliding down to the bottom.”

Given that the slide is on the same hill where recent attempts to stabilize the riverbank are encroaching on infrastructure for the $470 million Site C dam workers’ camp, including its water line and parking lot, the couple was not surprised to see the latest slump.

But they are astounded that the NDP government is keeping the public in the dark when it comes to details about geotechnical problems, rising contract costs and other major issues plaguing the largest publicly funded infrastructure project in B.C.’s history.

“It seems that under the NDP there’s a bigger cloak of silence,” Ken Boon, president of the Peace Valley Landowner Association, told DeSmog Canada.

“They’re just going to sit on all this bad news. It’s out of sight and out of mind.”

A landslide at the SIte C construction site, April 15, 2018. Photo: Arlene Boon

No public access to detailed Site C information

As soon as the B.C. Utilities Commission completed a fast-tracked review of the Site C project last November, the door slammed shut on public access to detailed information about the $10.7 billion project on the Peace River in northeast B.C.

Normally, the independent utilities commission — acting in the public interest — would provide ongoing oversight during project construction.

But the former BC Liberal government changed the law to remove the BCUC from scrutinizing the Site C dam, which the commission had previously rejected as an energy option.

Instead of fully restoring the commission’s watchdog role, the NDP government announced in December that it would create a new Site C “Project Assurance Board” as part of a turnaround plan to contain escalating project costs.

The new board has been meeting since January, even though its composition has not been finalized, according to an email from the B.C. energy ministry.

Yet the public has heard nothing about the board’s findings, even though a major Site C contract — to build the project’s generating station and spillways — was recently awarded for $350 million more than documents (accidentally released last fall) revealed that BC Hydro had budgeted.

Marc Eliesen, the former CEO of BC Hydro, Ontario Hydro and the Manitoba Energy Authority, pointed out it has been nearly half a year since the NDP government announced it would set up the new board, and that no information has been forthcoming about the apparent cost overrun on the major contract for the generating station and spillways.

“To me this further confirms that there is no independent overview and that BC Hydro continues to run the show,” Eliesen told DeSmog Canada.

BC Hydro directors will help oversee Site C project

According to the email from the energy ministry, BC Hydro directors and government representatives will sit on the project assurance board, meaning that it is not an independent body.

The composition of the board is being finalized by BC Hydro and the government, and members will be announced “in the coming weeks,” the ministry said.

“We are taking the time to conduct a broad search to find highly-qualified, independent external advisors with expertise in engineering, construction and management of large, complex infrastructure projects to join BC Hydro directors and representatives from government on the new Project Assurance Board,” the email said.

“Finding the kind of specialized skills, experience and independence from BC Hydro that we are looking for in the independent advisors is taking some time, especially considering the size and complexity of Site C and the long-term commitment required for a project that wont be completed until 2024.”

Both Eliesen and David Vardy, the former chair and CEO of Newfoundland’s public utilities board, said they have never heard of a provincial government creating a “whole new body” to oversee a major energy project like Site C.

“I think that the BCUC should be doing this oversight,” Vardy said in an interview.

“The logical thing to me seems to be to use an existing board that has a similar kind of mandate. The BCUC is concerned with rates and the reliability of power. Why wouldn’t they be the best people to exercise this oversight and particularly to ensure quality control?”

Eliesen said the BCUC showed through the Site C inquiry that it has both “the knowledge and expertise to undertake such a ongoing review.”

“The facts clearly reflect that both the government and BC Hydro do not want that monitoring by the independent commission.”

Meanwhile, in Labrador and Manitoba…

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a $37.5 million Commission of Inquiry is underway — including a forensic audit — to determine where things went sideways with the hugely over-budget Muskrat Falls dam, whose $12.7 billion price tag will add $1,800 a year to the annual hydro bills of every household in the province.

Vardy said while the commission can pinpoint what went wrong and make recommendations, it can’t address what he calls the “democratic deficit.”

“Which is what happened in our governance system that allowed us to go down this road without correction,” Vardy said in an interview.

In Manitoba, where the over-budget Keeyask dam is also causing hydro rates to soar, the former head of the province’s Public Utilities Board is among those calling for a forensic audit to examine why things went so wrong.

Graham Lane, who chaired the utilities board from 2004 to 2012, said the situation in Manitoba is so dire that he and others are calling for an immediate halt to construction of the Keeyask dam, even though up to $4.5 billion in sunk costs have been incurred.

That compares to about $2 billion in sunk costs for Site C.

“This story isn’t going to end very well,” Lane, a retired chartered accountant, said in an interview. “It’s never too late to stop.”

Manitoba hydro customers now face compounding eight per cent rate increases each year for six years in a row as a result of over-spending on the Keeyask dam and related transmission lines.

In a paper Lane wrote last month, for an inquiry into the Keeyask dam fiasco launched by an independent MLA, he pointed out that knowledgeable observers saw the “slow-motion disaster” coming more than a decade ago.

“Hard questions need to be asked about governance, political oversight, the influence of engineering contractors, the competence of executive managers, the advice provided by consultants, and the role of labour unions in this train wreck,” Lane wrote.

“Special attention also needs to be placed on the lack of action by the Premier, his cabinet and advisors to grasp the immensity of the problem and take appropriate actions.”

There are many similarities between the Muskrat Falls, Keeyask and Site C dams, Lane told DeSmog Canada.

He said politicians in Manitoba “put blinders on and just kept going.”

“No-one knew how to stop. You could see what was happening. You could see the losses building.”

Lack of independent scrutiny of Site C ‘mind-boggling’

Asked if the findings of the Site C Project Assurance Board will be made public, the energy ministry replied that “progress” on the Site C dam will continue to be documented in quarterly reports to the BCUC available on BC Hydro’s Site C website.

Yet the hamstrung BCUC lacks the muscle to question basic information contained in the reports, much less to dig into issues like why the approved design for Site C’s generating station and spillways recently underwent an overhaul so significant BC Hydro must request an amendment to the project’s environmental assessment certificate, a process that will take months.

The BCUC also has no authority to ask questions about why the latest Site C quarterly report states that in October BC Hydro engaged the consulting firm Ernst and Young to “provide independent oversight to the Project Assurance Board for the Site C Project going forward.”

The BCUC did not submit its final report on Site C until November 1 and the NDP government did not announce its final decision about the project until December.

The latest report, which covers the period to the end of December, also says the Site C dam will provide energy for “more than 100 years,” contradicting earlier government statements that the project will generate 70 years of power.

The report goes on to list major Site C project organizational changes, including an array of new director positions, noting that the “scale and complexity of operations” has increased” and also that project oversight has been centralized.

Eliesen called the lack of independent scrutiny of Site C dam construction, including of the quarterly reports filed with the BCUC, “mind-boggling.”

A spokesperson for the Peace River Hydro Partners, the international consortium that holds Site C’s largest civil works contract, referred questions about the landslide captured on camera by the Boons to BC Hydro.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Days away from a final decision on Site C, Peace Valley landowners have launched a “Home for the Holidays” campaign featuring photographs of families who would lose their homes to the $9 billion dam and appealing to the NDP government to terminate the project.

Ken and Arlene Boon, who appear in one of the Christmas card-like photos standing on the steps of their third generation farmhouse overlooking the Peace River, said 70 valley residents are waiting “on pins and needles” to find out if the project will be cancelled, a decision Premier John Horgan said he will announce before the end of December.

“It’s tough,” Ken Boon told DeSmog Canada. “I know there are a lot of people right now who are expecting the worst but we are definitely not throwing in the towel considering what we’ve all been through.”

“We haven’t focused on Christmas,” said Arlene Boon, a grandmother of four. “It’s not important right now.”

Ken and Arlene Boon in a 'Home for the Holidays' postcard circulated on social media.

The Boon’s farmhouse, built by Arlene’s grandfather, was expropriated last December for a Site C highway relocation but the former Liberal government gave the couple permission to remain in their home until after last May’s provincial election.

The new NDP government subsequently granted the Boons what Arlene called a “stay of execution,” allowing them to live in their home while the watchdog B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC) conducted an independent review of the project and pending a final decision on Site C.

The review disclosed among many other issues that Site C is over budget, falling behind schedule, burdened by financial and legal issues with its major civil works contractor, and beset with geotechnical difficulties — only two years into a nine-year construction timeline.

“I just find it really hard to believe that the government could make any decision other than to terminate Site C,” said Ken Boon, president of the Peace Valley Landowner Association that represents 70 valley residents who would lose property to Site C’s reservoir.

“I find it frustrating that the lobbyists have come out in full force: paid lobbyists who get access to the key ministers and Horgan,” Boon said, referring to recent efforts by construction trade unions to discredit some of the findings of the BCUC report.

Caroline Beam, who appears on one of the “Home for the Holidays” social media posts with her husband and three sons, said waiting for a final decision has been extremely stressful for her family and is taking its toll on the emotions of her children, aged 7, 11 and 13. They would lose their riverside home near Hudson’s Hope to Site C.

#SiteC #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/epIeg1CJcL

— PVEA (@SavePeaceValley) December 5, 2017

“They have these little wish pyramids and I peeked in and sure enough out of all the things my kids could be wishing for at Christmas time they are wishing for Site C to be stopped,” Beam said in an interview.

“They love their home, they love the valley, they love the river…We have the most amazing home. We could not possibly ask for more. We live in paradise,” said Beam, a school teacher whose great-grandparents lost their home and ranch to the W.A.C. Bennett dam in the 1960s.

“It’s pretty fresh and raw right now. I’m pretty much just doing the best I can to hold it together…If [Site C] moves forward right now, what does that say about our system and our politicians? How do you make your child grow up not cynical?”

Farmers Colin Meek and Leslee Jardine, whose home was expropriated earlier this year for a Site C highway relocation, said the past several years have been very taxing for their family and they are “just patiently waiting” for the final decision. They were also allowed to stay in their house pending a final verdict on the project.

As with other affected landowners and First Nations, the couple expects to learn about the outcome through the media and not directly from a BC Hydro or government representative.

Meek and Jardine, like other families in the Cache Creek area, have had to contend not only with the loss of their farmland but also with disruptive clear-cut logging — in their case, of a spruce and poplar forest that fringed their property — that took place earlier this year for the new $530 million highway route.

“The worst part of it is that it’s changed how we live,” said Jardine. “We can see our house from the highway now and we can hear the traffic.”

“I’m hoping they do the right thing and cancel it. I’m trying to be positive.”

The Peace Valley Landowner Association and two Treaty 8 First Nations have repeatedly asked BC Hydro for the detailed documents about why the new highway route was chosen over a second shortlisted route. The centreline of the new route would cut through the Boon’s farmhouse, the Meek farmhouse, the Boon’s family run campground, and a First Nations cultural area.

BC Hydro has declined to release the detailed documents that outline the relative merits and costs of the two shortlisted routes, saying that the chosen route will affect less agricultural land and offer more passing opportunities for drivers.

Even if Site C is approved, the Cache Creek highway relocation will still be a matter of contention.

B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office ruled in late August that BC Hydro’s design for the new highway bridge at Cache Creek is out of compliance with its Site C environmental assessment certificate. The BCUC review highlighted the Cache Creek bridge and highway route as a potential source of additional cost overruns.

The EAO also ruled that BC Hydro must consult with First Nations on mitigation for a cultural area, sweat lodge and grave sites impacted by the proposed highway route. The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations have said that the desecration of gravesites is “not acceptable” in their culture and that the only feasible mitigation is to move the highway route.

The First Nations also stated that a rerouting of the highway would not alleviate their opposition to Site C, which they say is an unjustified infringement of their constitutionally protected rights under Treaty 8. If the project goes ahead, they say they provincial government will face a $1 billion lawsuit.

The landowners said they are circulating the Christmas-themed cards on social media because some of the debate about Site C has focused on the optics of construction workers receiving “pink slips” before Christmas.

“It’s not about having a job, it’s about having a home,” said Beam. “The valley is irreplacable.”

Yesterday BC Hydro released its Site C jobs figures for October, showing that 400 workers were dismissed after it published widely-circulated figures for September.

According to the Peace River Hydro Partnership, the main civil works contractor for the project, almost 100 workers were laid off in October and early November. The layoffs of 30 people in early November were “part of a series of planned scheduled lay-offs” over the winter, according to a statement the partnership emailed to DeSmog Canada.

BC Hydro has still not stated how many days or weeks a worker must be employed to be included in monthly jobs statistics, and whether or not dismissed workers are counted in Site C employment statistics in any given month.

The October jobs tally shows 1,974 people employed by Site C. About 475 are either “engineers” or on BC Hydro’s Site C project team. Contract engineers account for an additional 210 jobs.

Image: Ken Boon at his home in the Peace Valley. Photo: Garth Lenz | DeSmog Canada

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

BC Hydro plans to expropriate the home of Peace Valley farmers Ken and Arlene Boon before Christmas, following the couple’s refusal to sign over their top class farmland for the Site C dam, DeSmog Canada has learned.

The Boons said that the $8.8 billion dam could still be stopped and they are not budging from their third-generation family home, farmland, garden, greenhouse and workshop to make way for a Site C highway relocation until they are forced to leave.

“We’re at peace with the idea of going to expropriation,” Ken Boon said in an interview.

“Arlene and I agreed we didn’t want to sign anything over. It just goes against every bone in our bodies. They’ll have to take it from us.”

BC Hydro will seize the Boon’s farmhouse and 130 hectares of their land on or around December 16, according to the couple. They say they will be permitted to stay in their farmhouse as BC Hydro’s tenants until May 31, three weeks after the B.C. provincial election, and to farm their riverside fields for three more years even though BC Hydro will own the land.

“I don’t think they wanted to kick us out during the election campaign,” said Boon.

In return, the Boons reluctantly agreed to sign a legal document stating that they will not interfere with construction of the highway, which will go right through the farmhouse built by Arlene’s grandfather and also through the farmhouse of a neighbouring property.

Both homes are high enough that they would not be affected by flooding from the Site C reservoir, which will inundate 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, a distance almost the equivalent of driving from Victoria to Nanaimo.

“It just sticks in your craw to sign any sort of agreement with BC Hydro…[but] their schedule is to expropriate this land. That will happen no matter what we do,” said Boon, who is the president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association, representing 70 landowners who will be affected by Site C.

Ken and Arlene Boon’s farm. The Peace River can be seen in the distance. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

BC Hydro says it must acquire the Boon’s property, along with seven other properties in the Bear Flat/Cache Creek area, for the first segment of a six-phase, 30-kilometre Site C highway relocation that it previously reported will cost $530 million.

An alternate route, shortlisted by BC Hydro and requested by First Nations and Peace Valley landowners, was not selected because it would cost more and affect more agricultural land, according to an information sheet that BC Hydro spokesperson Dave Conway provided to DeSmog Canada.

No detailed information about the relative merits and costs of the two routes has been released by BC Hydro or the B.C. Transportation Ministry, despite requests by the Peace Valley Landowners Association and NDP Transportation Critic Claire Trevena.

The Boons made the difficult decision to face expropriation after they heard October 11 from the lawyer they share with the seven other Cache Creek landowners that BC Hydro required their properties to be signed over by October 31, two months earlier than the previous deadline BC Hydro had named.

Until March, the Cache Creek landowners believed they would be able to stay in their homes for at least several more years because the Peace River Valley, known for its rich farmland, wildlife, old-growth forests and numerous archeological and historic sites, is not slated to be flooded until 2024.

The new acquisition deadline was subsequently moved to November 4, then to noon on November 10, and finally set at 1 p.m. November 21, according to the Boons, leaving landowners scrambling under intense pressure to settle the terms for handing over their properties.

Boon said the couple did not want to give BC Hydro the opportunity to announce and post on social media that “all the landowners have signed agreements” when they are selling their houses and farmlands “under duress.” He said he understands why other Cache Creek landowners decided to sign over their properties to BC Hydro rather than risk the financial and personal consequences of going to expropriation.

“All landowners know that no matter which route they choose, they will lose their property.”

A second Cache Creek landowner, contacted by DeSmog, said they were unable to comment publicly on what they called a stressful decision “under duress” to sign over their farmland and could not be named publicly because they are still negotiating with BC Hydro on other matters.

Ken Boon on his Peace Valley farmland. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

Clara London, who is Arlene Boon’s sister and owns farmland adjacent to the Boons, said she and her husband declined to sign over seven hectares of land to BC Hydro and are also facing expropriation. “Our loss is actually pretty small compared to Ken and Arlene,” London said in an interview, adding that the process has been “very frustrating” and has placed a great deal of stress on her family.

“We don’t agree with the project in general.”

Earlier this year, BC Hydro spokesperson Dave Conway told DeSmog Canada that BC Hydro has the legal authority to expropriate land but prefers to “come to a negotiated settlement with people.” Conway also said that BC Hydro cannot discuss negotiations with individual landowners.

Notice of BC Hydro’s new timeline for property purchases arrived the same month that the Boon’s farm became the focus of the Yellow Stakes campaign, led by the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations to raise money for their on-going court cases against Site C. Almost 400 stakes have been pounded into the ground beside the Boon’s farmhouse, along the centerline for the planned highway re-alignment.

For the Boons, expropriation comes with greater financial and personal risks than signing over their land, says Ken Boon. “We do worry about getting hung out to dry. But at the end of the day there was no way we were going to sign it over to them.”

The Boons, along with four other Peace Valley residents, have the added stress of being named in a civil law suit filed last January by BC Hydro when they were among dozens of people involved in a winter camp at the Rocky Mountain Fort site, in an effort to prevent clearcutting of the protected old-growth forest surrounding the Class 1 B.C. heritage site.

The on-going suit, which accuses the Boons and others of conspiracy, intimidation, trespass and “intentional interference with economic relations by unlawful means” and which seeks damages for BC Hydro, has been called a matter of grave concern by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

The Boons said the agreement they signed with BC Hydro to allow them to stay in their home until the end of May means they can continue to voice their strong dissent to Site C, but it prohibits them from “interfering” with the project by blocking work on the highway or engaging in civil disobedience elsewhere.

BC Hydro Plans to Expropriate Farmers’ Home for #SiteC Before Christmas https://t.co/NrU6EB8vNa #bcpoli @StopSiteC @sarahcox_bc

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 7, 2016

The expropriation will strip the Boons of 130 hectares of land, leaving them with full ownership of 33 devalued hectares of land flanking the new highway and 25 hectares of land over which BC Hydro will place a statutory right of way, according to the couple. They say they will be left with only four hectares of farmland since most of their remaining land will consist of hillside native grassland and wildlife habitat. After May, the Boons plan to move to a cabin they own, only metres from the new highway route.

“We feel better right now that we’ve made the decision,” said Arlene Boon. “It’s going to be a roller-coaster, I know.”

In response to questions from DeSmog Canada about the Cache Creek property acquisitions and potential expropriations, Conway emailed a link to a BC Hydro information sheet. Conway said in another email that BC Hydro is unable to release a current cost estimate for the highway work because it has “not yet entered the procurement stage.”

BC Hydro informed the Boons and other landowners that it needed to acquire their properties by October 31 to avoid destroying songbird nests when trees are logged and vegetation removed for highway construction, a rationale that leaves the Boons incredulous.

“It’s not a valid excuse,” said Ken Boon, pointing out that the couple’s farmhouse is not in the way of trees nor in the Cache Creek valley bottom slated for clear-cutting.

Logging of active songbird nests is prohibited under the B.C. Wildlife Act and the international Convention on Migratory Birds that Canada has signed to protect songbird species, which are in sharp decline around the world.

Arlene Boon said she was taken aback to read news stories this past week saying that the B.C. government is trying to drive demand for electricity because of a surplus.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is again talking about shipping power from the Site C dam to Alberta, underscoring once more that Site C’s power is not needed in British Columbia.

“It just makes your blood boil. It reinforces what we’ve been saying all along,” said Arlene Boon. “They don’t have a need for this project and are still looking for someone to buy the power.”

“To lose low elevation bottomland farmland to electrify the oilsands does not seem very ethical. To think that we’re going to lose our home and land to that is very disturbing to us.”

Image: Arlene Boon picks from her fall harvest of swiss chard. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Peace Valley farmers and outspoken critics of the Site C dam Ken and Arlene Boon say BC Hydro intends to force them from their third-generation family farm by the end of this year even though the dam would not flood their land until 2024.

The Boons received the unexpected news from their lawyer, following a conversation the lawyer had with officials from BC Hydro’s Properties division.

“It was a shocker,” Ken Boon, says. “We didn’t know they wanted us out by Christmas.”

Boon says if they refuse to sell their farm to BC Hydro it will be expropriated for the “re-alignment” of Highway 29 away from the Site C flood zone, a two-year construction project that BC Hydro says must begin in 2017.  

For reasons that have never been explained to the Boons’ satisfaction, BC Hydro intends to route the new highway right through the couples’ farm buildings and home. The highway would also destroy a renovated log house where Arlene’s 81-year-old mother lives.

“Why are we discussing the highway relocation in year one of a nine year project?” asks Arlene Boon. “As a property owner you don’t have any rights. If BC Hydro or Highways want to expropriate you, they will.”

Arlene Boon stands on her property near a BC Hydro highway marker. The highway's centre line is expected to run directly between the Boon's house and the wood shed to its left. Photo: Sarah Cox

Arthur Hadland, a former Peace River Regional District director, says he believes BC Hydro wants the Boons off their land by the end of the year because Ken is the outspoken president of the Peace Valley Landowners Association. The association, which represents 70 landowners in the Peace River Valley, has a court case against Site C, one of four on-going legal challenges against the $8.8 billion dam.

“It’s divide and conquer. The landowners have been a pretty solid group. But just like any organization if you cut the head off you will lose the power. They just want to diminish the power of the landowners,” Hadland says.  

BC Hydro spokesperson Dave Conway says the Crown corporation cannot discuss its negotiations with individual landowners in the Peace River Valley. Conway confirms, however, that BC Hydro is having “conversations” with landowners along a stretch of the valley called Bear Flat/Cache Creek, where the Boons live.

BC Hydro is “moving up the valley” and Cache Creek is “one of the first areas affected by the highway re-alignment,” Conway says.

Asked if BC Hydro will expropriate the Boon’s farm and other nearby farms if owners refuse to sell, Conway says BC Hydro has the legal authority to expropriate land.

“But that’s not the way we like to work. We like to come to a negotiated settlement with people,” Conway said.  

Arlene Boon says there can never be agreement when landowners consider their property to be priceless for reasons other than monetary value.

“We are being forced off. When you are not a willing seller you’re being forced to put a price on something [that] is not for sale and in your mind would never be for sale.”

The Boons say it is curious that BC Hydro said nothing about an end-of-the-year deadline for acquiring land during a March 10 meeting the Crown corporation held with them and about a dozen other Bear Flat/Cache Creek landowners. The couple heard the news from their lawyer less than two weeks after that meeting. 

The meeting aimed to provide landowners with information about the Site C highway re-alignment, which will entail re-construction of 8.5 kilometres of the highway in six different sections and four new bridges across rivers that would be flooded by the dam’s reservoir. The reservoir would stretch for 107 kilometres along the Peace River and its tributaries, almost the same distance as driving from Victoria to Nanaimo.

Last year, 70 Peace Valley landowners affected by Site C asked BC Hydro for a common framework agreement for discussing land acquisition issues, a framework Ken Boon describes as  “a general guideline so that everybody would be treated more or less the same.”

“Hydro said no,” says Boon.

Following the surprise news from their lawyer that they may have to relinquish their farm by the end of this year, the Boons asked BC Hydro to send them written information about the timeline for highway relocation, a construction project that BC Hydro documents say will cost $530 million.

In response, BC Hydro sent the Boons and other landowners a two-page information bulletin in May. The bulletin, dated May 2016, says BC Hydro “is acquiring land in the Bear Flat/Cache Creek area in 2016 in preparation for the start of highway realignment work.” It says BC Hydro evaluated two highway alignment options: a corridor along the reservoir and an inland corridor.

Hydro says it chose the corridor along the reservoir because it would increase the length of passing opportunities for drivers, has fewer technical challenges, better geological conditions, affects a smaller area of private land, and has “less impact” on agricultural land.

But Colin Meek, one of the farmers who would lose a third-generation family farm to the highway re-alignment, points out that losing less agricultural land is of little value “when you get rid of the farmer.” Meek and his partner Leslee Jardine live in a house that would become the centre line of the new highway, according to surveying stakes recently put in the ground by BC Hydro contractors.

“They just keep the pressure on,” Meek says.

Colin Meek and Leslee Jardine stand in their hemp heart field. Photo: Sarah Cox

Meek and Jardine are awaiting organic certification of their Class 1 farmland, which is among the 6,500 hectares of farmland that will be destroyed by Site C, and an additional 6,000 hectares that may be lost. They grow commercial hemp for food (hemp hearts) and have a large market garden where they cultivate dozens of types of vegetables and herbs, including eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.

Meek says someone should assess the psychological impacts of Site C on Peace Valley residents, whom he says are suffering from trauma and stress as a result of the threat of losing their homes and farms and putting up with Hydro contractors drilling deep holes beside their houses and in their fields. “Try waking up in the middle of the night because you’re having a dream that a CAT is going through your bedroom.”

Based on advice from their lawyer, the Boons and other landowners affected by the highway re-routing recently signed access agreements with BC Hydro, allowing the Crown corporation to enter their land for geotechnical, wildlife and heritage studies in exchange for modest financial compensation. Ken Boon says they didn’t have a choice because Hydro has the legal right to access their land with or without their agreement.

In a letter to affected landowners, BC Hydro says different teams on their land will consist of up to eight people per team, and that equipment on their property could “include a drill rig or excavator, pump, compressor, and water tank. In addition to the drill, there may be one or two support vehicles.”

The letter also points to the haste with which work is being conducted. “To complete the work on your property as quickly as possible, it is anticipated that investigations would occur up to 10 to 12 hours a day, and up to 5 to 7 days a week, with flexibility to accommodate residents and businesses.”

.@bchydro says: Merry Christmas! Now you're homeless. https://t.co/w01DAqYo1R @Sarah_K_Cox @maryforbc @christyclarkbc #bcpoli #SiteC

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 16, 2016

The Boons were shocked to see a map of their land that has 73 drilling sites marked on it, including one right beside their farmhouse and others in their riverside fields that are so fertile that the overlying layers of topsoil — among the richest in B.C. — are 15 feet deep. The topsoil sits on gravel, which the Boons fear will be excavated to assist in highway construction.

In recent weeks, the Boons have had to deal with drilling rigs, water trucks, a spill in one of their planted fields, contractors whom Ken Boon says “should be required to take a course in Sensitivity 101,” and two security investigators parked in a truck at their end of their driveway without the Boon’s permission or knowledge.

The Boons say the investigators parked on their driveway were the same two men who compiled evidence against them and four other Peace Valley residents for BC Hydro’s on-going civil law suit against some of the people involved in a two-month winter camp at the historic Rocky Mountain Fort site.

As a result of the civil law suit initiated by BC Hydro, the Boons and others named in the suit live with the constant threat of having their assets seized — including their farmland and houses — should they interfere with Hydro’s efforts for highway relocation and other developments associated with the Site C project. The suit, which has some of the hallmarks of a Strategic Law Suit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP suit, is the first time B.C. legal experts are aware of a publicly-owned corporation taking such action. 

Image: Farmer Ken Boon on his land. Photo: Jayce Hawkins.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Nothing remains at the Rocky Mountain Fort site where Peace Valley farmers and First Nations camped for 60 days in the hopes of stopping clear-cut logging for the Site C dam. The camp was dismantled in March and the old-growth spruce and cottonwood forest was logged, as BC Hydro prepares to convert the Class 1 heritage site into a Site C waste rock dump.

But one notable thing still stands: the civil lawsuit BC Hydro filed in January against five campers and a supporter, a suit the B.C. Civil Liberties Association describes as a matter “of grave concern.”

The 13-page lawsuit accuses six Peace Valley residents of conspiracy, intimidation, trespass, creating a public and a private nuisance, and “intentional interference with economic relations by unlawful means.”

Most worrisome for the people named is that the suit seeks financial damages for BC Hydro that could result in the loss of their homes, life savings or other assets. Five of the six already stand to lose their houses, farms, land or traditional territory to the nearly $9 billion Peace River dam.

Josh Paterson, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), says the association is extremely concerned about the civil suit because it could put a chill on freedom of expression. It might cause others “to think twice before they talk about their political opinion.”

SLAPP style #SiteC suit by @BCHydro might stop others from expressing political opinion https://t.co/bO9dZGmsPc @SavePeaceValley #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 25, 2016

BCCLA’s unease is heightened because BC Hydro is a Crown corporation, says Paterson. “For a government agency to come down in that way is of grave concern. What it does is send a message, perhaps deliberately, that ‘you’d better be careful if you plan to oppose these kinds of developments’…BC Hydro as a public institution should be very cautious about making these kinds of claims for damages it would impose.”

The civil suit, according to University of Victoria law professor Chris Tollefson, bears some of the hallmarks of a SLAPP suit, a strategic lawsuit against public participation.

SLAPP suits can stifle freedom of speech and quash opposition to controversial projects like the Site C dam, which Premier Christy Clark has vowed to push “past the point of no return,” despite four on-going court cases against the dam by Treaty 8 First Nations and Peace Valley landowners.

A fifth on-going legal action, launched by the Blueberry River First Nations, claims treaty rights have been violated by the cumulative impacts of Site C and other industrial development in the Peace.

“If the end result is that they face financial or personal ruin, a key implication is that others won’t want to follow in their footsteps and take that risk,” says Tollefson. “Then free speech becomes a luxury that only those who have nothing, or those who are incredibly rich, can afford.”

Tollefson, an expert on SLAPP suits, says it is the first time he has ever heard of a Crown corporation seeking damages from an individual in B.C. “or anywhere else for that matter,” for lawfully and peacefully exercising their right to protest on a matter of public interest.

Those named in the suit include farmers Ken and Arlene Boon, Helen Knott, a social worker from the Prophet River First Nation, and Yvonne Tupper, a community health worker from the Saulteau First Nations.

Esther Pedersen, a Peace Valley farmer whose land was used to helicopter two survival shacks across the river for the campers and to collect food donated by community members, was also named. The suit includes “Jane Doe” and “John Doe,” leaving open the possibility for other Site C opponents to be singled out as well.

After BC Hydro filed the civil suit, it launched an injunction application to remove campers from the fur trade fort site on the Peace River’s south bank, near the confluence of the Moberly River. That area was deemed to be so ecologically and historically important that the B.C. government had made four designations to protect its heritage resources, wildlife and old-growth forests. The government even went so far as to set aside the land to become part of a future B.C. protected area.

But BC Hydro had obtained the necessary government permits to log the forest and convert the fort site area into a 216-hectare rock dump for potentially acid-generating waste rock from Site C construction. After the camp was ruled illegal by the courts, the people named in the suit said they were law-abiding citizens and promptly dismantled their encampment.

Ken Boon says he and his wife Arlene made a personal request to BC Hydro CEO Jessica McDonald to drop the civil suit when McDonald recently visited their farm.

Peace River Valley farmer Ken Boon at the Rocky Mountain site encampment. Photo: Sarah Cox.

Accompanied by a driver and an aide, McDonald spent two hours with the Boons. “We basically agreed to disagree,” says Boon of the visit, which he characterizes as cordial and personable. “We showed her around the farm.”

The Boons will lose productive fields to flooding and when riverbanks slough into the dam reservoir, a deep body of water that will stretch for 107 kilometres along the Peace River and its tributaries. The Boon’s home and farm buildings are slated to be destroyed, to make way for the $530 million re-location of Highway 97 away from the flood zone.

Boon says McDonald was willing to drop the suit, but only if the Boons were prepared “to sign a document basically stating we would not impede further work or stand in the way of the project.”

The Boons declined to sign. They believe it is their constitutional right to oppose Site C, which will flood at least 6,500 hectares of prime farmland and, in the words of a government-appointed panel that reviewed the project, have “significant adverse effects” on the environment and on lands and resources used by First Nations.

In late April, BC Hydro launched a second civil suit, this time against hunger striker Kristen Henry and three others camped outside the Crown corporation’s head office in Vancouver to protest the Site C dam project.

The Vancouver campers packed up 10 days later, saying they did not have the money or the inclination to fight BC Hydro in court. BC Hydro claimed “hundreds of thousands” of dollars from them in damages, the four campers stated in a press release.

BC Hydro said the camp had forced it to take expensive measures to step up security, including spending $30,000 for new door handles to which people cannot chain themselves, up to $60,000 a month to hire the company Xpera Risk Mitigation and Investigation to monitor the campers, and up to $35,000 a month to boost general security measures.

Even though that camp, too, is gone, the civil law suit stands, Dave Conway, BC Hydro’s Site C community relations manager, confirmed in an email. Conway said in a separate email that the crown corporation cannot comment on the civil suit against the six Rocky Mountain fort campers due to the fact that it is an “on-going court action.”

The majority of U.S. states, along with Ontario and Quebec, have anti-SLAPP suit legislation. In 2001, the NDP government in B.C. passed similar legislation, called the Protection of Public Participation Act. Six months later, that legislation was repealed by the newly-elected B.C. Liberal government.

Such legislation, says Tollefson, aims to expedite justice and provide the courts with tools to dismiss SLAPP suits early on “so a very deep-pocketed corporation doesn’t get to drag it out and benefit from simply being better endowed.”

Image: Ken Boon on his farmland in the Peace Valley. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On the banks of the Peace River on Saturday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told hundreds of opponents to the Site C dam that he will be handcuffed if necessary to stop BC Hydro’s mega project from moving ahead. 

“From this point forward we have to really focus our efforts on how we’re going to physically stop this project from happening,” Phillip said during a speech at the 10th annual Paddle for the Peace. “The provincial cabinet recently approved permits to allow construction to begin. That’s where the rubber is going to hit the road.”

An emotional Phillip said B.C. is on the eve of an uprising after the government has repeatedly dealt in “bad faith” with First Nations.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip has vowed to be arrested to stop the Site C Dam.

“If push comes to shove, I for one — being a grandfather of 14 grandchildren who I absolutely adore — I am more than willing to be arrested as long as that will contribute to stopping this project,” he said.

“I know when that moment comes I will not be alone.”

The Last Paddle for the Peace?

About 300 boats took to the water Saturday in what could be the last Paddle for the Peace — held on a stretch of the Peace River that will be flooded if the $8.8 billion Site C dam is built.

Construction is due to start on the dam any day now despite a pending Treaty 8 legal challenge, due to be heard by the federal Supreme Court on July 20.

“This is a watershed moment in the province of British Columbia and in this country,” Phillip said. “We simply can not — we can not allow this to happen.”

Beth Steiner, 8, helps bag lettuce at her parents market garden stand in the Peace Valley. The land the Steiners grow everything from corn to watermelons on will be flooded if the Site C dam is built.

Calls for a moratorium on construction on Site C have gained strength recently with the Greater Vancouver Regional District board, representing 23 local governments and 2.5 million people, voting to ask Premier Christy Clark for a two-year moratorium on construction.

The Peace River Regional District — which includes Fort St. John, the city that would see the most economic activity from the dam — voted on Thursday to write a letter to Clark to request that all construction on Site C be stopped until active court cases regarding the project have been completed.

The B.C. government has been criticized for pushing ahead with the project while ignoring repeated calls for an independent review of costs and demand — a recommendation made by the government’s own panel.

David Suzuki: ‘We Fundamentally Failed’

Famed environmentalist David Suzuki changed his schedule to join the paddle on Saturday (and helped rescue some capsized canoeists while he was at it) because the fight for the Peace Valley is near and dear to his heart. During a keynote speech, he told the crowd about his involvement with stopping the Site C dam for the first time in 1981.

“Thirty-five years later, guess what? We’re fighting exactly the same battles all over again,” Suzuki told the crowd. “What we thought were victories were not victories at all, because we fundamentally failed. We failed to shift the way we see our place on the planet.”

Ranchers Dick and Renee Ardill know the drain of the 34-year fight against the dam all too well. When the dam was first defeated, Dick was a spry 54-year-old. Now he’s 88 and grasps his truck for balance as he walks.

Dick Ardill has spent his 88 years ranching in the Peace Valley. His parents homesteaded the land in 1910.

His daughter Renee is sick of telling their story.

“I’m tired of the whole thing,” she told DeSmog Canada during a break from baling hay. “I’m tired of the stupidity of it.”

“You have to just keep going on and doing your job and, if we lose and they build the thing, we’ll worry about that when the time comes. In the meantime, I’m hoping that someone comes to their senses.”

While the recent rejection of the Peace Valley Landowners Association legal challenge was disappointing, it’s not the end of the world, Renee says.

“The battle goes on.”

Injunctions Will Be Filed to Stop Site C Dam Construction

“This is the tenth year we’ve done this and if BC Hydro and B.C. have their way we won’t be doing it any more,” said Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation, before canoes were put in the water.

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson.

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, Willson said he’s holding out for the courts to make the right decision.

“The dam is a direct infringement of our treaty rights,” he said.

Willson said injunctions will be filed to stop any construction that will cause “irreparable harm.”

Farmer Ken Boon, who hosts the Paddle for the Peace on his land, says the early construction plans look like a soft start.

“I’m still confident this dam will not be built,” Boon said. “All we’ve got to do is win one court case.”

Ken Boon is confident the Site C dam will not be built.

Boon’s land will be flooded if the dam is built, but he has yet to be approached by BC Hydro about moving.

“I’m pretty sure they’re expecting a lot of these to go to expropriation if things carry on,” he said.

As it stands, Boon and his wife Arlene still aren’t thinking about moving.

‘We’re Being Mowed Over’

Shawna-Marie Phillips is less optimistic. If construction moves forward, a 3,000-man camp will be located one kilometre from her organic farm and ranch.

Sometimes it feels like she’s yelling into the void and nobody’s listening, she said.

Given that the Site C dam is the most expensive public project in B.C. history, yet only one reporter from a major news outlet attended Saturday’s event, Phillips could be forgiven for feeling out of sight and out of mind.

“I feel like we’re being mowed over,” she said.  “I get a feeling that this is the last time.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The moment I caught wind that the B.C. government’s decision on the Site C dam was coming down, my mind gravitated to Ken and Arlene Boon’s farm in the Peace River valley.

It was there that under the hot July sun, the Boons showed me around their 640-acre property that’s hosted five generations of their family.

If the Site C dam is built, as the B.C. government announced Tuesday it will be, much of the Boon’s farm will be underwater as part of the 55 square kilometres of river valley that will be flooded.

“It’s impossible to replace when you have this kind of history,” Arlene said. “I don’t want to be a millionaire. I just want to be happy on this land.”

You wouldn’t think dozens of farmers and ranchers are going to lose their livelihoods based on the tone of Tuesday’s press conference. The event to announce the go-ahead for the most expensive project in B.C. history was a BC Hydro love-in, full of pats on the back for the leaders of the project.

“This is a decision that is going to make a real difference for 100 years,” Premier Christy Clark said.

Jessica McDonald, BC Hydro CEO, chimed in with: “This is a day of exciting new beginnings for BC Hydro.”

“You don’t get to a day like today without literally hundreds of dedicated people working toward how to engineer something like this,” Bill Bennett, Minister of Energy and Mines, added.

Four questions were asked by the press, then there was a jubliant photo op and everyone moved along.

Meanwhile, people like the Boons watched from their computer screens in the Peace Valley.

“It’s sad, eh?” Ken said. “I watched Christy giving her talk there and I’m just struck by the way it’s like she hasn’t been listening to all these groups that have all stepped up.”

Those groups include not just local landowners and First Nations, but Clean Energy BC and the Canadian Geothermal Association, who’ve proposed alternatives they say would be cheaper and less environmentally damaging than building a third mega dam on the Peace River.

The total price tag for the Site C dam jumped from $7.9 billion to $8.775 billion in the past week. The premier said construction will start in the summer of 2015 and the project will be completed in 2024.

“All economic development projects have impacts of some kind,” Clark said. “First Nations are going to be impacted. Communities are going to be impacted. We need to be conscious of that and we need to do everything we can to mitigate it.”

But before mitigation begins, the project will have to navigate six different lawsuits from the Peace Valley Landowners’ Association and First Nations.

“It’s pretty clean cut now,” Ken said. “We know what our battle is. It’s far from a done deal. We’re having a meeting tonight with our lawyer.”

The landowners’ provincial challenge is scheduled to go to court on April 20.

The decision to proceed with the Site C dam ignores the recommendations of the Joint Review Panel, which said it couldn’t verify the cost estimates for the project or the long-term energy demand forecasts and recommended that the independent B.C. Utilities Commission should assess these factors.

“Approving Site C is the worst financial decision the province has ever made. It will leave us with a legacy of debt and destruction,” said Andrea Morison of the Peace Valley Environment Association.

Wendy Francis, the acting president of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, called the decision to move ahead with the project “foolish.”

“Dams elsewhere are being dismantled because of their devastating environmental and social impacts,” Francis said. “The pace of industrial development in B.C.’s Peace region exceeds the pace of development in Alberta’s oilsands. We urge the B.C. government to conduct an immediate cumulative impacts assessment for the Peace region, as recommended by the Joint Review Panel.”

Back in the Peace Valley, instead of contemplating having to leave his farm, Ken is focused on fundraising for the landowners’ legal action. So far the group has raised $55,000 toward a $200,000 goal via an online crowdfunding campaign.

“This is kind of like David vs. Goliath,” he said. “But we all know how that story ended. I can’t wait to see this project fail.”

Read more: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Plight of the Peace Valley and the Site C Dam

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In 1920, Renee Ardill’s grandparents arrived in the Peace Valley with nothing more than a milk cow, saddle horse and team and wagon. They chose a piece of land on the banks of the Peace River, built a cabin, hunted moose and grew what they could.

“They built everything from the ground up,” Ardill told DeSmog Canada. “Imagine being able to pick your piece of land and make what you wanted out of it.”

The Ardill family has been here ever since, running a cattle ranch on the banks of the Peace. But their days could be numbered if BC Hydro’s Site C hydroelectric dam gets the go-ahead this fall from the provincial and federal governments.

[view:in_this_series=block_1]

The panel tasked with reviewing the project found BC Hydro failed to prove that the energy from Site C would be needed within the timeframe set out in the proposal. The panel’s report, released in May, also found that there are cost-effective alternatives to building a new dam, but the province has failed to adequately investigate options such as geothermal.

If built, the dam will flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries — impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land, including flooding 3,800 hectares of farmland in the Agricultural Land Reserve, an area nearly twice the size of the city of Victoria.

That flooding would put the Ardill’s ranch underwater. Thirty-three other farm operations would also be affected by the project, according to the panel’s report.

“This is the best piece of land in the world. My grandpa picked a good spot. And I’m damned if I’m gonna give it up,” Ardill says. “Everybody now lives in the artificial world. People go to the grocery store and get their vegetables and they come wrapped in plastic. That’s not how it is. It comes from somewhere.”

Loss of Farmland in Peace Valley ‘Almost Tragic’: Agriculture Expert

Agriculture experts say the Peace Valley is home to some of the best land in the province, with the ability to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for a million people, according to agriculture expert Wendy Holm.

“It’s not about what’s economic today,” Holm told DeSmog Canada. “This is land that forms part of the commons. This is part of the natural capital of our country.”

Yet, the joint review panel’s report (PDF) found that loss of agricultural land would not be significant in the context of B.C. or western Canadian agricultural production, while acknowledging “this loss would be highly significant to the farmers who would bear the loss, and that financial compensation would not make up for the loss of a highly valued place and way of life.”

Eveline Wolterson, a soil scientist who gave expert testimony during the review process, says the panel missed the point in its analysis by looking at the current use of land (largely forage production) instead of the potential of the land.

“The reality is that the reason that land is in forage production is because most of it is owned by BC Hydro or it’s in the flood reserve, which means that at any time BC Hydro could expropriate those lands,” Wolterson told DeSmog Canada. “That has discounted the value of that land, as well as discounted the amount of money landowners are willing to invest in a piece of property.”

Wolterson points to the Okanagan Valley’s now booming wine industry as an example of how the panel has failed to think of the future.

“In mid 1970s, the likelihood of agricultural use of those [Okanagan] lands would likely have been low. But because we saved those lands and left them, the use of those lands is extremely high right now,” she says.

The productivity of the agricultural land in the Peace River Valley is unique not only in the region, but in British Columbia and Western Canada, Wolterson said.

Take potatoes, a main production commodity in the Lower Mainland, for example. In the Lower Mainland, yields are about 10 tonnes per hectare. In the Peace Valley, yields are 30 per cent more at 13 tonnes per hectare due to more daylight and ideal conditions in the east-west valley, Wolterson says.

“The area that they are proposing to flood is approximately equivalent to the agricultural land base in Delta, so it’d be like flooding all that land, taking it right out of production,” she says. “It’s almost tragic.”

The David Suzuki Foundation recently released a report looking at the economic benefits of keeping the Peace River region’s remaining farmland and nature intact beyond the market value of agriculture in the region.

The Peace Dividend found that the ecosystem services (such as providing clean air, clean water, carbon storage and habitat for wildlife) provided by farmland and nature in the Peace River Watershed are conservatively worth an estimated $7.9 billion to $8.6 billion a year.

Cantaloupes, Corn Grow in Peace Valley’s Unique Microclimate

Ken and Arlene Boon, owners of Bear Flats Farm and log home builders, know the value of the valley all too well. They regularly see mule deer, moose, elk, wolves and black and grizzly bears on their land.

The Boons host the annual Paddle for the Peace on their farm, where they can grow everything from corn to cantaloupes due to the unique microclimate in the valley. If the dam is built, they will lose their best farmland and their home.

In their submission to the panel, the Boons wrote: “As we write this submission, we feel like a prisoner trying to save his life by writing a statement that will hopefully save him from the death penalty.”

Ken Boon is fighting to save his farm from being flooded by the Site C dam. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

Standing in their garden eating fresh peas, they talk about the five generations of their family who’ve lived on this land.

The 1,100-megawatt Site C dam has been on the books for 30 years and was turned down by the B.C. Utilities Commission in the 1980s. This time around, the B.C. government has exempted the project from a utilities’ commission review, despite calls from local politicians and the joint review panel itself to have the project reviewed by the independent regulator.

“Life has to go on for us, because grandpa was told in the ’70s that he was going to have to move because they were going to build it,” Arlene says. “He passed away without seeing the project happen. I’m sure that our grandkids will be having the same discussion.”

Five generations of Arlene Boon’s family have enjoyed Bear Flats Farm. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

But she hopes her grandchildren won’t have to fight this fight again.

“Our push this time is to try kill it once and for all,” Arlene says.

Solar panels on the Boons property feed energy back to the electricity grid.

“You can generate electricity many ways, but you can only grow food one way,” Ken says. “What we can’t afford to do is to be flooding farmland any more.”

Ken Boon showcases his solar panels, which feed electricity back to the B.C. grid. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

The original Bear Flats Schoolhouse is on the Boons’ land, along with the Bear Flats Museum, which houses 5,000-year-old arrowheads and family heirlooms.

“It’s impossible to replace when you have this kind of history,” Arlene says. “I don’t want to be a millionaire. I just want to be happy on this land.”

For Esther and Poul Pedersen, it’s a similar story. Their 65 hectare (160-acre) property is right above where the Site C dam would be built and is within the zone that could slough into the reservoir.

Located just five minutes outside of Fort St. John, it’s the perfect place to raise horses and give riding lessons.

“It’s really hard to replace,” Esther says. “We feel that the valley is precious.”

To mitigate the lost value of agricultural economic activity, BC Hydro proposed a $20 million agricultural compensation program to support projects in the region, in addition to farm mitigation plans for directly affected agricultural operations.

But as Esther looks out over the Peace River Valley, she — like so many others — says what her family has is irreplaceable.

Esther Pedersen walks to a lookout on her land above the proposed site of the Site C dam. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

If you read its report closely, it appears the joint review panel did — at least on some level — grasp that sentiment. In coming to its conclusion that the earning potential of the Peace River Valley would appear to be highest as a reservoir, the panel notes it was unable to take into account “heartbreak (for residents who would be displaced from the land of their dreams).”

Question is: how do you put a price on heartbreak?

Back on the Ardill ranch, Renee just put $30,000 into fixing up an old barn.

“I think you have to go forward or give up. You can’t just sit there,” she says. “You have to act like you’re going to keep going or you give up. And I’m not very good at giving up.”

Renee and Dick Ardill at their ranch on the banks of the Peace River. Photo: Don Hoffmann

Ardill’s story is showcased on the StopSiteC website, which aims to gather petition signatures from citizens across the province. She wishes more British Columbians could see her part of the province.

“When you look at it on a map, it doesn’t look like all that big deal. But when you actually stand on the ground and look at it, it is a big deal,” she says.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.