BC Hydro violated its environmental assessment certificate for the Site C dam project, according to a B.C. government report released Thursday.

The inspection report, from the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office, detailed how BC Hydro failed to develop acceptable mitigation measures for an aboriginal sweat lodge and suspected burial site, and cannot legally proceed with a bridge related to Site C highway relocation until it does so.

This means BC Hydro’s controversial highway re-location will need to be assessed again by the Environmental Assessment Office and an alternate route long supported by the First Nations may be considered after all.

“BC Hydro has not developed mitigation for known cultural values in the Bear Flats area, including the sweat lodge (and nearby camp) and the potential burial site…” noted the report, which points out that BC Hydro is well aware of the cultural importance of the area for local First Nations.

BC Hydro has been warned of non-compliance with regards to the 455-metre bridge BC Hydro planned as part of the highway relocation in an area of the valley called Cache Creek-Bear Flats, according to the 54-page report issued following a five-month investigation.

ICYMI: First Nations Chiefs Say Site C Highway Route Will Desecrate Graves, BC Hydro Disagrees

“As BC Hydro has been advised that the [Cultural Resources Management Plan] is not ‘to the satisfaction of’ the EAO and that it must be updated prior to conducting construction activities that may impact known cultural resources, it may be a non-compliance if BC Hydro were to proceed to conduct construction activities that may impact known cultural resources,” the report reads.

West Moberly First Nations Chief Roland Willson welcomed the findings, saying that BC Hydro has been “out of line” with his nation and the Prophet River First Nation. They jointly filed a complaint with the EAO in early April.

“A Crown Corporation should be setting the bar on how other [resource project] proponents have to deal with First Nations,” Willson said.

“They’re supposed to be setting the benchmark on this thing. What they’re doing is lowering the benchmark.”

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson. Photo: Jayce Hawkins | DeSmog Canada

Willson said the two First Nations repeatedly asked BC Hydro and the former B.C. government to use a short-listed alternate route for the Site C highway relocation and Cache Creek bridge to avoid “desecrating” aboriginal grave sites and to protect the sweat lodge and traditional gathering place at the confluence of Cache Creek and the Peace River.

ICYMI: ‘Stop the Losses’: Former BC Hydro CEO Calls for Cancellation of Site C Dam

But BC Hydro contractors clear-cut much of the Cache Creek area in February and March, after expropriating property from third generation Peace Valley farmers Ken and Arlene Boon, leaving the land looking like a “moonscape,” according to Willson.

Willson said he was at a meeting in Vancouver in March with BC Hydro representatives to discuss the issue of the Site C highway relocation when the forest near the sweat lodge and grave site was mulched.

“They were cutting the right of way as we were down there trying to solve the issue,” Willson said. “Sneaking small pox into blankets and handing them to us, it’s the same damn thing as how they’ve been treating us.”

“They just ignore us, belittle us, disregard anything we have to say.”

A lawyer for the First Nations said about 200 letters have been sent to the Environmental Assessment Office and BC Hydro by the First Nations on this issue alone.

At the time of publication BC Hydro media relations spokesperson Mora Scott had not replied to a request for comment.

Last year, BC Hydro apologized for the devastating impacts that the W.A.C. Bennett dam had on First Nations, who lost villages, food sources, burial grounds, spiritual areas, gathering places and transportation routes when the dam’s reservoir flooded their traditional territory.

According to BC Hydro documents, the $8.8 billion Site C dam would destroy 42 sites of cultural and spiritual significance for First Nations, including burial grounds, medicine collection areas, offering places for ceremonies and prayers, and locations associated with oral histories and place names.

Willson said one aboriginal burial site beside the chosen highway route was already known by First Nations and recorded by the B.C. government’s archeology branch, but another site along the new highway’s centre line was only discovered last year.

Logging and construction along the Peace River in September 2016. Photo: Garth Lenz | DeSmog Canada

First Nations brought in an archeologist who confirmed the site had all the hallmarks of a Dunne-Za grave — a depression in the ground, high on a hill, at the confluence of two rivers “where bodies are usually laid to rest, so that they have a view.”

Dunne-Za custom does not permit the disturbance of graves, and the First Nations have said the only acceptable mitigation is to move the highway to the short-listed route.

The EAO report casts new doubt on former premier Christy Clark’s claim in June that even a slight delay in re-routing the provincial highway out of the Site C flood zone and building a new highway bridge over Cache Creek — a delay requested by John Horgan shortly before he became premier — would tack on an extra $600 million to Site C’s $8.8 billion price tag.

In fact, BC Hydro is in danger of non-compliance until it makes changes to its Heritage Management Resource Plan and Cultural Management Resource Plan to ensure mitigation measures for the sweatlodge and gravesite are developed prior to construction. The plans are are “not to the satisfaction of the EAO,” said the report.

.@BCHydro Violated Rules for Protecting #Indigenous Sites, Must Re-Evaluate #SiteC Bridge Construction https://t.co/XDg7lwPWWq #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 31, 2017

The report said BC Hydro must either adopt First Nations’ recommendations for avoiding harm to the sweat lodge and suspected gravesite — moving the highway to the short-listed route to avoid the area entirely — or develop new mitigation measures that meet the requirements of the EA certificate.

Any new mitigation measures must include “a detailed explanation with supporting analysis regarding why the mitigation proposed by the complainants is not necessary, is impractical, or is otherwise unreasonable,” said the EAO.

BC Hydro’s choice of highway route, according to the First Nations, would create disturbances that include “noise from truck traffic, safety (having a highway within the area where ceremony participants, including children, walk between rounds, etc.) as well as the destruction of the camp site itself, which with [the] feast house is tied to the enjoyment of the sweat and related cultural practices.”

The report determined that the general highway realignment route is consistent with the Site C environmental assessment certificate. But the bridge over Cache Creek is not, and BC Hydro must apply for an amendment to its environmental assessment certificate because it has changed the location and length of the bridge from the design originally approved, according to the EAO report.

BC Hydro has said its preferred highway route at Cache Creek was cheaper than the short-listed alternative, would affect less agricultural land and would allow for more passing opportunities for drivers.

Yet the Crown Corporation refused to release detailed information — called a Multiple Accounts Evaluation — about the relative costs and merits of the two routes, despite repeated requests from the First Nations and the Peace Valley Landowners Association, representing 70 landowners affected by Site C.

“They have a very viable option that is a win-win-win for everybody that they just refuse to acknowledge,” said Willson.

Cache Creek is one of six bridges in the Peace River Valley that will have to be rebuilt as part of a six-section, 30-kilometre highway relocation for Site C that BC Hydro documents said would cost approximately $530 million.

The area around Bear Flats-Cache Creek has “profound significance as Treaty 8 people have gathered, camped, hunted and practiced ceremony here since time immemorial,” according to a 2013 BC Hydro report that quotes NENAN, the Nenan Dane-zaa Deh Zana Child and Family Services Society, which holds annual youth and elders gatherings at Bear Flats.

Former BC Hydro CEO Jessica McDonald, who was fired last month by the new B.C. government, said in April that BC Hydro was  “absolutely committed to meeting the terms and conditions of it environmental assessment certificate.”

“A successful project from my perspective…is environmentally sound and meets the standards that we are held to,” McDonald said in an interview with Stuart McNish for the broadcast Conversations That Matter, a partner program with the Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University.

EAO Administrative Inspection Report Regarding Site C Hwy 29 Alignment_30Aug2017 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

— With files from Sarah Cox

Photo: Bear Flats by Garth Lenz

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A “landmark” wetland and birding hotspot in the Peace River Valley is slated to be destroyed by the Site C dam, after the B.C. government preserved it as a model conservation project.

The area around Watson Slough, which provides habitat for two dozen bird, plant and amphibian species vulnerable to extinction, is scheduled for imminent logging by BC Hydro contractors in preparation for flooding the area for Site C. Preparations are being made for logging crews and security had arrived at Bear Flat near Watson Slough Wednesday morning in prepration for clear-cutting the Bear Flat/Cache Creek area.

Peace region residents say logging the area around the slough this winter will prematurely rob them of a favourite outdoor spot, as treasured locally as Vancouver’s Stanley Park or Beacon Hill Park in Victoria.

“It’s discouraging,” Karen Goodings, a Peace River Regional District director, said in an interview. “Watson Slough is one of the landmarks of this area and I really believe it is irreplaceable.”

News of BC Hydro’s logging plans for the Watson Slough area came as communities across the globe celebrated World Wetlands Day and Australian scientists embarked on a experiment using tea bags to measure the considerable amount of carbon stored in wetlands worldwide.

The B.C. government itself calls wetlands “one of the most important life support systems on earth” and notes there is growing concern over the escalating rate of wetland losses in the province.

BC Hydro says it will compensate for the loss of about 800 hectares of wetlands to Site C  — an area the size of two Stanley Parks — by enhancing existing wetlands and even making new ones.

But scientists say it’s just not possible to recreate a natural wetland like Watson Slough.

The slough took thousands of years to form and is actually a 20-hectare complex of different types of wetlands, including a marl fen, one of the rarest wetlands in North America, noted for rich plant diversity that often includes rare orchids, gentians and carnivorous plants.

“They’re going to be hard pressed to try to recreate that natural system in a different location,” Dawson Creek biologist and forester Mark Phinney said in an interview. “I would agree that it’s irreplaceable.”

“It’s going to look like a black eye if all of the forest is cleared.”

A weathered sign indicates the Watson Slough Wetland Conservation Project area. Photo: Garth Lenz

Even if BC Hydro agrees to a request from the regional district to postpone logging around the slough, the area will be under water when more than 100 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries are flooded to create the Site C reservoir.

The slough draws birders from across the continent, hoping to glimpse rare species that have been documented in what the regional district calls a “wetland of incredible biodiversity.”

Phinney said the slough provides habitat for some of B.C.’s rarest breeding bird species and a dozen species vulnerable to extinction, including the endangered Yellow Rail, a secretive wading bird that calls in the middle of the night, and the Nelson’s Sparrow, an endangered marsh-loving sparrow with an orange face.

The horned grebe, a waterbird known for its impressive courtship displays and tufted facial feathers that it can raise and lower like human eyelids, has also been sighted at Watson Slough in recent years. The grebe was listed as a species of special concern under Canada’s Species at Risk Act just last year.

Watson Slough provides habitat for the western toad, a species so vulnerable to extinction that the B.C. government recently spent $200,000 building a highway tunnel for the toads in the West Kootenay region. The only true toad species in B.C., the western toad is in decline around the province, largely due to habitat destruction.

BC Hydro has said it will capture western toads in the Site C flood zone and move them to other wetlands, but the Crown corporation declined to answer questions about the rescue operation and its cost.

As a condition for receiving an environmental assessment certificate for the $8.8 billion dam, BC Hydro was required to develop a mitigation and compensation plan for wetlands lost to Site C, including rare and ancient tufa seeps.

Cascading pools in a Peace River tufa seep are slated for destruction to make way for the Site C dam and its reservoir. Photo: Garth Lenz

But the strategy, included in a 600-page mitigation and monitoring plan for vegetation and wildlife BC Hydro released in 2015, leaves the Peace River Regional District with many unanswered questions about the fate of Watson Slough.

BC Hydro’s document doesn’t offer a specific mitigation plan for the slough, which prompted the district to ask the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office to investigate.

Goodings said she hopes far more will be required of BC Hydro when it comes to the slough, named after a pioneering family in the Peace.

As part of BC Hydro’s commitment to mitigate and compensate for the loss of wetlands to Site C, it gave Ducks Unlimited a $275,000 contract for “consulting support.”

Ducks Unlimited spokesperson Darryl Kroeker said the preference is for compensatory wetlands to be located as close to the Site C dam and Peace River as possible, but Ducks Unlimited has looked at “pretty much the entire province” for areas that will work as mitigation sites.

One option for a wetland, according to BC Hydro, will be on a new island not far from Watson Slough that will poke up from Site C’s reservoir.

Each wetland is unique and “it is pretty much impossible” to replace Watson Slough, according to Kroeker, a research biologist who is the head of conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited Canada, a nonprofit association dedicated to restoring and conserving wetlands for waterfowl and other wildlife.

Kroeker said he is not perturbed by the loss of the slough and understands why BC Hydro needs to log around it this winter to keep Site C on track.  “It’s a scheduling issue. It’s got to happen sometime. I don’t think people are ever going to be happy whenever it happens.”

While Kroeker described the short-term visual impact of logging on Watson Slough as “large,” he said amphibians and water birds will inhabit the slough after the logging even though “it will look a little different for them.”

“It’s not all over for the slough once it’s logged…I don’t know what the extent of the logging is but the beaver dams will still be there. The water will continue to be there.”

Logging Crew Mobilizes Near ‘Irreplaceable’ Wetland, Slated for #SiteC Flooding https://t.co/BlAXktTgpH #bcpoli #cdnpoli #bcelxn17 pic.twitter.com/PFRm1GmWLb

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 10, 2017

In fact, said Kroeker, Watson Slough will continue to function “at some capacity” even when it is at the bottom of the Site C reservoir. “Even when it’s fully inundated, it will function not necessarily as wetland habitat but as habitat for fish that will occupy the reservoir.”

Phinney said BC Hydro’s plan to leave a 15-metre buffer zone around the slough will do almost nothing to protect habitat for about 20 bird species that nest in trees around the sprawling wetland, including the western tanager, least flycatcher and yellow warbler.

“There are plenty of species, forest birds for example, that just won’t be there anymore. They’ll come back and their habitat will be gone.”

“There’s no need to start clearing that now,” said Phinney. “Why rush it? Every year you can give them is a bit of a help to the populations.”

Kroeker said Ducks Unlimited, which BC Hydro funds to work on a number of wetland projects, has spent $60,000 to restore Watson Slough since it signed an agreement with BC Hydro almost 20 years ago, after the Crown corporation purchased land around the slough in anticipation of building Site C.

The Peace River Regional District gave $28,000 to Ducks Unlimited for educational programs at the slough that Kroeker said were attended by thousands of local school children.

B.C.’s environment ministry and the federal government are also listed as partners in the Watson Slough Wetland Conservation Project, which is promoted as a tourist destination.

BC Hydro told the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C for the federal and provincial governments that the project’s effects on wetlands would not be significant.

But the panel disagreed, saying that “wetlands are hard to recreate and…restoration is uncertain.” It concluded that Site C would have a significant adverse effect on wetlands, especially on valley bottom wetlands like Watson Slough.

BC Hydro said it is considering the regional district’s request to hold off logging around the slough until the Site C reservoir is filled.

The district also asked BC Hydro to spare much of the Bear Flat area from logging, clearly visible from a highway frequented by valley residents and tourists, for at least one more year.

Image: Watson Slough. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

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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.