Are you curious to know the results of our Freedom of Information request for an updated budget and timeline for the $8.8 billion Site C dam project on B.C.’s Peace River?

So are we.

We were told by former energy minister Bill Bennett’s office that we would have the information on May 30, three weeks after the provincial election and nine months after we filed our request.

But then we received an e-mail from the ministry on May 24, advising us that the deadline had been extended by 45 business days. It had become apparent upon reviewing 880 pages of relevant records, said the e-mail from a government FOI specialist, “that an external consultation is required with BC Hydro.”

“This consult is essential and necessary to ensure that you receive as many records as possible, as they have authored a significant portion of the records,” stated the email. “It is therefore imperative to obtain their input to enable the disclosure of potentially harmful information.”

Now that got our attention.

The note from the energy ministry said there must also be a mandatory consultation with the Office of the Premier, as “the records touch on potentially sensitive information that may reveal Cabinet deliberations and confidences.”

That got our attention too.

But we’ll have to wait for the new deadline of August 2 — almost a year after our Freedom of Information (FOI) request was filed — to sate our curiousity, a delay that Vincent Gogolek, executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, calls “disturbing.”

“This sounds like a public body that does not want this information to come out and they are prepared to do whatever it takes to delay this,” Gogolek told DeSmog Canada. Even worse, Gogolek said, it appears that the government has purposefully “frustrated a request and there is no sanction on them.”

“They have a duty to assist,” said Gogolek. “If you have a situation where a public body is actually getting in the way of the release of information…[and] they are actually throwing up roadblocks…there should be a penalty for that.”

Year-Long Wait for Site C Dam Budget Docs ‘Disturbing’: Expert https://t.co/EoGUemBdDD #SiteC #bcpoli #cdnfoi pic.twitter.com/WEQvAKywH9

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 24, 2017

DeSmog Canada asked in the FOI for all e-mails, attachments and documents exchanged between the ministry and BC Hydro regarding Site C and project planning, including Site C’s most recent budget and timeline.

We also asked for all e-mails and documents exchanged between the ministry and BC Hydro regarding Site C’s job creation figures.

Former premier Christy Clark promised 10,000 construction jobs when Site C was green-lighted in December 2014.

Since then, both Clark and BC Hydro have seized every opportunity to broadcast the number of jobs created by Site C. You could be forgiven for thinking that Site C’s primary purpose was to generate jobs instead of electricity.

But here’s the thing. Of the 2,200 Site C jobs that Clark repeatedly brandished during the election campaign as a compelling reason to push Site C “past the point of no return,” 400 of those positions were filled by consultants and BC Hydro employees. And some of the remaining 1,800 jobs were not construction jobs, according to BC Hydro’s own April Site C jobs tally that was used by Clark.

Even more to the point, the government has never told B.C. voters and hydro customers what, exactly, constitutes a Site C job.

If someone is flown in to work on the project for two shifts does that count as a job? If local First Nations members are given staggered short-term contracts to accompany contractors in the field, does each short-term contract count as one job and one aboriginal person employed — even if it’s the same person over again?

And if a Site C worker is let go right before their probation period ends, and someone else is hired to replace them, does that count as one job or two?

We’re hoping the FOI response will provide answers to these questions and another very important one. With costs having skyrocketed far over budget at Canada’s other two major hydro dam projects currently under construction, where exactly do we sit on expenditures to date for the Site C $8.8 billion project — the most expensive publicly funded project in B.C.’s history?

On a more promising front, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. has confirmed that, even though it was unusual for the B.C. government to change the file number and date on our FOI request (the date was changed from August 2016 to March 2017), it will not affect the final due date of August 2.

That date was established after we appealed three times to the office (also known as the OIPC) for assistance. The clock stops on a FOI file while the OIPC investigates a complaint, and there’s a long line-up at the busy office these days.

It took six months after we filed a complaint for OPIC investigators to determine that the government could not charge us $840 for delivering our FOI. That sum was reduced from the original $990 fee after we substantially narrowed the scope of our original request.

In some cases, determining whether or not a fee should be waived — it can legally be waived if the FOI is deemed to be in the public interest — can take an entire year, depending on the OPIC backlog.

As we inch a little closer to the Site C looking glass we are, in the words of Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “curiouser and curiouser.”

Image: Vicky Husband

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Alaskans tired of living under the threat of B.C.’s poorly regulated mines are taking the matter to the state’s House Fisheries Committee in an effort to escalate an international response to ongoing issues such as the slow leakage of acidic waste from the deserted Tulsequah Chief Mine in northwest B.C. into the watershed of one of the richest salmon runs in the B.C./Alaska transboundary region.

On Thursday the committee will assess a resolution sponsored by several House Representatives “urging the United States government to continue to work with the government of Canada to investigate the long-term, region-wide downstream effects of proposed and existing industrial development and to develop measures to ensure that state resources are not harmed by upstream development in B.C.”

Although Tulsequah is a catalyst, concerns go deeper as B.C. is handing out permits for a clutch of proposed new mines close to the Alaskan border, including the KSM mine, the largest open-pit gold and copper mine in North America.

Chris Zimmer, Rivers Without Borders Alaska campaign director, said Alaskans are troubled by B.C.’s lack of enforcement of mining regulations — underlined by the Mount Polley tailings dam collapse and its $40 million taxpayer funded cleanup — and the alarming practice of accepting bonds from companies that do not cover reclamation costs.

“If B.C. can’t ensure that the Tulsequah Chief is cleaned up, why should Alaskans have any trust that much larger mines like KSM won’t pollute our waters?” Zimmer asked.

‘B.C. Can’t Continue Saying it is World Class’ in Mining

A brief spark of hope that B.C. would act on Tulsequah flared after Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett visited Southeast Alaska in 2015 and was, reportedly, shocked by leakage from abandoned mine works and sludge ponds.

“I think B.C. is going to have to find a way to rectify it sooner rather than later and I think it is a most legitimate criticism of us by those folks in Alaska that don’t like it,” Bennett said at that time.

Since Bennett’s 2015 visit, B.C. government contractors have moved the pipe, so water runs into a containment pond before overflowing into the river, and cleaned up leaking fuel tanks and improperly stored chemicals, Zimmer said.

However, last fall, Chieftain Metals Corp., the latest owners of the mine, declared bankruptcy after running a water treatment plant for only six months and Bennett then appeared to backtrack on the promise of a full-scale clean up.

Bennett, who is not running in the May provincial election, did not return calls or emails from DeSmog Canada.

No provincial money has been publicly earmarked for the Tulsequah clean up, which David Chambers of the Center for Science in Public Participation estimates would cost about $3.8 million in Canadian dollars.

Total annual water treatment costs, which would have to be continued in perpetuity, would be about $3.4-million, according to Chambers’ study.

“And that’s just one tiny little mine,” Zimmer said.

Even if a new company takes over, there is no assurance it will clean up Tulsequah because, unlike Alaska, which estimates a realistic reclamation figure and then demands full payment up front, B.C. has no such guarantees, Zimmer said.

“The polluter-pay principle doesn’t work if the polluter goes bust.”

But in B.C. there is no assurance that the polluter will pay even if the company does not go bust, said Heather Hardcastle of Juneau-based Salmon Beyond Borders.

“The notion that reclamation sureties are not adequately assessed in B.C and companies don’t have to put up full reclamation sureties up front, as they have to do in Alaska and many other countries in the world, means B.C. can’t continue saying it is world class in terms of their mining sector,” she said.

Alaska sets the amount of the bond as part of the environmental assessment process, with public input, meaning that the bond is usually a realistic calculation of the cost of reclamation. The state then demands cash or bonds up front before the project can proceed.

In contrast, in B.C. the Chief Inspector of Mines has complete discretion in setting the amount of the bond, meaning it is not a transparent process. The figure is generally set much lower than in Alaska and the entire amount does not have to be paid up front.

B.C., unlike Alaska, will also accept guarantees, rather than insisting on cash or bonds.

Compared to Alaska B.C.’s Mines Represent Massive Taxpayer Liability

A glaring example of the differences is illustrated in a brief that independent economist Robyn Allan is presenting to the Alaska State Legislature.

Teck Resources Ltd. operates the Red Dog Mine in Alaska, which is expected to require water treatment in perpetuity, a cost that has been included in the reclamation estimate of $558-million.

Teck has fully funded its liability obligation at Red Dog by posting a bond of $558-million with the State, said Allan, a former ICBC president and senior economist for B.C. Central Credit Union.

Just across the border in B.C., Teck, the largest mining company in the province, is responsible for 13 mines — six operating and seven closed — and the province has estimated reclamation liability at $1.4-billion, but has required only $510-million in bonding, according to Allan’s brief.

“The $1.4-billion reclamation estimate excludes significant requirements for ongoing water treatment, such as those at Teck’s coal mining sites in the Elk Valley. Teck’s in perpetuity liabilities are likely underestimated by hundreds of millions of dollars,” she said.

Teck Resources is the largest donor to the B.C. Liberals, contributing $1,502,444 to the party since 2008.

Since 2010, Norman Keevil, Teck board chair, has personally donated $65,585 and DeSmog Canada revealed last month that political donations to the Liberals made under the name of a Teck Resources lobbyist were actually made by the company and were registered in error.

B.C.’s Mining Sector ‘Dysfunctional’

Allan, in her brief, says environmental assessment, monitoring and compliance of B.C.’s mining sector is dysfunctional.

“It places the environment and the public on both sides of the Canadian and U.S. borders at serious long-term risk,” she wrote.

A recent report by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre found B.C.’s mining rules have created a profound crisis of public confidence and should be investigated through a Commission of Public Inquiry.

“Mine reclamation liabilities in B.C. are underestimated and most mine operators are not required to provide full funding for the reclamation obligations that are estimated,” she said.

If B.C. adopted the Alaskan model of reclamation estimation and bonding, it would result in a more comprehensive and robust approach, according to Allan, who added in her brief that such changes could be made through policy adjustments rather than legislation.

Neither Alaska nor B.C. have an industry-funded pool for cleaning up accidental environmental damage or for paying compensation to those affected by mining accidents and companies are not required to have adequate insurance to cover accidents.

That begs the question why the mining industry is treated differently from other high-risk industries such as oil and gas, said Hardcastle, who believes the cross-border problem should be referred to the International Joint Commission, which operates under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty.

Allan agrees that both federal governments need to work together to develop measures to ensure mines do not affect downstream resources and that there should be an industry-funded pool for reclamation costs and compensation not met by mine operators following an unintended environmental accident.

However, there first needs to be accurate and transparent reclamation cost estimates and full security posted before a permit is issued, she said in her brief.

“Regrettably, the province of B.C. does not intend to enhance the requirements of its subpar system despite recommendations in recent reports released by the B.C. Auditor General and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs,” she wrote.

B.C. should also look at recent reforms Quebec made to its financial requirements for the mining sector, recommended Ugo Lapointe, Mining Watch Canada program coordinator.

Quebec requires 100 per cent financial assurance, with 50 per cent payable before the mine opens and 50 per cent in the first two years of operation, making it the strictest system in Canada, Lapointe said.

In contrast, B.C. remains one of the most problematic mining jurisdictions in the country, he said.

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A bizarre twist in a decade-long battle over a proposed mine on Tsilhqot’in Nation traditional territory could see the B.C. government issue extensive exploration permits for the mine this month even though the project has twice been turned down by the federal government.

The proposal by Taseko Mines Ltd. to build a $1.5-billion open pit, copper and gold mine in the Cariboo region — a plan which received vocal support from Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett — was approved in 2010 by the provincial government after a B.C. environmental assessment.

But, the same year, the Prosperity Mine was rejected by the federal review panel, which took a dim view of plans to drain Fish Lake, known to Tsilhqot’in as Teztan Biny, for use as a tailings pond.

The company took a second shot with a proposal for the New Prosperity Mine, which would save Fish Lake and situate the tailings pond two kilometres away in a smaller lake. But, the federal government again turned it down in 2014, despite a trip to Ottawa by Bennett in an effort to persuade the federal government of the importance of the mine to the economy of B.C.

Undeterred, Taseko, which says it has spent more than $130-million trying to develop the mine, attempted to persuade the provincial government not to knuckle under to Ottawa. According to the Elections B.C. website Taseko donated $123,450 to the BC Liberals between 2008 and 2014.

A letter to Premier Christy Clark from CEO Russell Hallbauer, written in May last year, said the B.C. government should be very disturbed “because constitutionally mineral assets are owned by the province and their development is the Provinces’ responsibility, not Ottawa’s.”

Hallbauer wrote: “The B.C. government approving our project and the federal government torpedoing it by not following their own process, is something that needs to be addressed by your administration.”

The letter from Hallbauer suggested that, if the Environmental Assessment Certificate was not amended in a timely way, the province should buy the tenures or that Taseko could launch a civil suit for damages.

Shortly afterwards, the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office amended the original permit, which has been extended to 2020.

Fish Lake, known as Teztan Biny to the Tsilhqot’in, August 2012. Photo: Garth Lenz, all rights reserved.

Now, the province has told the Tsilhqot’in National Government, representing six First Nations, that a decision on allowing a multi-million-dollar exploration plan will probably be made this month, even though no federal permits are in place.

The exploration, which would include a 50-person work camp, 367 test pits, 47 hectares of “new disturbance,” road building and seismic line testing, is adamantly opposed by the Tsilhqot’in and a January letter from Yunesit’in Chief Russell Myers-Ross asked why the province would consider approving more drilling and damage “for a project that cannot be built.”

Myers-Ross accused the province of betraying the Tsilhqot’in people and pleaded for fair treatment.

“The federal government has rejected the project. It is dead, in no small part because our Nation has made a substantial case about the devastating effects that it presents for our people and culture. There is an opportunity here to make the right decision and not repeat the same patterns as the past,” he wrote.

Myers-Ross said in an interview that he finds it baffling that the province would consider allowing more exploration, in the area made up of connected meadows and small streams, frequented by moose, wild horses and grizzlies.

“It’s like the comic villain that keeps coming back,” he said, predicting that, if the exploration is allowed, the Tsilhqot’in Nation will be heading back to court asking for a judicial review and an injunction.

“We will be making sure they don’t set foot on our territory,” he said.

The same message is echoed in a letter to Taseko from Tl’etinqox Chief and Tsilhqot’in National Government tribal chair Joe Alphonse and vice chairman Chief Roger William who accused Taseko of kicking a dead horse.

The letter warns that the Nation is fully prepared to go to court.

“Given our proven Aboriginal rights in the area and the profound cultural and spiritual importance of these lands, your company’s efforts to further disrupt this area to advance a rejected project would represent a severe and unjustified infringement of our aboriginal rights,” it says.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs president, said he believes a provincial decision is imminent.

“This is a deliberate provocation. It’s a political move. We are in an election period,” he said.

“It’s bizarre and very underhanded. I think the province is hoping to provoke a confrontation. . . . It’s a very Trump-like move. They are saying Canada has no business meddling in the affairs of B.C.,” Phillip charged.

However, apart from provincial documents given to the Tsilhqot’in National Government, it is difficult to assess the province’s aim as the Ministry of Energy and Mines has ignored all requests for information from DeSmog Canada.

Communications spokesman Suntanu Dalal initially said he knew nothing about the issue, but would look into it. Three phone calls and two emails later, there has been no response.

Meanwhile, Taseko is continuing to fight the federal government’s rejection of the mine, which it says would help bring economic prosperity to an area devastated by the mountain pine beetle.

Key economic benefits would include a $5.5-billion increase in revenues to B.C and 71,000 jobs, according to Taseko background papers.

The company was in Federal Court last week with a constitutional challenge to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, asking for two judicial reviews, and has also filed a B.C. Supreme Court civil claim seeking damages against the federal government.

In 2016 the B.C. Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Taseko had filed against the Wilderness Committee and, in an unusual decision, the judge awarded special costs to the Wilderness Committee which claimed the case amounted to a SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuit against public participation).

Taseko did not respond this week to requests for an interview.

Image: A member of the Tsilhqot’in beats a drum at Fish Lake, August 2012. Photo: Garth Lenz, all rights reserved.

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When Donald Trump held his first news conference this month following his election as U.S. president, observers worldwide decried his shameless attack on the media and his critics.

In an onslaught against the press, Trump labelled CNN “terrible” and “fake news,” lambasted the digital-media powerhouse BuzzFeed as a “failing pile of garbage,” then turned his sights on the BBC, calling the news outlet, “another beauty,” and refusing to answer a reporter’s questions.

Could something similar ever happen in Canada? You bet it could.

In B.C., a slightly abridged version of Trump’s scorched-earth offensive against the media and his critics is already underway, led by BC Hydro, with disquieting consequences for the principles of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

BC Hydro’s attacks on the media and critics centre on the $8.8-billion Site C dam, which the government has vowed to push past the “point of no return,” in the words of Premier Christy Clark, before voters head to the polls in May, even though there is compelling evidence that B.C. doesn’t need Site C’s electricity and Clark still searches for a buyer for the dam’s power.

The Premier’s Office and B.C. Energy Minister Bill Bennett have also been directly involved in the coordinated offensive, a strong indication of BC Hydro’s waning independence and waxing politicization.

From the New York Times and DeSmog Canada to Amnesty International and the Royal Society of Canada, BC Hydro’s reaction to critical Site C articles and reports has become increasingly inappropriate over the past eight months as the provincial election draws near and the Liberal party seeks a fifth term in office.

The reactions reached new fervour this month when BC Hydro issued a rant of a news release maligning a Times story on Site C, even going so far as to question the reporter’s personal motives. Bennett, saying the press release didn’t go nearly far enough, called the reporter “not fair” and “not professional.”

Bennett rails against the press calling a reporter “not fair” & “not professional” https://t.co/YDBvMcvvUu #bcpoli #cdnpoli #SiteC #bcelxn17 pic.twitter.com/gRFrRO2xpe

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 1, 2017

That followed other BC Hydro news releases questioning the content of an Amnesty report critical of Site C and the integrity of an unrelated statement from the Royal Society calling for an immediate halt to the dam, which the society said would cause more ecological damage than any project ever examined in the history of Canada’s environmental assessment act.

A Site C public opinion poll conducted by Insights West, according to a different BC Hydro press release, was “not likely to be an accurate reflection of public opinion,” while an article in Business in Vancouver was labelled as just plain “wrong.”

Even a Province opinion piece I wrote about Site C came under fire when BC Hydro issued a news release, containing text approved by Clark’s office, trying to discredit the piece, which questioned BC Hydro’s civil lawsuit against Peace Valley farmers and First Nations members who are trying to stop Site C, accusing them of serious charges such as “conspiracy” and seeking financial damages from them. Notably, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association calls the ongoing suit a matter of “grave concern” because of its potential to put a chill on freedom of expression.

For former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, who said Site C was a “white elephant” that would cause hydro bills in B.C., already scheduled for a 28-per-cent increase over five years, to climb to the point where they would be “devastating,” BC Hydro also recently brandished some Trump-style behaviour.

The Crown corporation suggested in its news release about The Times story that Eliesen, a highly respected professional who was also CEO of Ontario Hydro and the chairman of Manitoba Hydro, was 20 years out of date, while lambasting the newspaper for not including a quote from BC Hydro’s current CEO — an ironic quibble considering that BC Hydro, like Trump, cherry-picks which lines of inquiry it will respond to from reporters and which it pointedly chooses to ignore.

The Times reporter, after writing a second story, this one calling B.C. the “Wild West” of political cash, tweeted that B.C. is like a Banana Republic.

Banana Republic or Granola Republic, we all have a stake in these continuing attacks and should be concerned about our provincial government’s creeping Trump-style treatment of the media and Site C critics.

That rabbit hole south of the border should be a cautionary tale, not a subterranean destination for B.C.

Image: Worker camp construction for the Site C dam. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

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Fast-tracking Site C dam construction before May’s provincial election is an unusual decision driven more by politics than need, according to a Canadian expert in Crown corporations who suggests the relationship between BC Hydro and the Premier’s office may be “too close for comfort.”

Luc Bernier, the former head of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, said Premier Christy Clark’s vow to push Site C past the “point of no return,” when B.C. has a surplus of electricity and Clark is still searching for a buyer for Site C’s power, leads him to believe that that “there’s too much politics around BC Hydro.”

“What seems unusual to me is the idea of locking up this project before the provincial election,” said Bernier, who holds the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa.

“If B.C. doesn’t need the electricity for the next decade or so there’s no emergency to build it…The only emergency in this project is the coming election.”

BC Hydro’s Site C spokesperson Dave Conway has said Site C’s power may not be needed for up to 40 years.

Flat Demand Could Make Site C ‘Nightmarish Project’

Demand for electricity has been falling in B.C. since 2008, and the B.C. government now says it wants to sell Site C’s power to Alberta to electrify the oilsands, a move that Harry Swain, chair of the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C for the federal and provincial governments, called an “act of desperation.”

Swain pointed out that BC Hydro never mentioned Alberta as a potential market for Site C’s power in its application for an environmental assessment certificate for the project.

Earlier, high electricity demand from anticipated Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production was one of the reasons the B.C. government gave for building Site C. That demand has never materialized.

Given that B.C. has so much power that BC Hydro is paying independent power producers millions of dollars a year not to produce electricity, Clark is now counting on federal taxpayers to share the cost of a proposed $1 billion transmission line to send Site C’s power to Alberta, although Alberta has not yet committed to buying the electricity.

“If you don’t need the electricity you’re going to have a bill for nine billion dollars for a dam you don’t need,” Bernier said in an interview, pointing out that another large hydroelectricity project, the Muskrat Falls dam in Labrador, has become a financial boondoggle, in part because its power is not required.

“It’s not going to be a profitable project, it’s going to be a nightmarish project,” Bernier said of Muskrat Falls, which will add an average of $1,800 to the annual hydro bill of every customer in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Economist Jim Brander, a professor at UBC’s Sauders School of Business, said BC Hydro’s technical staff, not politicians, should make the decision about the need to push Site C past the point of no return, based on questions such as electricity demand and the dam’s projected rate of return.

A Crown corporation’s senior management should be arms-length from political issues, so that decisions can be made on a technical basis and not for political reasons, Brander said in an interview.

“We think that it leads to better management when the managers are able to be managers and not politicians.”

Like Bernier, Brander has concerns about the connections between BC Hydro and the Premier’s office, saying it is too close for the appearance of good governance and integrity.

Premier’s Office Involvement in BC Hydro Media Relations ‘Very Rare’

While both experts said any government would want oversight of a project as large as Site C, the Premier’s office’s direct involvement in BC Hydro’s media relations is “very rare” and the close connection between BC Hydro and the Premier’s office “makes me uncomfortable,” said Brander, who personally believes Site C’s power will eventually be needed.

“Even if there is nothing wrong, it doesn’t look good if the managers of the Crown corporation are too close to members of the government, just for the sake of appearances. And appearances are important, because it’s very important that people believe that these governance purposes are honest and legitimate.”

Besties? @BCHydro and Premier’s Office Too Close for Comfort, Experts Suggest https://t.co/EE3uNaJwC1 #bcpoli #bcelxn17 #SiteC

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 31, 2017

BC Hydro Directors Closely Linked to BC Liberals

Brad Bennett, the Kelowna businessman Clark appointed in September 2015 to chair BC Hydro’s board of directors, was a chief advisor to Clark during her 2013 election campaign and toured the province with the premier.

In September, the BC Hydro board chair nominated Clark to run for the B.C. Liberals in the premier’s riding of West Kelowna. He spoke in Clark’s support as she was acclaimed and posed with the premier behind a “Re-elect Christy Clark” banner.

“We’re going to be heading into a [election] campaign in April,” Bennett told members of the B.C. Liberal Party and the community. “Our biggest enemy when things are feeling good isn’t the NDP necessarily, it’s apathy within our own ranks.”

Bennett is the president of McIntosh Properties Ltd., a real estate investment and private equity investment company that donated more than $30,000 to the B.C. Liberal Party from 2005 to August 2015, according to Elections BC.

He is the son of former B.C. Premier Bill Bennett, whose plans to build Site C in the early 80s were turned down by the quasi-judicial B.C. Utilities Commission, saying that B.C. did not need the power at the time.

It was at the former premier’s funeral last January that Clark made her vow to finish what Bill Bennett had started and hustle Site C past the “point of no return.”

Brad Bennett is also the grandson of W.A.C. Bennett, who built the first dam on the Peace River and named it after himself. W.A.C. Bennett planned the Peace Canyon Dam that, along with his namesake’s larger dam, supplies about one-third of BC Hydro electricity, and he also proposed to build Site C, the third dam on the Peace River, a designated B.C. heritage river.

The connections between BC Hydro and the Premier’s office extend further than the Bennett family.

Six of 10 members of BC Hydro’s board or directors appear as donors to the BC Liberal party in the province’s online political donations database — although it is possible the donations were made by other people with the exact same names.

The name of a seventh Hydro board member is listed as the principal officer for a company that donated to the Liberals. An eighth Hydro board member, Jack Weisgerber, is a former Liberal MLA who was the Minister of Energy and Mines in the Campbell administration and also worked as a BC Hydro consultant on Site C from 2007 to 2014.

BC Hydro’s CEO is Jessica McDonald, who served as deputy minister to former B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell — the person responsible for resurrecting Site C after BC Hydro’s board of directors announced in 1993 that the project would be shelved permanently because it was too expensive, too environmentally destructive and too damaging for First Nations.

Campbell’s government changed the law to exempt Site C from review by the watchdog B.C. Utilities Commission, which traditionally has examined power projects to ensure they are in the public interest.

While McDonald had no experience in the energy sector, she previously headed B.C.’s public service, managing 36,000 employees and overseeing an annual budget of $40 billion.

McDonald’s ex-husband Mike McDonald is Clark’s former chief of staff. He is heading the B.C. Liberal’s re-election campaign this spring, after leading their 2013 election campaign and Clark’s bid for leadership of the B.C. Liberal Party.

Mike McDonald is a senior associate at Kirk & Co., one of B.C.’s top communications firms, which received a six-year Site C contract for communications, consultation and community relations. (The contract ended in 2013, the same year that Mike McDonald joined the firm after working closely with them for the previous decade, according to the Kirk & Co. website, and prior to Jessica McDonald’s 2014 appointment as head of BC Hydro).

“I’m not sure if it’s not too close for comfort,” said Bernier, who directs the Centre for Research on Governance at Quebec’s National School of Public Administration.

“If we were talking about Prince Edward Island with 240,000 people living there, everyone is related to everyone. Is it necessary in 2017 in B.C. to be that close?”

In the absence of a demonstrated need for Site C’s power, Clark’s team talks mainly about the jobs that will be created by the $8.8 billion dam, which as the largest publicly funded project in B.C.’s history will be paid for with money out of British Columbians’ own pockets.

Clark’s Jobs Promises Coming Up Empty

Job creation has become an issue of paramount importance heading into the B.C. election campaign. Virtually none of the 100,000 jobs Clark promised in the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industry have materialized and the premier’s much-touted jobs plan has failed to produce employment gains outside the Lower Mainland and Capital Regional District.

When Clark announced provincial Cabinet approval of Site C in December 2014, she promised, to little scrutiny, that the project would create 10,000 direct construction jobs.

By the end of November, according to BC Hydro, Site C employed close to 1,800 people, including in service jobs such as housing and kitchen work at the $470 million Site C workers accommodation facility in Fort St. John. About 650 of the workers were from the Peace River area.

Site C’s November employment tally includes more than 400 jobs in engineering and on Site C’s Project Team, including at BC Hydro’s head office in Vancouver, and more than 50 contract professional and office managers and supervisors.

BC Hydro said Site C will create “many more jobs” in the coming months and years, but how many of those will be construction jobs remains to be seen.

Clark has repeatedly said Site C will be delivered on budget, a statement questioned by former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen, who called the project a “white elephant” and said it could have disastrous consequences for B.C. hydro rates, already in the middle of a scheduled 28 per cent increase over five years.

BC Hydro points out that B.C.’s electricity rates are still among the lowest in North America, saying that the planned rate increases are needed to replace aging infrastructure and invest in new projects to meet what the Crown corporation calls a “growing demand for power” in its communications materials.

The Joint Review Panel that examined Site C concluded that BC Hydro had not demonstrated the need for the dam’s power in the timeframe it presented, and recommended the project be referred to the B.C. Utilities Commission for an independent review of the need for Site C’s electricity and the project’s cost.

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BC Hydro officials and members of Premier Christy Clark and Energy Minister Bill Bennett’s offices were all involved in a coordinated attempt to discredit DeSmog Canada’s reporting on the $8.8 billion Site C hydroelectric dam, according to documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests.

The documents detail a flurry of e-mails following a DeSmog Canada story that quoted former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen saying that Site C was proceeding without due diligence, would lead to escalating hydro rate increases and was “scheduled to become a big white elephant,” a story later referenced by the New York Times.

BC Hydro officials were concerned that major B.C. media would pick up on the DeSmog Canada story, based largely on a BC Hydro progress report to the B.C. Utilities Commission. That report noted that Site C had fallen behind on four out of seven key milestones and outlined project risks and reasons why Site C had spent more money than anticipated by the end of last March, while saying that the project’s overall forecast still remained on track.

“This is expected to generate media interest,” Craig Fitzsimmons, BC Hydro’s manager of communications and issues management for Site C, flagged in e-mails to the Premier’s office and Bennett’s office, informing them that numbers in the article came from the Crown corporation’s own report.

The Premier’s office directed BC Hydro to respond to the article immediately even though it was the start of the Canada Day long weekend, a sign of the top priority Clark’s team has placed on controlling the story line on the Site C dam, the most expensive publicly funded project in B.C.’s history.

Two days later, internal Hydro e-mails show, BC Hydro CEO Jessica McDonald took aim at an opinion editorial that had been published more than one month earlier in the print and online editions of The Province newspaper.

The opinion piece was based entirely on a DeSmog Canada story published the previous day about BC Hydro’s ongoing civil law suit against some of the Peace Valley farmers and First Nations members involved in the Rocky Mountain Fort winter camp, which delayed Site C clear-cutting of a B.C. heritage site for two months. The piece quoted the head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association who called the lawsuit, which seeks financial damages for BC Hydro from individuals, a matter of “grave concern” because of its potential to curtail freedom of expression.  

McDonald, saying erroneously that the opinion piece had changed a month after publication and now contained “commentary that is even more misleading than before” asked top staff if it were possible to “dust off” a one-month-old unpublished BC Hydro letter to the editor of The Province and “create a new piece that hits back.”

“I feel this is really important as we head into the Paddle for the Peace which is focused on the Boon’s property next weekend and will be very focused on stopping the federal authorizations based on our supposed unfairness,” wrote McDonald.

McDonald was referring to Ken and Arlene Boon, two of the Peace Valley farmers named in Hydro’s civil law suit, whose third-generation farmland and home were expropriated by BC Hydro in December for a Site C highway relocation. At the time the e-mail was written, BC Hydro was waiting for federal authorizations for Site C that were subsequently granted by the Trudeau government, even though First Nations leaders had requested that the permits be withheld.

According to the internal Hydro e-mails, McDonald said she wanted a statement drafted to say that information in the opinion piece was “inaccurate.” She also wanted her staff to make sure BC Hydro was “closely monitoring” some DeSmog Canada articles and to flag when there were updates.

McDonald wanted it to be made clear that BC Hydro supports freedom of expression and is taking legal action only to prevent people from physically blockading work on the project. But the documents also suggest that BC Hydro wanted to do more.

“I talked to Jessica and she would like to hit Sarah Cox hard for never contacting us for an interview on the issue, continuing to ignore our input, and then ramping up the rhetoric,” said an e-mail written by Danielle Van Huizen, a senior business advisor in McDonald’s office.

That prompted a quick reply from BC Hydro’s Site C spokesperson Dave Conway, who informed colleagues that Hydro had indeed been contacted for comment three times over a five-day period, by e-mail and phone.

Screenshots of documents obtained through Freedom of Information legislation indicating BC Hydro President Jessica McDonald would like to hit DeSmog Canada contributor Sarah Cox "hard" for her writing on Site C. 

“We will have to be careful what we write and be sure legal has a look at it,” advised Van Huizen in another email.

Two days later, BC Hydro issued a news release, approved by Bennett’s office and including text from a letter to the editor approved by the Premier’s office, saying there were “inaccuracies” in the five-week old Province opinion piece, and also saying that the piece had been “posted” more than one month later than its actual publication date.

That followed closely on the heels of a BC Hydro news release, approved by both the Premier’s office and Bennett’s office, which attempted to discredit DeSmog Canada’s story about Hydro’s progress report to the utilities commission, saying it contained “inaccurate statements.” 

BC Hydro President Jessica McDonald would like to hit DeSmog contributor Sarah Cox “hard” for her writing on #SiteC https://t.co/4GNzCYzNyG

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 17, 2017

At that point, DeSmog Canada sent a registered letter to Simi Heer, Hydro’s manager of media relations and issues management, asking BC Hydro to identify any factual inaccuracies so that they could be corrected. Heer, who later left BC Hydro, did not respond to the letter, or to e-mails and a phone call. BC Hydro has never contacted DeSmog Canada directly to request any story corrections.

Dozens of pages were redacted from BC Hydro’s 1,600-page FOI response on the grounds that they “were penned for the purpose of seeking or providing legal advice.” Other pages, including parts of e-mails written by McDonald about the opinion piece, were redacted on the grounds that releasing the full e-mails would constitute an unreasonable invasion of a third party’s personal privacy.

The FOI documents also reveal how top officials in the Premier’s office and Bennet’s office control other media relations regarding the Site C dam, as reported by the Vancouver Sun last week based on a DeSmog Canada FOI to the Premier’s office that is now publicly available.

Construction of the Site C Dam on the Peace River. Photo: Garth Lenz/DeSmog Canada

The Premier’s office and Bennett’s office directed the timing of various Site C announcements, including an announcement about the completion of a temporary bridge across the Peace River, which Bennett did not want BC Hydro to make too close to an April increase in hydro rates.

Both offices were also involved in the timing for an announcement about the completion of the $470 million lodge for Site C construction workers, which cost BC Hydro customers almost as much as Clark’s pre-election pledge to spend $500 million on affordable housing projects to help alleviate the Lower Mainland’s housing crisis.

The offices also vetted a BC Hydro press release, which included quotes from Clark and Bennett, announcing that a $470 million contract had been awarded to Voith Hydro Inc. to supply turbines and generators for the Site C dam.

According to Luc Bernier, a Canadian expert in Crown corporations, BC Hydro should have more independence from the government to ensure that sound decisions are being made.

Bernier said it is not unusual for governments to be kept apprised of developments on large publicly funded projects like Site C, and to control and to supervise these projects to a certain extent, because they are highly visible.

But directing day-to-day communications can lead to decisions being made for political reasons and not because they are in the best interests of the Crown corporation, said Bernier, who holds the Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa and is the former head of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada. 

“For the proper functioning of Crown corporations it should be more independent. We do put these organizations further away from politics to make sure the main reason to exist — in this case to produce electricity — is not done for political reasons.”

Public sector management expert David Zussman said the question of how independent Crown corporations should be from governments is a contentious issue right across the country.

“In recent years in particular there’s been a distancing of the Crowns from the government,” said Zussman, a former dean of the University of Ottawa’s School of Management and previous commissioner of the Public Service Commission of Canada.

“The trends today I would say are for greater independence of Crown corporations.” Hydro Quebec, for instance, is a far more independent entity than it was 30 years ago and Zussman said to the best of his knowledge it has “almost nothing to do with the government” today.

To achieve good governance, Zussman said Crown corporations “should operate independently from government on a day to day basis,” adding that what exactly that means is open to interpretation.

The FOI request to the Premier’s office also asked for e-mails and documents related to Site C’s most recent budget and timeline, but that information was not forthcoming. Fourteen pages of the response were redacted.

Screenshot of a consent order compelling BC Hydro to release documents requested by DeSmog Canada via Freedom of Information legislation.

One internal Hydro e-mail from Michael Savidant, BC Hydro’s Site C commercial manager, addressed Site C project risks outlined in Hydro’s progress report and referenced in DeSmog Canada’s story. But Savidant’s points were not included in Hydro’s news release about the story or in BC Hydro’s list of key messages, vetted by Bennett’s office, for any other media inquiries about the report.

“On the potential for cost overruns — yes if those things happen there will be cost increases,” Savidant wrote to Fitzsimmons and Chris Sandve, Bennett’s former chief of staff who is now BC Hydro’s director of policy and reporting.

“Those risks exist on any project. We disclosed them in the Business Case and at the JRP [Joint Review Panel hearings on Site C]. The key is to highlight that we have contingency to cover most items, and a project reserve to cover the rest.”

The internal e-mails also detail BC Hydro’s concerted efforts to craft messaging for any members of the media who expressed interest in following several DeSmog Canada stories about Site C, including a story about Hydro’s $175 million plan to truck at-risk bull trout upstream past the dam for 100 years when up to 40 percent of the fish are expected to perish in the dam’s turbines while migrating back downstream.

One internal Hydro document with a weekly Site C public affairs summary listed Freedom of Information requests as one of the “on-going risks” to the project. “The Project continues to get a lot of Freedom-of-Information Requests related to various issues. The FOIs can be expected to end up in the public realm, usually through media reports,” the document noted.

BC Hydro only responded to the FOI request, made last August, after a complaint was filed with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) when the Crown Corporation missed a legal deadline for delivering the documents.

The commissioner issued a consent order, compelling BC Hydro to release the information.

Image: Premier Christy Clark, flanked by BC Hydro President Jessica McDonald and Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett, at a Site C contract announcement. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr  (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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Alaska’s fishing industry and lifestyle are under threat from mines on the B.C. side of the border and a non-binding cooperation agreement between B.C. and Alaska, signed last week, does not provide sufficient protection, the Alaska State House Fisheries Committee was told this week.

The committee held a public hearing because of persistent concerns from fishermen, business owners, municipal and Tribal leaders about the proliferation of B.C. mines near the headwaters of salmon-bearing rivers such as the Taku, Unuk and Stikine, which start in B.C. and flow through Southeast Alaska to the ocean.

About 10 mines are in the planning, exploration, construction or production stages in the area close to the border.

“I believe legislators received the message loud and clear that this is a very urgent situation and much, much more needs to be done immediately, beyond the B.C./Alaska Statement of Cooperation,” said Heather Hardcastle of Salmon Beyond Borders.

The agreement between B.C. and Alaska establishes a bilateral working group and provides for Alaska to have input into environmental assessments and permitting for mines. It also formalizes requirements for B.C. to notify Alaska if there is a spill or accident that could affect Alaskan waters.

But the agreement falls short as there are no enforceable measures to protect the water and fisheries and no requirement for bonds to provide financial compensation in case of an accident, speakers told the committee.

“Alaska should require some kind of compensation for catastrophic accidents,” said Dave Chambers, geophysicist and president of the Center for Science in Public Participation.

Mining companies are under pressure to increase production because of falling metal prices and rising costs and that is leading to an increasing number of tailings dam failures, Chambers said.

Requirements for a surety would put pressure on operators to do a better job, Chambers said.

Earlier this year, B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer, in a scathing report that criticized B.C.’s weak mining liability regime, estimated that there was a $1-billion shortfall in financial assurance policies, which are supposed to ensure mining companies pay for both catastrophic events and mine site reclamation.

Bellringer’s report was followed by an even more blistering assessment by economist Robyn Allan, who, in a report commissioned by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, concluded there is more than $1.5-billion in unfunded liability.

“A regime to ensure mine owners have sufficient financial resources to pay for environmental damage and third-party losses from unintended mine accidents is non-existent,” Allan wrote.

A common theme at the Fisheries Committee hearing was a push for state leaders to formally request the involvement of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments.

“In order to have binding commitments that protect habitat, by encouraging the highest standards of environmental protection, elevation to the International Joint Commission through the Boundary Waters Treaty seems to be a necessary action,” said Chip Treinen, United Fishermen of Alaska board member.

So far, B.C.’s Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry have shown little interest in referring the issue to the International Joint Commission, the body established to deal with boundary water disputes.

Last week Bennett said that “We’ve proven with this agreement and all the work we’ve done over the last three years there’s no need for the International Joint Commission” and that neither B.C. nor Alaska want to get their respective federal governments involved in an issue they can manage themselves.

At the hearing, Hardcastle said Bennett is “flat-out wrong” in his assumptions.

“The State Legislature and the State of Alaska need to formally counter Bennett’s statement and be explicit with the U.S. federal government that this is an international matter in which the State of Alaska does want and need the critical involvement of the federal government,” she said.

Bennett and Energy and Mines Ministry spokespeople did not respond to questions Friday from DeSmog Canada.

Bev Sellars, chairwoman of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining and Chief of the Xat’sull First Nation in Soda Creek, B.C., warned Alaska’s legislators not to put all their trust in the B.C. government, pointing to a bad track record, and urged them to ask the International Joint Commission to become involved.

“Try to get a solid country-to-country agreement on paper,” she said.

“I haven’t eaten fish from the Fraser River in years — that is a loss of our culture. When I hear about B.C. mines I worry about your culture too,” she said.

The spectre of the 2014 Mount Polley disaster, when the tailings dam collapsed spilling 24-million cubic metres of waste and sludge into nearby lakes and rivers, weighs heavily on Alaskans.

“We’re terrified that that’s what is going to happen here and that we’re going to share their fate,” said Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

“We couldn’t sustain our traditional way of life. We couldn’t sustain our economic way of life if that happened.”

A recent study by the McDowell Group concluded that the Taku, Stikine and Unuk rivers account for U.S. $48-million in annual economic activity and the value of the three watersheds is just under $1-billion over a 30-year timeframe.

Chambers said he questions B.C.’s mine safety enforcement.

“Presently the B.C. government is not putting safety before economics as recommended by the Mount Polley Expert Panel, Chambers said.

“Moreover, B.C. is not implementing other key recommendations of the Mount Polley Expert Panel — a body appointed by the province to determine what went wrong at Mount Polley and how to avoid similar tailings dam failures in the future.”

The hearing was chaired by Rep. Louise Stutes, who said the committee is likely to hold more hearings to assess the possible effects of the mines.

In an interview with the Cordova Times, shortly before the public hearing, Stutes said: “The United States and Canadian federal governments need prodding to secure enforceable protections and financial assurances for our transboundary rivers.”

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Cleanup of the troubled Tulsequah Chief mine in northwest B.C., which has leaked acidic water into nearby streams and rivers for more than six decades, is again in limbo following an announcement by the owner, Toronto-based Chieftain Metals Inc., that the company is in receivership.

Chieftain, in a statement, said the accounting firm Grant Thornton “was appointed through court order as the receiver of all the assets, undertakings and properties of Chieftain.” The majority of company directors have resigned.

The court order came after a demand by West Face Capitol for repayment of a $26-million loan.

Chieftain’s properties include 65 mineral claims, but the company’s principal focus was development of the Tulsequah Chief, which it bought in 2010. At that time, Chieftain accepted responsibility for the long overdue environmental cleanup, but an interim water treatment plant operated for only six months and was closed in 2012 because of costs and technical issues.

The mine is situated beside the Tulsequah River, the largest tributary to the Taku, one of Alaska’s most important salmon rivers, and the continuing acid mine drainage has infuriated Southeast Alaskans who point to the pollution as a major reason not to trust B.C.’s rules and oversight of mines being developed along the B.C./Alaska border.

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders said the Tulsequah Chief is a poster child for downstream concerns at a time of growing demands from Southeast Alaskans for Alaska and the U.S. State Department to work together to obtain guarantees that B.C.’s mining development won’t harm water quality, fisheries or livelihoods downstream in Alaska.

“If B.C. can’t ensure that the Tulsequah Chief is cleaned up, why should Alaskans have any trust that much larger mines like KSM won’t pollute our waters?” asked Zimmer, who is demanding that the B.C. government step in and clean up the site, rather than relying on mining companies to clean up the site.

The KSM mine, about 35 kilometres from the Alaska border, which will tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world, is one of about a dozen B.C. mines in the transboundary areas in various stages of application, planning and development.

Last year, Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett flew over the Tulsequah Chief mine site and promised that the mess would be cleaned up. However, he then appeared to backtrack, saying scientists did not believe the acid mine drainage was causing any environmental harm.

That is a claim disputed by many of the Southeast Alaskan organizations, tribes and politicians anxiously watching the proliferation of B.C. mines near salmon rivers flowing into Southeast Alaska and there are growing demands for the U.S. federal government to step in and refer the issue of transboundary mines to the International Joint Commission.

“The size of the watersheds and valuable fisheries at risk and the growing evidence that neither B.C. nor its mining industry can be trusted, clearly shows Alaska cannot go it alone with B.C.,” Zimmer said.

“We need the help of the U.S. federal government and the authority of the Boundary Waters Treaty to ensure that B.C. and its mining industry pay for the true costs of mining rather than risking fisheries and water quality downstream,” he said.

The Tulsequah Chief was closed by Cominco in 1957 without any cleanup or reclamation of the site. It was bought by Redfern Corp. in 1992, but numerous government warnings and reclamation orders were ignored and Redfern filed for bankruptcy in 2009.

“Since the mining companies have been unable to halt the acid mine drainage, it’s time for B.C. to honour the promises made by Minister Bill Bennett last August and clean up this mess,” Zimmer said.

Energy and Mines Ministry spokesmen could not be contacted by time of publication.

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Acid mine drainage from the Tulsequah Chief mine in northwest B.C. has worried and infuriated Southeast Alaskans for almost six decades and concerns have again peaked with a new analysis that claims a study of runoff — that found the drainage would not affect fish — was flawed.

The mine, situated beside the Tulsequah River, the largest tributary to the Taku, one of Alaska’s premium salmon rivers, was closed by Cominco in 1957 without reclamation or clean-up of acid mine drainage.

The mine was bought by Redfern Corp. but numerous government warnings and reclamation orders were ignored and Redfern filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The mine was then bought in 2010 by Toronto-based Chieftain Metals Inc., which accepted environmental liabilities as part of the purchase price.

Hopes that the drainage problems would be addressed were short-lived and an interim water treatment plant that operated for only six months was closed in June 2012 because of costs and technical issues.

The only consolation for those worried about the effect of toxic runoff on salmon, was a study, ordered by the province and conducted for Chieftain in 2013, that concluded that, although significant levels of copper and zinc were found downstream from the mine, the drainage posed a low risk to fish in the Tulsequah River and that the discharge did not affect the Taku River as Tulsequah water was diluted by a factor of six when mixed with Taku waters.

“Chieftain Metals is of the opinion that the extent of aquatic environmental risk is very low for the majority of the year and low to moderate during the winter and spring thaw,” Chieftain Metals CEO Victor Wyprysky wrote in a 2013 letter to the provincial Ministry of Environment.

However, that study is now being questioned by a new analysis, conducted for Rivers Without Borders, that has found problems with the way information was collected.

“Consequently, the conclusion of low risk to aquatic life from Tulsequah Chief mine acid mine drainage is unreliable,” says the report by fisheries biologist Sarah O’Neal.

Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders, one of the many Alaskan organizations, tribes and politicians that have been watching the recent proliferation of B.C. mines close to the Alaskan border with trepidation, said the Chieftain study is fundamentally flawed and cannot be used to delay clean-up of the polluting mine any longer.

In a question-and-answer interview with the Juneau Empire, Bennett said: “I said I’m going to try to fix it, so I’m going to try to fix it. It’s a horribly difficult and complex issue for B.C., because the scientists on both sides of the border say there isn’t any environmental harm from what’s going into the Tulsequah River. We have limited resources.”

DeSmog Canada received no response to numerous phone calls and emails to both the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Mines and Chieftain Metals.

In November, B.C. and Alaska signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cross-border consultation on major mine developments and to develop a joint water monitoring program for transboundary waters.

The Tulsequah Chief should be one of the first issues addressed and, as it seems unlikely that Chieftain has the wherewithal or financial resources to clear up the problem, it is up to B.C. and the Canadian federal government to step in, especially as questions are again being raised about damage from the runoff, Zimmer said.

“It’s time to seal up this festering sore. If Chieftain can’t do it, then B.C. needs to step up. Alaskans concerned about B.C. mining across the transboundary region see the Tulsequah Chief as a test case of how B.C. will deal with other mines,” Zimmer said.

“So far, B.C. is failing the test and Alaskans have real reason for worry. If B.C. can’t deal with this relatively small mine, how will it deal with massive mines like KSM?”

“Chieftain and B.C. have both a legal and moral responsibility to clean this up,” Zimmer said, pointing to Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett who, while he was visiting Alaska last year, initially pledged to clean up the mess and then backtracked, pointing to the Chieftain study.

The KSM mine, about 35 kilometres from the Alaska border, which will tap into one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world, is one of about 10 mines close to the Alaska/B.C. transboundary region in various stages of applications, planning and development.

This week a delegation of tribal leaders, commercial fishing groups and conservation organizations from Alaska was in Ottawa looking for help from federal politicians in giving Alaska a bigger say in mine development in shared waters.

The group, who will also meet with Bruce Heyman, U.S. ambassador to Canada, wants the issue referred to the International Joint Commission, which was created under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, to deal with disputes in shared waters.

“We wanted to get our request in the radar before Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama meet here in Ottawa later this month as part of the North American summit,” Heather Hardcastle, from Salmon Beyond Borders, told DeSmog Canada.

Currently Alaska, as the downstream neighbour, takes all the risks associated with mines in B.C., she said.

“It is increasingly clear that it will take our two countries working together to decide how to manage our globally significant share of this iconic region,” Hardcastle added.

Years of trying to get the B.C. government to address concerns have produced nothing but nice words and vague promises, said Frederick Otilius Olsen Jr., chairman of the United Tribal Transboundary Mining Work Group, representing 15 Southeast Alaska Tribes.

“We seem to be getting nowhere,” Olsen, a member of the delegation to Ottawa, said.

“Facts, reports and studies keep emerging — the latest from B.C.’s Auditor General — that indicate the situation is even worse than we feared. We need federal help and an international solution to this international problem.”

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A municipality should have residents — and grizzly bears and mountain goats don’t count, according to B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver who tabled a private member’s bill in the legislature Wednesday aimed squarely at the controversial Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality.   Weaver’s bill to amend the Local Government Amendment Act would repeal the Liberal government’s 2012 changes to legislation that made it possible for mountain resort municipalities to exist without residents.   The 2012 changes were designed to push through development of Jumbo Glacier Resort, a proposed 6,300 bed resort in the wilderness of the Purcell Mountains, 55 kilometres west of Invermere — a project strongly opposed by local residents and First Nations.   Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality was created in November 2012 and the province then appointed a mayor and two councillors. Even though the municipality had no residents or buildings, it became eligible for provincial government grants of $200,000 a year and about $50,000 in federal gas tax money.

The existence of the municipality has been a flashpoint for many opponents and, with the future of the development now in doubt, there is a renewed push to scrap the no-resident municipality. 

“The idea of a town with no people and an appointed mayor and council to preside over that town is preposterous and flies in the face of local democracy and local decision-making,” said Robyn Duncan executive director of Wildsight, an organization that has been on the front lines of the Jumbo fight.   “It is completely unacceptable that an unelected body can make land-use decisions and be accountable to no one,” she said.   It is a view shared by Weaver, who is adamant that provincial laws should not be used to help specific projects succeed or fail.   “The fact that you can create a municipality with no people and no buildings and put in a mayor and two councillors and give them government money is truly bizarre — only in B.C.,” he said.   The reason the “ridiculous loophole” exists is because the government had a pet project that it wanted to succeed, Weaver said, admitting that the chance of his bill getting the support of government is almost non-existent.   “I am hopeful, but I don’t think it will go through as long as (Energy and Mines Minister) Bill Bennett is in government. This was his clearly his pet project and he was a huge advocate for it,” he said.   If the bill did go through, it is likely the resort municipality would argue to be grandfathered in, Weaver said.   “But this is essentially a shot across the bow. It’s saying clean up your act government. This kind of shenanigans has to stop,” he said.   If nothing else, the realities of climate change should give the government pause, said Weaver, who is a climate scientist.   Between 1985 and 2005 glaciers in that area lost 15 per cent of their total mass and glaciologists predict that, by 2100, glaciers that the resort is relying upon for year-round skiing will not exist, he said.   “It makes no sense on so many levels.”   Last year, after 24 years of controversy, Environment Minister Mary Polak pulled the project’s environmental assessment certificate, concluding the billion dollar project had not substantially started during the 10 years since the certificate was granted.   Proponents, Glacier Resorts Ltd. and the Phaedias Group, have said they plan to appeal that decision and are considering changing the proposal to a smaller resort that would not need to go through a full environmental assessment.   However, any proposal to build in the area will face a legal challenge from the Ktunaxa First Nation, who have been given leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, based on a freedom of religion argument that could set a precedent for indigenous people worldwide.   The area at the foot of Jumbo Glacier is known as Qat’muk by the Ktunaxa people who believe it is where the Grizzly Bear Spirit was born, goes to heal itself and returns to the spirit world.   Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality Mayor Greg Deck, former mayor of Radium Hot Springs, said he hopes the government does not repeal the legislation.   “The wisdom of the original legislation was that it anticipated doing really good planning in advance, through a resort municipality, and I believe that is still valid,” he said.   People who disagree with plans for the Jumbo Valley should not try and take away a tool that could be valuable in other areas, Deck said.   In the meantime, the municipality is deferring acceptance of government grants until the situation around the development clarifies.   “We are a little bit hostage to legal challenges. The Ktunaxa appeal adds a bit more uncertainty which we have to wait out,” Deck said.   The bulk of the municipality’s money has gone on defending a series of legal challenges, Deck said.   “It’s a bit frustrating when people say we shouldn’t be spending money and then they keep suing us.”

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New mines proposed for north-west B.C., close to the Alaska border, will have tailings dams similar to the one that collapsed at Mount Polley, despite recommendations of an expert panel that companies use other methods of storing waste, says an analysis written for a coalition of Canadian and U.S. non-governmental organizations.   The new analysis, Post-Mount Polley: Tailings Dam Safety in British Columbia, underlines the need for the province to immediately bring in firmer legislation and says it is time B.C. lived up to commitments to make the mining industry safer.   The expert panel report on the 2014 Mount Polley disaster — which sent 25 million cubic metres of slurry and waste water flooding into lakes and rivers surrounding the mine — recommended best available practices and technology be used for tailings storage, including dry stack technology where appropriate.   However, four major B.C. mines in the Alaska/B.C. transboundary region are failing to implement those recommendations, meaning a similar dam breach could threaten the area’s major salmon rivers, says the report released Tuesday.

The paper, written by Dave Chambers of the Center for Science in Public Participation on behalf of 15 groups including Earthworks, MiningWatch Canada, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the David Suzuki Foundation and Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, says that the KSM, Galore Creek, Red Chris and Schaft Creek mines all require dams two to six times higher than Mount Polley and that the tailings ponds will contain between seven and 27 times the volume of the Mount Polley pond. 

“The mines proposed in the region are far beyond the scope and scale of Mount Polley and the consequences of another tailings dam failure are likely to be far worse,” Chambers said.   All the mines will generate acid waste meaning any failure would put the Unuk, Stikine and Nass watersheds at risk, jeopardising the billion dollar fishing industry.   Red Chris, owned by Imperial Metals — the same company that owns Mount Polley — is the only one of those four mines in production, with the others in various stages of the environmental assessment and permitting process.   But, even though the dam at Red Chris has been completed, changes can be made to make it safer, according to the report.   Energy and mines ministry spokesman David Haslam said tailings storage at Red Chris has been the subject of three independent reviews, including one by experts retained by Tahltan First Nation.   “Our government is leading Canada in making changes to how mining is done and we will continue to work hard to ensure our policies are the best in the world,” he said.   But Chris Zimmer of Rivers Without Borders is sceptical and points to tougher reviews of projects in jurisdictions such as the Yukon.   B.C. seems to be continuing down the same path it has taken before, he said.   “Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over expecting different results,” Zimmer said.   “But it shouldn’t take an Einstein to figure out that mines using Mount Polley’s mine waste disposal methods risk future Mount Polley-scale mine waste disasters.”   Although B.C. has implemented less important recommendations from the expert panel report, the province appears to be ignoring the most important one, Zimmer said.

“The fundamental recommendation was no more wet tailings. B.C. doesn’t seem to have learned the lesson here,” he said.   One problem is that B.C. seems to be looking at the immediate costs to companies, rather than the immense costs of an accident, according to Zimmer, who does not accept claims that alternative technology is not practical at the transboundary mines.   “From an engineering perspective, this is doable,” he said.   Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett said previously that the provincial government will implement all the expert panel’s recommendations and the province is currently undertaking a mining code review.   “The tailings storage facility portion of the code review is expected to be completed this spring and revisions could be legally in force by mid-2016,” Haslam said.   “Government will also work with industry and professional organizations to ensure recommendations directed at them are implemented. It is anticipated this work will be completed by spring 2017.”   Although the expert panel said, where practical, B.C. should move to best technologies, such as dry stack for tailings storage “the panel also noted that there are circumstances where other technologies are more appropriate, due to the need to neutralize chemicals in the tailings or challenges with dewatering the tailings,” Haslam said.   A strong regulatory framework is needed because companies almost inevitably choose the cheapest option, said Ugo LaPointe of Mining Watch Canada.   Slurry can be made thicker, even if a company cannot change entirely to dry stack tailings, and there are ways to make dams more stable than the design used at Mount Polley, said LaPointe, who wants a fundamental shift in the attitude towards safety in the mining industry.   Bennett said in 2014 that one Mount Polley disaster is one too many, LaPointe said.   “Two years later, it’s time for him to make good on his promise and put these recommendations into policy and practice.”   Last November, with a background of growing Alaskan concerns about the safety of B.C. mines, Premier Christy Clark and Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed a memorandum of understanding that strengthens collaboration on major mine developments on either side of the border.   However, a coalition of Alaskan business owners, fishermen, First Nations and politicians is continuing to call for the issue of development close to transboundary rivers to be referred to the International Joint Commission.

Image: Cariboo Regional District

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