By Tim Burkhart, former researcher with the Cohen Commission and Peace River Break Coordinator with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.   On a clear day after the thaw, I climb a meandering hiking trail through thick forest, crossing springs swollen with alpine melt, and scramble up rocky slopes to a wind-swept vista of alpine tundra at the weather-beaten peak of Mount Bickford, about 40 minutes west of the small industry town of Chetwynd, B.C.   From this lofty vantage point above the Pine Pass, the crucial east-west length of Highway 97 is visible, connecting northeast B.C. with the rest of the province west of the Rockies.   Standing beside the dark waters of a mountain lake, still fringed with snow, I can gaze out upon an uninterrupted view of one of the most important landscapes in British Columbia.

This is the Peace River Break, the lifeblood of a diverse ecosystem and a critical part of a continental landscape. The east-west traveling Peace River is the only major river to “break” through the Rockies, funnelling warm Pacific air across the mountains. 

This unique geography creates a continental climate that supports diverse ecosystems, acts as a sanctuary to a number of threatened and endangered species, and provides rich soils that could feed up to a million people.   The Peace River Break landscape is an integral and critical part of a continental puzzle, whose pieces make up the Yellowstone to Yukon corridor, one of the last intact mountain ecosystems on Earth. 

Side by side maps show the location of the the Site C dam within the Yellowstone to Yukon conservation corridor. Images: Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.   Stretching more than 3,200 kilometres, the Yellowstone to Yukon region is home to the full suite of wildlife species that existed when European explorers first arrived. Known as the “mother of rivers,” these mountain ecosystems are the source of clean, safe drinking water for up to 15 million North Americans.   This region is an ecologically vital, but threatened, priority area for conservation in this large transboundary landscape. Encompassing parts of many distinct ecosystems, the Peace River Break is a continental crossroads that straddles the Peace River watershed and provides a corridor for migrating birds, caribou and grizzly bears.   But this key wildlife corridor is under great pressure. According to Global Forest Watch Canada, the Peace River Break is experiencing industrial-caused disturbances at rates greater than those found in Alberta’s oilsands region. Intense and accelerating oil, gas and coalbed methane extraction, coal and other mining, forestry and wind energy development act as barriers to wildlife movement and threaten the integrity of the landscape.   Adding to these pressures, the province has begun construction of the Site C hydro dam, which would further erode the landscape’s ability to support wide-ranging species.

For 12 years running, community members have gathered to paddle the Peace River in opposition to Site C dam, an annual event jointly hosted by the West Moberly First Nations and Peace Valley Environment Association. Photo: Tristan Brand.   Conservation of ecosystems and industrial resource development are woefully unbalanced in the Peace River Break, where just a few protected areas represent a tiny fraction of the region's ecological diversity and only 4 per cent of its land base.   Although approximately 50 per cent of the region has extensive road networks and a widespread industrial footprint, a band of relatively intact land extends north-south along the Hart and Misinchinka Ranges of the Rocky Mountains.   To the east the wetlands and aspen parklands of the boreal plains rise out of the valleys of the Peace and Pine rivers, a northern extension of the Great Plains of North America. To the north, forested hills and green valleys roll away to the deep waters of the man-made Williston Reservoir.

The W.A.C. Bennet dam, constructed in 1968, flooded 350,000 acres of forested land, including sections along the Peace, Finlay and Parsnip rivers. Photo: Tristan Brand.   This highland carpet of green spruce and pine is pierced by the brilliant white pinnacles of Klinse-za — the Twin Sisters mountains — a place of healing and sanctuary to the First Nations that have made their home in the Peace since time immemorial.   This mountain ecosystem includes several undeveloped creek watersheds, intact forests, alpine terrain with no roads, and critical core and seasonal wildlife habitat. It’s a narrow corridor of wilderness that enables wildlife to move between two large, but isolated, regions of protected habitat: the Muskwa-Kechika Ecosystem to the north and, to the south, the major parks of the central Rockies — Jasper, Banff and Kakwa.   Keeping this connection intact is critical for wide-ranging wildlife such as grizzly bears, mountain caribou and wolverines.

Cumulative industrial impacts in the Peace. Image: Global Forest Watch.

  Without this link, populations would become isolated over time, may not reach their breeding and wintering grounds, and would not be able to make the long and necessary journeys in search of new homes and mates.   From my perch atop Mount Bickford, I can see this band of intact wildland stretching south from the Pine Pass, and the threats this region’s wildlife face are starkly laid bare.   I can spy coal mines, wind farms, forestry cutblocks and roads, pipelines, transmission lines, and a natural gas plant facility that holds the dubious honour of being the largest single CO2 emitter in B.C.   Given the rapid pace of resource development all around the Peace region, protecting its continentally-significant ecological values has never been so urgent. It’s time to preserve its breathtaking wild landscapes and spectacular wildlife for future generations to enjoy.

Image: Located near Hudson Hope, B.C., these islands are important calving grounds for moose and other ungulates. Photo: Tristan Brand.

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It’s a sweltering 35 degrees as I pull up to a trailer housing the W.A.C. Bennett Dam visitor centre just outside Hudson’s Hope, 100 kilometres west of Fort St. John.

I’m here to see B.C.’s largest hydro dam first-hand. Damming the Peace River is back in the news this fall as the provincial and federal governments make up their minds about the Site C dam, which would be the third dam on this river.

I’m handed a fluorescent safety vest and am ushered on to a bus along with about 10 others.

Completed in 1967, the W.A.C. Bennett Dam is one of the world's largest earthfill structures, stretching two kilometres across the head of the Peace Canyon and creating B.C.’s largest body of freshwater, the Williston Reservoir. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

Two peppy young women are our guides today. They inform us we’ll be heading more than 150 metres underground into the dam’s powerhouse and manifold.

At the front of our tour bus, pictures of wildlife — grizzlies, lynx, moose, elk — are taped above the driver’s seat. Our guides enthusiastically tell us how 11 of 19 of North America’s big game species live around the dam.

My mind can’t help but wander to a paragraph I read in the joint review panel’s report on the Site C dam, released in May. It appeared on page 307 in a section titled “Panel’s Reflections.”

“A few decades hence, when inflation has worked its eroding way on cost, Site C could appear as a wonderful gift from the ancestors of that future society, just as B.C. consumers today thank the dam-builders of the 1960s. Today’s distant beneficiaries do not remember the Finlay, Parsnip, and pristine Peace Rivers, or the wildlife that once filled the Rocky Mountain Trench. Site C would seem cheap, one day. But the project would be accompanied by significant environmental and social costs, and the costs would not be borne by those who benefit,” the report read.

It’s a poignant moment of pause in a report that doesn’t provide a clear yes or no on whether the 1,100-megawatt dam should be built due to a lack of clear demand for the power, concerns about costs and considerable environmental and social costs.

The panel found risks to fish and wildlife include harmful and irreversible effects on migratory birds and species such as the western toad and short-eared owl. Given the severe effects of dam-building on wildlife, I find the pictures at the front of our tour bus a tad incongruous.

Underground, we’re kitted out with hardhats before entering the powerhouse. It’s as long as three football fields and has the dimensions of the Titanic. This dam can produce up to 2,855 megawatts of power — more than double that of the proposed Site C dam.

Just downstream, another dam — the Peace Canyon dam — produces another 700 megawatts of power. Combined, these two dams provide B.C. with one-third of its power.

Aside from already being home to two megadams, the Peace Country’s landscape is dotted with 16,267 oil and gas well sites and 8,517 petroleum and natural gas facilities, according to a 2013 report, Passages from the Peace, by the David Suzuki Foundation and Global Forest Watch.

“The Peace River region has been and is currently undergoing enormous stress from resource development,” read the joint review panel’s report on Site C.

Rancher Leigh Summer knows that stress firsthand. He was just 14 years old when his family’s ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett dam. Now Summer has three young children and his life could be disrupted again, this time by the Site C dam that would flood the last intact part of the Peace River. 

“The Peace River in British Columbia has paid her price for prosperity,” Summer says. “Why can’t we leave a piece of the Peace intact for future generations? Let them have a choice. If we flood it, we take that choice away from them, from ever seeing what the Peace River was like.”

If built, the Site C dam would flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries. BC Hydro says the power is needed to meet growing energy demand, but the joint review panel found that the crown corporation hadn’t proven the need for the Site C dam in the immediate future and has not adequately explored alternatives, such as geothermal.

Although BC Hydro has predicted power demand will balloon 40 per cent over the next 20 years, its 2014 financial reports show demand for power has remained relatively static since 2007.

“Justification must rest on an unambiguous need for the power and analyses showing its financial costs being sufficiently attractive as to make tolerable the bearing of substantial environmental, social and other costs,” the joint review panel wrote.

The Site C dam “would result in significant cumulative effects on fish, vegetation and ecological communities, wildlife,” they added.

“This is one of the last intact mountain ecosystems on the planet,” says Sarah Cox, senior conservation program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative. “Site C will make a major contribution toward severing that Rocky mountain chain that goes all the way from Yellowstone to Yukon.”

The Peace River is the only river to break the barrier of the Rocky Mountains between the Yukon south almost to Mexico.

“The science shows that vulnerable species like grizzly, wolverine and lynx will be greatly impacted to the extent that populations may not be recoverable,” Cox says.

Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative has joined forces with Sierra Club BC and the Peace Valley Environment Association to launch StopSiteC.org, dedicated to collecting petition signatures against the dam.

Although this fall is a crucial moment in the battle against Site C, it’s just one of many high-stakes moments in what has been a decades-long battle for residents of the Peace Valley.

“I’ve been living with it for 40 years. My hair went grey the first time around,” jokes Gwen Johansson, mayor of the District of Hudson's Hope. “That shadow has hung over the valley for a very long time.”

Gwen Johansson, a retired school teacher, lives on the banks of the Peace River near Hudson's Hope. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

A flood impact sign on Gwen Johansson's gate shows how high the waters of the Site C reservoir would rise. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

Johansson has lived in her house on the banks of the Peace River since 1975. In 1982, the Site C dam was postponed indefinitely after a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

“They said that Hydro had not proven the need for it and, if there was need, they hadn’t proven that this was the best way to get the power,” Johansson says.

“This time they’re going to make sure that nobody gets to examine these questions,” she added, referring to the province's decision to exempt the project from review by the independent regulator (the B.C. Utilities Commission) this time around.

Johansson has been part of a chorus of voices calling on the province to listen to the joint review panel’s recommendation to refer the project to the B.C. Utilities Commission for more in-depth analysis of costs and alternatives.

“It’s almost as though they worry that if they don’t get it done right away they won’t be able to do it,” the retired teacher says.

This week, Johansson was at a press conference in Vancouver trying to get the attention of the media and British Columbians. She brought Peace Valley watermelon, cantaloupe and honey for the crowd.  

One of the biggest obstacles for those in the Peace Valley is that their area — a 14-hour drive from Vancouver — is out of sight, out of mind for the majority of British Columbians. 

“If the decision-makers have to look out the window at the consequences of their decisions, they have to think harder about their decisions,” Johansson says.

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A time-lapsed map released today by the World Resources Institute using satellite imagery from Global Forest Watch shows how much forest is being lost in Northern Alberta to make way for major industrial operations, mainly to extract oil from the tar sands, also referred to as the oilsands.

According to the data compiled by Global Forest Watch, industrial development and forest fires in Canada's tar sands region have cleared or degraded almost 2 million acres (775,000 hectares) of boreal forest since 2000.

The pink regions depict forest loss. Watch what happens at year 2010:

The World Resources Institute and Global Forest Watch have been researching the world's boreal forests since 1990. According to their research, Canada holds the vast majority, 54 per cent, of the world's total boreal forest across a region of 500 million hectares or 14 times the size of California. Boreal forests hold twice as much carbon dioxide as tropical forests. 

Another map shows tree loss in the tar sands region between 2000 and 2012.

For more images, visit the World Resources Institute website.

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A draft version of a new investigative report released this week by Global Forest Watch and Treeline Ecological Research argues the series of underground leaks currently releasing a mixture of tar sands bitumen and water into a surrounding wetland and forest on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range is related to a similar set of spills caused by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) in-situ operations in 2009.

The cause of the 2009 seepage was never determined and details of an investigation by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), then called the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), weren’t made public until last year, four years after the initial incident.

The new report, called “CNRL’s Persistent 2013 Bitumen Releases Near Cold Lake, Alberta: Facts, Unanswered Questions, and Implications,” takes aim at the AER for allowing certain in-situ, or underground, tar sands extraction technologies to continue without adequately addressing “major unknowns.” The independent investigation reveals the AER continually fails to protect the public interest in relation to these spills and that both industry and government demonstrate 'dysfunction' in their lack of transparency with the public.

CNRL, the company responsible for both the 2009 and current leaks, uses a process called High Pressure Cyclic Steam Stimulation (HPCSS) to fracture underlying bedrock in order to extract bitumen under pressure. HPCSS uses extremely high pressures and temperatures to create underground fractures allowing for the migration of bitumen. According to the ERCB’s investigation of the 2009 incident, these underground fractures were offered as a potential explanation for the uncontrolled release of bitumen above ground.

Despite multiple investigations, regulators and industry were unable to definitively identify the cause of the 2009 incident. The new report’s two authors, Peter Lee and Dr. Kevin Timoney, suggest this lack of certainty makes the company’s continued operation in the area, and use of HPCSS technology, inexplicable.

“In light of the unquantified risks to the bitumen reservoir, groundwater, and the adjacent ecosystems, the decision by the ERCB to allow HPCSS to continue during and after the [2009] incident was unjustified by the available evidence,” the report states.

There are “spatial and temporal” reasons for believing the two incidents are related, claim the authors. An analysis of the time and locations of the seepage shows a consistent pattern of leaks, each migrating outwards from a central location where the 2009 incident occurred.

Although the causes of the incidents remain “unclear,” they write the seepage is “known to involve migration of bitumen emulsion through a network of vertical and horizontal fissures.”

A map of the affected areas in 2013 from the Global Forest Watch report.

“Due diligence dictates that all HPCSS operations should be suspended until major unknowns are addressed. If not, continued use of HPCSS may result in large and unpredictable costs, and those costs will not be borne by the energy companies but by future generations,” the report states.

Crystal Lameman, member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation whose traditional territory the seepage is within, says the ongoing situation calls into question the role and ultimate purpose of the AER. “What is their job, really?” Lameman asks. “What is their job and what is their agenda?”

The AER’s role depends upon their ability to regulate industry, she says. “They are supposed to be monitoring them and ensuring they are following through with the proper protocols, policies and procedures,” she said.

Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation. Credit Emma Pullman.

Lameman says the AER’s inability to prevent multiple releases of bitumen into the environment is difficult to understand.

“Are they becoming deliberately ignorant to what industry is doing? Are they turning a blind eye? I guess I’m asking these questions because I can’t think of any other reason these thing like the CNRL spill can happen, or not be stopped, or reported at a quicker rate. It causes concern for me as someone who lives in a tar sands impacted community.”

For Lameman, the ongoing incident in Cold Lake is a part of a longer-running pattern.

“Since they’ve changed their name from the ERCB to the AER, I’ve seen nothing but a bad track record in the way they report, in the way they provide comment, the lack of expediting information to local First Nations people. What I’ve found is that we’re often the last ones to find out about these spills.”

The Global Forest Watch report also criticizes both the AER and CNRL for failing to communicate adequately with the media and the general public. The lack of information, says Lameman, leaves impacted communities guessing.

“What next? Are we going to find out that the spill from ’09 has been ongoing since ’09? And the AER, at that time the ERCB, didn’t tell us? Are we going to find out next that CNRL was pumping at higher pressures than they were supposed to?” she asked. The question of dangerously high injection pressures is a concern also raised by Timoney and Lee in the investigative report.

For Lameman, the events on CNRL’s site bring to light the inherent dangers of extracting bitumen deposits with in-situ technologies. “We’re putting our guards down when we believe the AER when it says that in-situ and SAGD are safer methods. How? How are these safe?” she asked. “The more spills that happen, [the AER] is proven otherwise.”

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