As an active new landslide severs the only road to the Peace Valley community of Old Fort, residents want to know why the B.C. government is refusing to release information about an earlier landslide in the same location, near the Site C dam construction site. 

“What kind of information do you have that is so bad that you can’t share it?” asked Kali Chmelyk, one of 150 Old Fort residents who has been under an evacuation alert since June 19, shortly after residents first noticed cracks and buckling in the road following a heavy rainfall. 

Since then, an advancing wall of mud has eliminated more than 150 metres of the Old Fort access road, which was rebuilt after an October 2018 landslide wiped out part of the road, destroyed a home and prompted a local state of emergency. 

The new slide has picked up speed and has been moving towards the Peace River at approximately two metres per hour since 10 p.m. on June 21, according to the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.  

“It seems really shady,” Chmelyk said. “If we could at least know what’s going on, see the report, even if it’s a draft, that’s all I want. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why they would be withholding that.”

Last year, The Narwhal learned through a Freedom of Information request that the 2018 landslide, in an area underlaid by numerous natural gas leases and near one entrance to the Site C dam worksite, was classified as a “dangerous occurrence” under B.C.’s health, safety and reclamation code.

That triggered a geotechnical assessment to identify “the root cause and contributing factors” of the slide, according to a briefing note for Peter Robb, mining and energy assistant deputy minister.

In November 2019, the ministry told The Narwhal the assessment was not yet complete. 

‘It’s not right’: residents left with safety concerns following 2018 landslide near Site C dam

The Peace River Regional District subsequently filed a Freedom of Information request seeking all reports related to the landslide, which displaced eight million cubic metres of earth, cutting off Old Fort for one month.

But the provincial government refused to release the reports, telling the district, as reported by the Alaska Highway News, that disclosure would be harmful to law enforcement. 

“What does that even mean?” Brad Sperling, chair of the Peace River Regional District, asked at an April board meeting. “I’m really kind of confused about their response to this.” 

The district has requested that B.C.’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner review the decision.

Prior to the new slide, the regional district and the provincial government exchanged sometimes testy letters over who held responsibility for determining if the slopes around Old Fort were stable enough to lift an evacuation order and alert that have been in place since the 2018 landslide. The earlier order and alert affect six houses, portions of other properties and Crown land. 

Last August, the regional district board asked Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth for data and information to substantiate a claim by the minister that the area was unlikely to experience “a dramatic slippage of the remaining hillside that might further impact homes” in the Old Fort area.

In November, the regional district hired consulting and engineering firm Tetra Tech to conduct hazard assessments of the Old Fort and Buffioux Creek areas, to determine whether the emergency alerts and evacuation orders should remain in place. 

According to the FOI documents obtained by The Narwhal, a gravel mine that was stockpiling materials on the slope above Old Fort was not the root cause of the 2018 landslide. 

The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources said its investigation into the 2018 landslide is still ongoing. 

“While understanding the need for timely and robust investigations, the Chief Inspector will take the necessary time in order to adequately consider the information and prepare the investigation findings,” the ministry said in an email.

The 2018 landslide buckled the only road leading into the community of Old Fort, which sits on the north banks of the Peace River. A nearby house was pushed off of its foundation by the slide and had to be condemned not long after being built. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

The ministry said it does not release any documentation regarding such investigations while they are in progress, citing B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. 

The banks of the Peace River are notoriously unstable, sparking calls for an independent safety review of the $10.7 billion Site C dam, the largest publicly funded infrastructure project in B.C.’s history. 

On-going geotechnical problems have slowed work on the dam and have contributed to its escalating cost.

Photos taken this week of the Site C project site on the east side of the Moberly River, upstream from Old Fort, show a new landslide covering an access road to a waste rock dump for dam construction. Local residents say other, smaller landslides also occurred downstream of the dam project this week. 

The Joint Review Panel that examined the Site C dam for the federal and provincial governments found that slope instability and landslides in the valley “would potentially adversely affect” the project and “could result in landslide-generated waves or overtopping of the dam that could result in direct damage to infrastructure.”

According to the FOI documents obtained by The Narwhal, BC Hydro requested a Site C project field reconnaissance report from BGC Engineering Inc. immediately following the 2018 slide. The report was among at least six dozen pages redacted from the FOI response.

Chmelyk, who was working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic but took leave from her job as an administrative assistant once the new landslide began, said she and other Old Fort residents have opted to remain in their homes despite the evacuation alert.

Some people have dirt bikes and quads that can bypass the landslide, she said. Many residents moved their cars and recreational vehicles to the other side of the slide as soon as they saw the cracks, and stocked up on supplies such as food and drinking water before a portion of the road vanished.

Chmelyk said the slide moved about 50 metres in one night. “I couldn’t even see the road. You could just sit there and watch piece after piece after piece slough off.” 

Old Fort resident Scott Campbell, who has left his home and is staying at the Best Western hotel in Fort St. John so he can get to his construction job, said he’s frustrated because it’s unclear who is in charge of the landslide. 

When Campbell phoned the regional district, he said he was told to phone the transportation ministry. 

Campbell, who has lived in Old Fort for 20 years, said he also contacted the energy and mines ministry asking for information about the 2018 landslide, but got nowhere. 

“They’re being very hush-hush about it,’ he said. “We all think it should be transparent … We don’t know why there’s the secrecy here. We’re all very suspicious of that. We’ve got no reports of why they think the slide took place or who has liability here, or anything else. Nothing.”

Chmelyk said residents have no idea what the plan is. “I have no idea what even the next few hours will look like.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hydro said no,” says Boon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 16, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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Former prime minister Stephen Harper’s government issued 14 permits for work on the $9 billion Site C dam during the writ period of the last election — a move that was offside according to people familiar with the project and the workings of the federal government.

“By convention, only routine matters are dealt with after the writ is dropped,” said Harry Swain, the chair of the Joint Review Panel that reviewed the Site C dam. “Permits and licences are only issued when a government considers the matter to be non-controversial and of no great public importance.”

Swain served for 22 years in the federal government, ending as deputy minister of Indian and Northern Affairs and later Industry. In an exclusive interview with DeSmog Canada last year, Swain said the B.C. government shouldn’t have moved ahead with construction on the dam until the demand case became clearer.

Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May noticed all of the Site C permits had been issued in late September, just weeks before October’s federal election.   “They saw that they were unlikely to form government again so they began making appointments and decisions during the election,” May told DeSmog Canada. “Usually during the writ period the government operates as a care-taker government, doing what’s absolutely necessary.”   Land clearing has begun on the dam, while opposition has continued to grow. First Nations are challenging the project in court over treaty issues and a protest camp was set up in the construction zone in December. (In Photos: The Destruction of the Peace River Valley for the Site C Dam)   “These permits are really quite distressing,” May said. “You get two departments issuing all these permits in a two-week period. It looks orchestrated by the former government.”

‘The Honour of the Crown is at Stake’

A broad coalition of organizations from across Canada has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to halt construction of the Site C dam by refusing to issue further federal permits needed for construction of the project, which will flood 23,000 hectares of land along 107-kilometres of the Peace River Valley.   An open letter from the coalition urges Trudeau to rescind all permits and to re-examine the previous government’s approval of the dam, which was given despite the review panel’s finding that it would infringe upon the treaty rights under Treaty 8.   “It’s bad enough to have disputed lands devastated by damage like this. But to have actual treaty rights and treaty-protected activities essentially removed … the honour of the Crown is at stake in something like this,” May said. “The Crown chose to ignore a finding in the review that these treaty rights were going to be irreparably harmed.”   May argued that, given its commitment to a new relationship with Canada’s First Nations, the federal government shouldn’t issue any further permits.   “They can’t undo permits that have already been issued or replace forests that have already been clear-cut, but any future permits need to have a very huge hold until treaty rights issues are resolved,” she said. 

“The review panel’s report clearly stated that not only was there massive environmental damage that could not be mitigated but that the erosion of treaty rights could not be mitigated. That’s an astonishing conclusion. Especially since the panel also found that the public interest case was pretty muddy.”

BC Hydro in Court for Injunction Against Protest Camp Monday

BC Hydro is scheduled to go to court on Monday to seek an injunction to have the protest camp removed. Documents filed in that case focus on financial issues, with BC Hydro arguing a delay in construction will cost it money, while expert witnesses for the protesters argue that a one-year delay will actually save taxpayers $267 million because power demand forecasts have fallen.   BC Hydro has always argued the financial argument for the project is strong because of growing power demand, but economists and the crown corporation’s former CEO Marc Eliesen have challenged that and called for a third-party assessment.

Site C Dam Slated For Audit

Meantime, B.C.’s Auditor-General stated this week that the Site C dam has been identified as a project needing an audit, but no timeline has been set for that work.   “As a British Columbia ratepayer it’s very clear that Site C is likely to put British Columbia into a negative economic situation, at least at the beginning of its lifespan without any benefit to British Columbians,” May said. “It’s for the LNG industry.”   Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, added his voice to the call for a delay in Site C construction in the legislature on Thursday, citing significant risk to taxpayers and the provincial economy.   “Site C should have been subject to the B.C. Utilities Commission, but the government felt it would slow down their political agenda too much,” he said. “It is risky and foolish. British Columbians are going to be paying for this project for decades.”   Weaver argued that in the absence of a vastly expanded LNG industry, the power from the Site C dam won’t be needed — an argument DeSmog Canada has explored in depth.

Wind Energy Association Driven Out of Province

Weaver also warned on Thursday that proceeding with Site C is actively driving clean energy investment out of the province.   Two weeks ago the Canadian Wind Energy Association announced it was closing up shop in B.C. because of a lack of opportunity to develop new wind projects in the province. Instead, the association will focus on Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“We obviously have limited resources, and we’re going to focus our efforts on those markets which provide the greatest opportunities in the short term to see more wind energy deployed in the country,” CanWEA president Robert Hornung told Business in Vancouver.

Hornung added: “While B.C. has tremendous untapped potential for wind energy … it’s also true that, at this time, there’s no vision of short-term opportunities emerging in B.C.”

Industrial demand for power in B.C. is falling due to the closure of mines and pulp and paper mills, both big electricity consumers. And with the Site C dam on the books, BC Hydro doesn’t anticipate any calls for power until 2030 — which means the prospects of new wind power projects have effectively been killed.

"Rather than let the market take the risk for energy infrastructure projects, this government is using billions of taxpayer dollars to get Site C ‘past the point of no return,’ ” Weaver said.

George Heyman, the NDP critic for the green economy, told the Georgia Straight this week that the government is failing to support renewable energy.

"That's a problem for development of jobs and industry in every corner of B.C.," Heyman said. 

"And it's a problem for British Columbians who think we should be taking advantage of dropping tech prices and advancing technology in both wind and solar and other forms of energy production — instead of throwing all of our eggs into the basket of one big dam in Northeast B.C. with a price tag that's likely to go up steeply in the coming years."

You can click here to read more about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and climate change.

Image: Construction on the Site C Dam by Garth Lenz.

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The Peace Valley old-growth forest slated to be clear cut for the Site C dam is just as important, if not more ecologically significant, than the Great Bear Rainforest, says the wildlife biologist and retired provincial government manager who wrote B.C.’s management plan for the area.   “It’s more important from a biodiversity point of view because there’s far less of it,” Rod Backmeyer said in a phone interview.   “The boreal forest hasn’t had the high profile [of the Great Bear Rainforest]. You don’t get those classic giant trees with moss covered ground and logs under them that are so picturesque. It’s different here. It doesn’t mean that it has less value. It just doesn’t have that romantic flavour that some of the coastal old-growth has.”   The forest, on the south bank of the Peace River near its confluence with the Moberly River, surrounds an historic fort site where Peace Valley farmers and First Nations members have camped since New Year’s Eve. BC Hydro contractors built a logging bridge across the mouth of the Moberly during the Christmas holidays, but clear-cutting stopped when campers and their supporters, including First Nations elders, began to maintain a constant vigil near logging equipment.

The forest around the Rocky Mountain Fort site is so ecologically important that the B.C. government gave it three different protective designations. It is a designated Old-Growth Management Area, with centuries-old poplar, spruce and cottonwood trees that offer prime habitat for at-risk species like the fisher, which moves its young from nest to nest in tree cavities.   The area is also considered to be critical habitat for moose, and carries an official designation as Ungulate Winter Habitat. It provides increasingly rare winter habitat for the moose population, which is in such sharp decline in the Peace and elsewhere in B.C. that the provincial government has commissioned a five-year study to probe reasons for the die-off.   “You’re going to lose a lot of the critical winter range,” Backmeyer said of the planned logging. "We’re going to lose all of that lower slope and the big timber in the valley that’s the thermal cover and the security cover during those big storm events. It’s going to be gone.”   In addition to the old-growth and ungulate winter range designations, the area targeted for immediate clear cutting was set aside by the provincial government in 1969 as part of the South Peace Land Reserve that aims to protect unique wildlife values, including habitat for the elusive and at-risk wolverine.   The reserve contains some of the “highest wildlife values in the entire Peace,” according to the management plan that Backmeyer wrote in 1992 while working as a consultant. He was subsequently hired by the B.C. Ministry of the Environment as a wildlife biologist and later managed major projects for the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.   Even though the area around the Rocky Mountain Fort site is not slated to be flooded until 2024, B.C. Energy Minister Bill Bennett has said clear cutting must take place by this March 31, before songbirds return to nest.   Canada is a signatory to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, which prevents migratory birds from being killed or their nests from being destroyed.   Myke Chutter, a bird specialist with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, said mortality is significantly reduced if logging takes place before “the empty forest comes alive” with birds building nests and hatching their young. He said it is also illegal under the B.C. Wildlife Act to log trees with active songbird nests.   The land reserve provides important nesting habitat for four at-risk songbird species found nowhere in B.C. but in the Peace River Valley, according to the South Peace Land Reserve management plan.   These are the Black-throated Green Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, Mourning Warbler and Canada Warbler. (Since the management plan was written, the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of British Columbia has confirmed sightings of two of these species, the Canada Warbler and Mourning Warbler, in a small zone to the north of the Peace Valley.)   B.C.’s Conservation Data Centre, which maps known locations of at-risk species and ecological communities, lists the Canada Warbler and Black-throated Green Warbler as occurring around the Rocky Mountain Fort site.

Canada Warbler. Photo: Garth McElroy/Vireo from the Audobon Society.   The Canada Warbler, a small yellow and grey songbird with a white ring around its eye, is one of five migratory bird species whose sustainability could be threatened by Site C, according to a BC Hydro submission to the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C for the federal and provincial governments.     That review panel concluded that the Site C dam and its huge reservoir would likely cause “significant adverse effects to migratory birds relying on valley bottom habitat during their life cycle and these losses would be permanent and cannot be mitigated.”   Environment Canada, in its submission to the Joint Review Panel, said it agreed with BC Hydro that the dam and its reservoir would pose “significant residual adverse effects” to at-risk migratory bird species.   The federal department went on to say that these adverse effects are potentially of greater magnitude than BC Hydro concluded, that a broader suite of migratory birds will potentially be affected by Site C than BC Hydro reported, and that the loss of nesting habitat to migratory birds and species at risk “has not been fully assessed.”   The land reserve, including the area around the Rocky Mountain Fort site, has such high environmental values that the majority of it was slated to become a provincial protected area.   The 7,000-hectare Peace Boudreau Protected Area was set aside in the 1980s but was never formally been designated by the B.C. Cabinet.   In 2015, the B.C. government assured the Saulteau First Nation it would protect Peace Boudreau as part of a Site C impact benefits agreement that was reached but not signed.   Up to one-third of the proposed protected area would be destroyed by the Site C reservoir, including the forest and river flats around the Rocky Mountain Fort site.   Backmeyer said the Peace is unusual because it is a low elevation valley that supports starkly different ecosystems and wildlife.   “It’s so unique in that you get almost semi-desert on one side of the valley and you get old growth spruce right across the river. You don’t find that anywhere else in B.C., that’s for sure.”

Image: U.S. Fish and Wildlife

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

With the December Paris climate agreement, leaders and experts from around the world showed they overwhelmingly accept that human-caused climate change is real and, because the world has continued to increase fossil fuel use, the need to curb and reduce emissions is urgent.

In light of this, I don’t get the current brouhaha over the Trans Mountain, Keystone XL, Northern Gateway or the Energy East pipelines. Why are politicians contemplating spending billions on pipelines when the Paris commitment means 75 to 80 per cent of known fossil fuel deposits must be left in the ground?

Didn’t our prime minister, with provincial and territorial premiers, mayors and representatives from non-profit organizations, parade before the media to announce Canada now takes climate change seriously? I joined millions of Canadians who felt an oppressive weight had lifted and cheered mightily to hear that our country committed to keeping emissions at levels that would ensure the world doesn’t heat by more than 1.5 C by the end of this century. With the global average temperature already one degree higher than pre-industrial levels, a half a degree more leaves no room for business as usual.

The former government’s drive to make Canada a petro superpower distorted the Canadian economy into greater fossil fuel dependence, with catastrophic consequences when the price of oil collapsed. The lesson should have been learned long ago: Heavy dependence on a single revenue stream like fish, trees, wheat, minerals or even one factory or industry is hazardous if that source suffers a reversal in fortune like resource depletion, unanticipated cost fluctuations or stiff competition.

Coal stocks have already sunk to the floor, so why is there talk of building or expanding coal terminals? Low oil prices have pushed oilsands bitumen toward unprofitability, so why the discussion of expanding this carbon-intensive industry? Fracking is unbelievably unsustainable because of the immense amounts of water used in the process, seismic destabilization and escape of hyper-warming methane from wells. Exploration for new oil deposits — especially in hazardous areas like the deep ocean, the Arctic and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other critical wildlife habitat — should stop immediately.

Pipeline arguments are especially discouraging, with people claiming Quebec is working against the interests of Alberta and Canada because the leadership of the Montreal Metropolitan Community — representing 82 municipalities and nearly half the province’s population — voted overwhelmingly to reject the proposed Energy East pipeline project, which would carry 1.1 million barrels of oilsands bitumen and other oil products from Alberta to refineries and ports in the east. Some have thrown out the anti-democratic and, frankly, anti-Canadian notion that because Quebec has received equalization payments it should shut up about pipeline projects.

National unity is about steering Canada onto a sustainable track and looking out for the interests of all Canadians. Continuing to build fossil fuel infrastructure and locking ourselves into a future of increasing global warming isn’t the way to go about it. Shifting to a 21st century clean-energy economy would create more jobs, unity and prosperity — across Canada and not just in one region — than continuing to rely on a polluting, climate-altering sunset industry. Leaders in Quebec should be commended for taking a strong stand for the environment and climate — and for all of Canada.

The Paris target means we have to rethink everything. Energy is at the heart of modern society, but we have to get off fossil fuels. Should we expand airports when aircraft are the most energy-intensive ways to travel? Why build massive bridges and tunnels when we must transport goods and people differently? The global system in which food travels thousands of kilometres from where it’s grown to where it’s consumed makes no sense in a carbon-constrained world. Agriculture must become more local, so the Peace Valley must serve as the breadbasket of the North rather than a flooded area behind a dam.

The urgency of the need for change demands that we rethink our entire energy potential and the way we live. It makes no sense to continue acting as if we’ve got all the time in the world to get off the path that created the crisis in the first place. That’s the challenge, and for our politicians, it’s a huge task as well as a great opportunity.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Photo: Shannon Ramos via Flickr

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Over the past four decades, B.C. taxpayers have footed a multi-million dollar bill for BC Hydro to purchase prime Peace Valley farmland in anticipation of building the Site C dam.

In 2012, the latest year for which figures are available, BC Hydro owned almost 1,000 hectares of Peace Valley farmland that would be affected by Site C, an area the size of two and a half Stanley Parks.

BC Hydro declined to reveal how much money it has spent buying farmland in the Peace Valley, but one report says the crown corporation shelled out $6.3 million on agricultural land purchases in the valley in the 11-year period from 1970 to 1981.

BC Hydro’s 2012 holdings included 740 hectares of farmland in the Agricultural Land Reserve and 250 hectares of farmland outside the ALR. In 2012, the crown corporation owned more Class 1 to Class 3 farmland within Site C’s “Project Activity Zone” than all the individual farming families combined. BC Hydro has also purchased an unknown number of hectares of farmland outside Site C’s “Project Activity Zone.” 

Peace Valley farmers say BC Hydro’s ownership of some of the valley’s best farmland, coupled with a 1957 flood reserve, has discouraged local farmers from growing much more than hay, wheat, canola and forage crops, which require far fewer investments than fruit and vegetable production, even though the valley has among the province’s most fertile soils, capable of growing a wide array of produce.

Ross Peck, a Peace Valley farmer who raises horses and grows wheat and canola on land that will be flooded by Site C, says farmers have been discouraged from spending money on irrigation or equipment that would allow them to diversify agricultural production.

“We’ve been in a holding pattern with our properties, not wanting to put much in the way of investment into them,” says Peck.

As a result, the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C’s impacts concluded that the valley’s contribution to B.C. agriculture was negligible and that only $22 million worth of crops would be lost during the predicted 100-year lifespan of Site C.

When B.C. agrologist Wendy Holm examined agricultural values that would be lost if Site C goes ahead, she calculated that 1,800 hectares of the best farmland on the Site C chopping block could produce enough fruit and vegetables to meet the nutritional needs of one million people a year.

“That’s a conservative estimate,” says Holm, whose work in agricultural economics received a Queen’s Golden Jubilee medal. “We have this breadbasket sitting right there, and it’s closer to Vancouver than [California’s] Central Valley.”

As climate change brings drought to California and other parts of the world, including to the Canadian Prairies, Holm says B.C. will need the 6,500 hectares of Peace Valley farmland that will be destroyed by Site C. An additional 5,900 hectares of valley farmland — more than all the farmland in Richmond — is at risk of being lost to the $8.8 billion dam and its 107-kilometre long reservoir.

“That land, even though it’s not being used now, will be needed in the future,” says Holm. “We could have co-ops of young people up there growing organic fruits and vegetables for British Columbia and the north in a heart beat.”

More than one-third of B.C.’s vegetable imports are from California, including 95 per cent of broccoli imports and 34 percent of lettuce imports. The drought means that British Columbians can soon expect to pay 34 per cent more for fruit and vegetables, according to a VanCity study that says broccoli alone could fetch seven dollars a pound by 2019.

The jump in food prices has already begun; in November Statistics Canada reported that over the past year our fresh fruit prices jumped by thirteen per cent, vegetables by fourteen per cent and meat by five per cent.

Despite the northerly location of the Peace Valley, its farming potential rivals that of the lower Fraser Valley, according to Vancouver soil scientist Eveline Wolterson. The valley contains some of the richest soils in the province and its unusual east-west orientation means that it receives more hours of summer sun than the Fraser Valley, compensating for a shorter growing season. Milder winters than in the Okanagan broaden the range of crops that can overwinter in the Peace.

“It’s counter intuitive,” says Wolterson, describing the Peace Valley’s growing climate as “equal, if not slightly better, than in the lower Fraser.”

Unlike California and other farming regions that are expected to continue to suffer from drought, agricultural production in the Peace Valley will benefit from global warming.

Modeling by University of Victoria scientists shows that climate change will reap a noteworthy increase in the number of frost-free periods and growing days in the Peace. In BC Hydro’s words, “a significant improvement in climatic capability for agriculture is predicted” for the Peace River Valley.

The climate change-induced changes will be so pronounced in the Peace Valley that a BC Hydro technical memo says that Class 2 and Class 3 farmland in the Site C flood and erosion zones would become Class 1 farmland, further enhancing the valley’s agricultural capability.

The valley’s rich soil and ideal growing climate have long given it an international reputation for high crop yields.

Third generation Peace Valley farmer Colin Meek recently won a 2015 yield challenge put on by seed company Dekalb. Meek topped the competition elsewhere in the B.C. Peace region and in Alberta’s Peace region when he grew 58 bushels of canola per acre on a field next to the Peace River. The highest yielding area of that field will be eradicated by Site C floodwaters, along with access to the field. The same field also falls within BC Hydro’s “Stability Impact Zone” and faces potential destruction when the banks of the Peace River crumble as the reservoir fills.

“I came back to work on the family farm from the oil patch because I realized that I’ll never be able to eat oil, drink liquefied natural gas, or breath electricity, but that I can help feed the world and clean the air with the food I grow,” Meek wrote in a December 2015 letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau which discussed the agricultural potential of the Peace Valley and asked Trudeau to stop Site C.

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Trees are already being felled in the Peace River Valley and site preparation is underway for the $8.8-billion Site C dam, which was given the go-ahead by the B.C. government in December, but on Wednesday MLAs spent the afternoon debating the megaproject.

The belated debate on the controversial project, which will flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries creating an 83-kilometre-long reservoir, was sparked by a resolution endorsing the project put forward by Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett.

The motion, which, as expected, sailed through with 39 votes in favour and 29  votes against, said the House supports Site C because “it represents the most affordable way to generate 1,100 megawatts of clean reliable power; and the Site C Clean Energy Project will create jobs for thousands of British Columbians; and the Site C Clean Energy Project has been the subject of a thorough environmental review process” — all points disputed by Site C critics, including First Nations, area residents and farmland advocates.

The debate comes on the heels of a Union of B.C. Municipalities resolution which calls on the province to send the hydroelectric dam project to the B.C. Utilities Commission for review and consultation because Site C has “raised issues, including the potential impact on B.C. Hydro ratepayers and provincial taxpayers.”

But Bennett said in the legislature that Site C has already been reviewed by several levels of experts.

“We have examined the need. We have examined the cost. We have examined the alternatives. We’ve examined the impacts. We’ve worked with First Nations as best we can. We’ve examined the environmental impact. We’ve examined the impact on agriculture. Yet the NDP claims to have a position that that’s not good enough,” he said.

In an exclusive interview with DeSmog Canada, however, Harry Swain, the chair of the Site C joint review panel, said the province should have waited to make a decision on the project until after review by the B.C. Utilities Commission. He described the failure to investigate alternatives to the dam as a “dereliction of duty.”

In addition the former CEO of BC Hydro, Marc Eliesen, said ratepayers in B.C. will face “devastating” increases to their electricity bills if Site C goes through.

The resolution appeared aimed at flushing out the views of New Democrats. The NDP is calling for a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, but, while some New Democrats are adamantly against the dam, others have not come out against the project, which is supported by many union members.

“I’m hopeful that members of the opposition will let us know where they stand,” Bennett said.

It was a stance that infuriated New Democrat Scott Fraser, who called the motion a political stunt.

“The B.C. Liberals forced through the approval of this project already. They started construction five weeks ago,” he said.

“This motion is just a political game. It has no bearing one way or another on the outcome.”

No NDP MLAs voted in favour of the motion.

Green Party MLA Andrew Weaver said in an interview it is the type of debate that MLAs should be having — but it should have happened before a decision was made.

“I think this place would function a lot better if they had more debates like this, but they have to be meaningful, which means having them before they start construction and cutting down trees,” he said.

The NDP has been “floundering” on the topic, said Weaver, who wants government to rethink the project.

“I have been pointing out for several years now that Site C is the wrong project at the wrong time,” he said.

“There are clear, viable and cheaper alternatives which the government is deliberately ignoring in order to justify a truly damaging decision. Imagine if we invested $9-billion into the clean technology sector, what a boost that would mean to the economy and employment around the province.”

For New Democrats such as George Heyman, the promise of 10,000 jobs does not compare to the number of jobs he believes could be created through smaller power projects, alternative energy — such as geothermal, wind and solar — and reducing energy requirements by retrofitting homes.

“Why would you settle for so few jobs when other alternatives have the potential for many more jobs?” asked Heyman, who also took issue with the Site C costs, which, he said have escalated by almost $1-billion in the course of a year.

“This government is addicted to expensive megaprojects that spiral out of control,” he said.

Outside the legislature speakers at a rally, attended by more than 100 people, also called for the government to rethink its decision.

Organizer Ana Simeon, Sierra Club of B.C. coordinator, said she believes the debate was held because the UBCM vote and continuing First Nations opposition is making the government nervous.

There are also other challenges in the works including court appeals by the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations and the Peace Valley Landowner Association, that will be heard in November, and a UNESCO investigation into threats posed by Site C to the Peace/Athabasca delta and Wood Buffalo National Park, Simeon said.

“The two reasons we are so adamantly opposed to this are First Nations opposition — after the Tsilhqot’in decision it is unconscionable to ram something like this through — and the food security situation is getting really serious. This valley has strategic importance for B.C.,” she said.

Image: Larissa Stendie via Twitter

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In an exclusive interview with DeSmog Canada, former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen says ratepayers will face a “devastating” increase in their electricity bills if the Site C dam is built and emphasizes there is no rush to build new sources of power generation in B.C.

“With Site C, BC Hydro ratepayers will be facing a devastating increase of anywhere between 30 and 40 per cent over the next three years,” Eliesen told DeSmog Canada in his first interview on the subject.

“There’s no rush. There’s no immediate need for Site C or any other alternative energy,” he said.

Eliesen’s comment about the lack of immediate need for the power echoes statements made by Harry Swain, the chair of the panel that reviewed the Site C hydro dam for the provincial and federal governments. In March, Swain told DeSmog Canada the B.C. government should have held off on making a decision on the dam.

With a price tag of $8.8 billion, the 1,100-megawatt Site C dam is the most expensive public project in B.C. history. The hydro dam, which would impact 13,000 hectares of agricultural land, has been proposed for the Peace River for three decades.

In late 2014, the provincial and federal governments approved the project and this July construction permits were issued despite pending court challenges by First Nations.

Eliesen, an economist by training, has also served as chairman and CEO of Ontario Hydro, chairman of Manitoba Hydro and has held senior roles with the federal government and the governments of Ontario and Manitoba. In November, Eliesen called the National Energy Board’s review process for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline “fraudulent” and a “public deception” as he dropped out of the process.

Failure to Consider Columbia River Power ‘Non-Sensical’

Eliesen said there is no rush to build new generating capacity in B.C., leaving “more than sufficient time to evaluate alternatives” that are more cost effective and minimize environmental impacts.

The alternatives include everything from geothermal to BC Hydro’s Burrard Thermal plant — due to be decommissioned in 2016 — to the 1,100 megawatts of electricity B.C. has access to through the Columbia River Treaty, Eliesen said.

Not considering using the Columbia River power to meet B.C.’s needs is “non-sensical,” Eliesen said.  (See: The Forgotten Electricity that Could Eliminate Need for Site C Dam)

“If there is a demand for the power, well you clearly have an available supply, which you can depend on,” he said.

“If there was some massive escalation in demand that you needed immediately, well my goodness, you’ve got two instant sources: there’s 1,100 megawatts from the Columbia River and almost another 1,000 from the Burrard Thermal Plant, which was converted from coal to natural gas some time ago.”

Mining, LNG Companies Not Paying ‘Fair Share’

Eliesen also critiqued BC Hydro for adopting a price structure that results in everyday British Columbians subsidizing heavy power users.

“Whether it’s mining or proposed LNG plants or anything of that nature …  They’re all subsidized by other hydro ratepayers. Those heavy power users do not pay the true cost,” Eliesen said. “They are not paying their fair share.”

The B.C. Utilities Commission used to review the cost of service, but that doesn’t take place any more, Eliesen said.

“The provincial government basically declared we don’t want the commission — we don’t want anyone — looking at BC Hydro plans. I think the result has been quite devastating.”

The B.C. government exempted the Site C dam from a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, despite calls from its own expert panel to refer the project for an independent review of costs and need. The province’s failure to consider the panel’s recommendations has since become the basis for the Peace Valley Landowners Association court challenge against the Site C dam.

Eliesen noted other jurisdictions are conducting much more thorough analyses of hydro projects, noting two projects in Manitoba he recently advised on. 

“They went through the most detailed evaluation by the Manitoba Public Utilities Board that ever could have taken place,” Eliesen said. “The kind of analysis and investigation and due diligence that was taken has never taken place recently in British Columbia.”

Site C Dam Price Tag Likely to Escalate

In 1993, when Eliesen was the president and CEO of BC Hydro, he issued a public statement on behalf of the board stating that Site C would never be built because of its significant negative environmental, economic and social impacts.

That position quietly went by the wayside when the Gordon Campbell government was elected, Eliesen said, noting that electricity costs have increased at a far quicker rates than other jurisdictions since then.

Over the years, Eliesen has seen the cost of the Site C dam nearly double. 

“I’ve seen the costs of Site C escalate enormously,” he says. “It used to be $5, $6 billion, then it was $7.9, now it’s $8.8 billion. It’ll easily reach, if it’s ever built, in the $11 to $12 billion dollar range.”

Eliesen says the costs of Site C haven’t been adequately reviewed and there are “too many conflicting interests in BC Hydro for it to undertake its own due diligence on this matter.”

Calls for a moratorium on construction on Site C have gained strength recently with the Greater Vancouver Regional District and Peace River Regional District both calling on Premier Christy Clark to pause the project while active court cases are completed

On July 23, the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union announced its opposition to the Site C dam due to its violation of indigenous rights and the massive loss of habitat and agricultural lands.

Site C Dam ‘Doesn’t Make Any Sense’

Despite the growing calls for a moratorium, the B.C. government appears hell-bent on pushing ahead with building the dam.

Asked why the government continues to push ahead, Eliesen said it doesn’t make any sense.

“Well I can’t talk for the government, so I don’t know, other than they want some major project undertaken during their current election term,” he said.

“It doesn’t make sense in the context of environment, it doesn’t make sense in the context of wanting to work with First Nations and it doesn’t make sense, more specifically, on the economic impact because the B.C. ratepayer will pay enormously over the next three years.”

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Revelations from DeSmog Canada’s exclusive sit-down interview with Harry Swain, the chair of the panel that reviewed the $8.8 billion Site C dam, were raised during question period in the B.C. legislature on Thursday.

Andrew Weaver, Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA and Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party, asked the government about the economics of the Site C dam project in light of Swain’s unprecedented interview.

Swain, a former Deputy Minister of Industry Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, is thought to be the first review panel member in Canadian history to speak out about a project in this manner. His comments to DeSmog Canada prompted follow-up by the Globe and Mail, CBC, CKNW and CFAX.

“Mr. Swain was very clear that the government was rushed in approving Site C, and British Columbians will pay for their haste,” Weaver said during question period. “As Mr. Swain said: ‘Wisdom would have been waiting for two, three, four years to see whether the projections they’ — that’s BC Hydro — ‘were making had any basis in fact.’ That’s not exactly a glowing endorsement for the fiscal underpinning of Site C.”

The panel that reviewed Site C predicted that the dam will lose $800 million in its first four years of production while it sells excess power for a third of its cost on the export market.

“My goodness, we could use that money to build a state-of-the-art sewage system in Victoria,” Weaver quipped.

Weaver continued during question period:

“Mr. Swain is only the most recent person to suggest waiting a few years to see if electricity demand for the project materializes. We could still build Site C down the road if necessary, but we could use the additional time to properly explore cheaper alternatives like our vast geothermal potential in B.C. We have the time. LNG final investment decisions are delayed or not happening at all or somewhere down the yellow brick road or perhaps in never-never land.”

Weaver asked Bill Bennett, the Minister of Energy and Mines: “Given the massive costs associated with rushing into Site C, will he hit the pause button on construction for two to four years, as recommended by Mr. Swain, and use the time to save British Columbians money and explore viable alternatives?"

Bennett responded saying, “I categorically disagree with the premise of the question” and then went on to say: “Fair enough questions about the need for the electricity, the cost of the project. These are all legitimate issues that we should be debating in this House.”

Bennett then quoted several excerpts from the panel’s report, including that Site C “would be the least expensive of the alternatives, and its cost advantages would increase with passing decades as inflation makes alternatives more costly” and that BC Hydro “has done a responsible job in forecasting.”

The panel's report also said it did not have the information, time or resources to look at the accuracy of cost estimates and recommended that, if the project proceeds, costs and need should be examined in detail by the province’s independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission. The panel noted it could not conclude the dam was needed on the schedule presented and said the province had failed to investigate alternatives — something it was instructed to do 32 years ago, when the utilities commission first turned down the Site C dam on the Peace River. 

Swain called this failure to research alternatives a ‘dereliction of duty’ in his interview with DeSmog Canada.

“Those are very strong words from a very highly regarded senior official from the Canadian government,” Weaver said Thursday in the legislature. “To be even more blunt, it’s recklessness on the part of the government.”

Weaver continued:

"What we need right now is a government that is willing to show leadership on this, willing to put good policy ahead of ideological politics. My question to the minister is this. Will he listen to the call from every member of this side of the House, along with the expert opinion of the joint review panel and countless others, to send the Site C project to the British Columbia Utilities Commission for a proper regulatory review?"

Bennett continued his refusal to send the project for a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Bennett responded:

"B.C. Hydro figures that we’re going to need 1,100 megawatts of electricity in 2024. We set about, over the past two years, to determine what’s the best way to get that 1,100 megawatts of electricity. We looked at absolutely everything, and the decision that we made on this side of the House was to honour the ratepayer. We chose the option that is the fairest, lowest cost to the ratepayer, but that side of the House wants us to do something different."

But the panel that reviewed the Site C proposal found the government hadn't looked at "absolutely everything," as Bennett states.

“The panel concludes that a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs,” the panel's report read.

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) has argued geothermal can meet all of B.C.’s future energy needs at a lower cost than Site C with fewer environmental impacts. The association has requested meetings with Minister Bennett with no success.

"We welcome him to become more informed and to engage in constructive dialogue with the association and with our members," said Alison Thompson, chair of CanGEA.

In a press release, Weaver said the minister's talking points are missing the point. “This dam didn’t make sense for B.C. thirty years ago, and it doesn’t make sense now.”

“The question that needs to be asked is what’s the rush?” Weaver added. “LNG isn’t materializing along the timeline promised by government. Even if B.C. Hydro’s current projections are true, we still have up to four years before we need to start building the dam. We should use that time to explore alternatives before embarking on the largest infrastructure project in B.C. history.”

The full official transcript of the exchange in the Legislature can be viewed on Hansard.

BC Hydro is scheduled to begin construction on the Site C dam this summer, but the project is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.  

The dam would be the third on the Peace River and would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley, impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land. The project is opposed by B.C.’s Treaty 8 First Nations, several of which have filed lawsuits.

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Part 1 of DeSmog Canada’s exclusive sit-down interview with Harry Swain, the man who chaired the panel tasked with reviewing BC Hydro’s Site C dam, sparked a firestorm of activity on Tuesday.

Energy Minister Bill Bennett responded to Swain’s critique in the Globe and Mail, the B.C. NDP issued a statement on Swain’s comments and an environmental law expert called the statements “unprecedented.”

Martin Olszynski, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, said Swain’s comments are extremely rare.

“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that a panel member has spoken about a previous report in this manner,” Olszynski, an expert in environmental assessment, said. “To my knowledge, it’s unprecedented.”

The concerns Swain raises are not unusual though, Olszynski pointed out.

“The course of actions taken by the B.C. and federal governments in this case are not atypical,” he said. “They very often will ignore, or pay only lip service to, the recommendations of their expert panels. If you talked to other people who have served on similar panels — if they were willing to talk — they might express similar frustration.”

Geothermal Recommendations for B.C. Ignored …. For 32 Years

Certainly, the issue of recommendations being ignored is a live one in the case of the 1,100-megawatt Site C dam proposed for the Peace River. The dam is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.

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But beyond that, one of the key issues the panel raised in its report was the B.C. government’s failure to follow a recommendation to investigate alternatives to the dam, particularly geothermal — a recommendation made 32 years ago by the B.C. Utilities Commission when it first turned down the Site C proposal.

“The province or the province and its wholly owned subsidiary BC Hydro should have taken to heart the admonitions of the utilities commission 32 years ago and done some of the basic work that would allow an industry to develop,” Swain told DeSmog Canada. “But they didn’t do it, so there we are.”

In speaking notes obtained by DeSmog Canada, the province prepares to deflect questions about why it hasn’t pursued geothermal.

“While geothermal energy has a role to play in British Columbia, it has been slow to develop and has not developed the track record to reliably meet today’s growing demand,” read the notes prepared for the government’s Site C announcement in December.

Asked what he makes of that statement, Swain responded: “Dereliction of duty.”

The B.C. government has the principal responsibility for lands and resources under the constitution, Swain said.

“And in that sense, the province owes — in my view — an obligation to the citizens of B.C. to do a lot of basic mapping and exploration,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a major resource industry in this country that didn’t start without governments doing some of the basic work.”

Canada is the only country around the Pacific Ring of Fire that does not produce geothermal power at a commercial scale.

Vast Amount of Data Available From Gas Drillers on Geothermal Potential

In the past three decades, technological advances have led to the discovery of even more geothermal potential in B.C. — including in the Peace Country, where the Site C dam is proposed.

“Up in the Peace, in the very strata that are being drilled for natural gas, there’s a lot of hot water,” Swain said. “Moreover, since the well logs of exploration and drilling companies are supposed to be deposited with the provincial government, there is a vast amount of information available. It was surprising to me that no attempt had been made to exploit that information.”

The challenge is that currently BC Hydro, the province’s crown energy corporation, is forbidden by law to involve itself in projects beyond big hydro and large transmission projects.

“All of the other production stuff is to come from the holy private sector,” Swain said.

To prevent future governments and panels from being “seriously uninformed” again, the panel recommended that, regardless of the decision taken on Site C, BC Hydro establish a research and development budget for the characterization of geographically diverse renewable resources.

“It’s probably fair to say that institutionally Hydro really, really wants to build this,” Swain said. “And that’s perfectly understandable. If you ask the Ford company, ‘what would you like to do?’ they’ll say ‘build cars.’ If you ask Boeing ‘what’s the solution to our transportation problems?’ they’ll say ‘airplanes.’ ”

The Canadian Geothermal Energy Association has argued geothermal can meet B.C.’s future energy needs at a lower cost than Site C with fewer environmental impacts. The association has called for a one-year moratorium on Site C to allow time for further due diligence on geothermal.

The LNG Wild Card: Inconsistency in Province’s Statements

One of the B.C. government’s go-to talking points on Site C has been that the dam is needed to power the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry. In a Jan. 30th letter to the Peace River Regional District, Energy Minister Bill Bennett wrote that liquefied natural gas facilities would drive more electricity demand than the Joint Review Panel accounted for in its report (due to an addition error).

Swain says that, although there was an addition error in the report, it doesn’t change the conclusion: demand for the dam wasn’t proven.

“Given skepticism about LNG and about demand elasticity, I see no reason to modify the conclusion,” Swain said. “Frankly, I think their low-demand figure was probably overstated. So far there is no evidence that even their low usage scenario is likely to take place.”

Beyond that, if the province’s original LNG dreams had come to pass as quickly as they’d stated and if the plants had relied on grid electricity (two big ifs), that power would have been needed well ahead of Site C’s in-service date of 2024. A single LNG plant can require as much as 700 megawatts of electricity to run the giant compressors required to cool gas to 163 degrees below zero; at least 10 plants are proposed for B.C.’s coast, but it’s unclear whether any will come to fruition.

“If the initial scenario took place, the power demand would arise a long time before Site C could be built,” Swain said. “There really wasn’t a compatibility between the two statements of the province if you think of one statement about the development of the LNG industry and the second about the timeframe in which Site C was to be built. By their own story, they had an inconsistency.”

Site C Dam ‘No Ordinary Project’

About 20 B.C. local governments have asked the government to send Site C to the B.C. Utilities Commission to further investigate demand and costs — a recommendation made in the panel’s report and echoed by Swain in Part 1 of his interview with DeSmog Canada.

With a price tag of $8.8 billion, Site C would constitute the largest expenditure of public money in B.C. history.

“Site C is not an ordinary project,” the panel wrote in its report.

Swain said British Columbians should pay attention because “it’s going to effect them in the pocket book,” “destroy valuable bits of landscape” and “affect the constitutionally protected rights of First Nations.”

He suggested British Columbians consider the dam in light of the alternatives.

“Have we really pushed conservation and efficiency as far as they can go? And the answer is no,” he said. “What other kinds of generation or energy production are available and what are their costs and benefits?”

Swain called B.C.’s refusal to consider its entitlement under the Columbia River Treaty “inexplicable” and noted the verdict is still out on how British Columbians will react to electricity prices going up 30 per cent in the next three years (demand could decrease, for example).

Ultimately, the way forward needs to be one that considers all the options, not just large hydro dams.

“The province has defined the role of Hydro as being very limited,” Swain said. “If this were not the BC Hydro company, but simply … the ‘energy company’ whose job it was to make sure that demand was satisfied at reasonable prices regardless of source, regardless of who got to build and own, regardless of those kinds of extraneous considerations, we might have a more balanced view.”

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In his first interview on the Site C dam, the chair of the federal-provincial panel appointed to review Canada’s largest current infrastructure project said the B.C. government was unwise to green-light the project without a review by the B.C. Utilities Commission and would have been better off to delay the decision by a few years.

“There’s a whole bunch of unanswered questions, some of which would be markedly advanced by waiting three or four years,” Harry Swain told DeSmog Canada. “And you’d still be within the period of time, even by Hydro’s bullish forecasts, when you’re going to need the juice.”

Swain, a former deputy minister of Industry Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, spoke to DeSmog Canada on his own behalf, not on behalf of the panel. In a wide-reaching interview, Swain also described the province’s failure to investigate alternatives to the dam as a “dereliction of duty.”

The B.C. government gave the go-ahead for BC Hydro’s Site C dam in December and construction is scheduled to begin this summer. If built, it will be the largest public infrastructure expenditure in the province’s history. The dam is facing six legal challenges, including one that alleges that Cabinet erred in dismissing key portions of the joint review panel’s findings on the project.

The dam — which was first turned down by the B.C. Utilities Commission in the early 1980s — would be the third on the Peace River and would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley, impacting 13,000 hectares of agricultural land. The project is opposed by B.C.’s Treaty 8 First Nations, several of which have filed lawsuits.

Swain’s panel made 50 recommendations to the provincial and federal governments, but stopped short of recommending for or against the project.

“The decision on whether the project proceeds lies with elected officials, not with the panel,” the 471-page report read.

“I’m still strongly of the view that review panels are advisors and governments get paid to make the decisions and live with the consequences at the next election,” Swain told DeSmog Canada.

But that didn’t stop him from outlining how he believes the government has acted prematurely.

“You shouldn’t take decisions before you need to,” Swain said. “That means you’ll have much more information when you finally have to take a decision. Building electricity facilities in advance of need only costs money.”

‘Wisdom Would Have Been Waiting’

The panel’s report predicted that in the first four years of production, the Site C dam would lose at least $800 million because BC Hydro would generate more power than the province needs at a cost of $100 per megawatt hour — when the market price for that power is currently $30 per megawatt hour.

“Wisdom would have been waiting for two, three, four years to see whether the projections they were making had any basis in fact,” Swain said. “And they would have been able to make a better-informed decision and not necessarily a more expensive one.”

In its report, the panel wrote that it couldn’t conclude that the power from Site C was needed on the schedule presented, adding: “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.”

Some of the questions that still need to be answered, according to Swain, include the real cost and availability of alternatives, how B.C. should use its Columbia River rights, how British Columbians will react to increased electricity prices (which could decrease demand) and how the province’s liquefied natural gas industry will develop.

Panel Instructed Not to Pass Opinion on First Nations Rights

Asked why the panel didn’t render a “yes” or “no” answer on the Site C dam, Swain responded: “We weren’t asked to.”

Further to that, Swain — who wrote a book on the Oka crisis — outlined the limitations of the review process as it related to First Nations rights.

“They said that we were to catalogue the assertions of First Nations regarding treaty rights and aboriginal rights. But we were not to pass an opinion on them. We were not to say whether consultation had been adequate and so on and forth. If you are forbidden to talk about that, you can not come to a conclusion about the overall project,” Swain said.

“The question is: well, if we had recommended anything, what would we have said? And I think the conclusion is probably pretty apparent from the text. We would have said something to the effect that it might be wise to wait for a couple years and see if some of the projections on which the project rests eventuated. However, they didn’t ask — nor did they wait.”

Decision to Skip Review by B.C. Utilities Commission ‘Not Good Public Policy’

In its report to the government, the panel said it did not have the information, time or resources to look at the accuracy of cost estimates and recommended that, if the project proceeds, costs should be examined in detail by the province’s independent regulator, the B.C. Utilities Commission.

“Knowing that the province had decided to exempt the project from the scrutiny of the utilities commission, we nonetheless felt that that was not good public policy and recommended otherwise,” Swain said. “They of course gave us the back of their hand.”

What did he think of the province ignoring that recommendation?

“I expected it entirely and I don’t think it was wise,” he added.

There were big financial questions — related to the borrowing of nearly $9 billion, the cost estimates for the project and the effect of rates on consumer demand — that the panel could not examine, Swain explained.

“That requires much, much more time and expertise,” he said. “Moreover it is a job that the utilities commission is specifically set up to be able to do.”

Government Documents Downplay Role of B.C. Utilities Commission

In documents obtained by DeSmog Canada via a freedom of information request, government spokespeople were prepped to respond to questions about why the project wasn’t referred to the utilities commission. The speaking notes were prepared for the Dec. 16 press conference announcing the B.C. government’s decision to move ahead with Site C.

“The BCUC does not actually have the capacity to do the kind of work that has been done by BC Hydro in analysing and reviewing the project, particularly the costs,” the speaking notes read.

“Well, whose fault is that?” Swain responded. “How about the owners of the utilities commission? It is their legislation that set it up to do specifically that job and if it hasn’t got the resources to do it, I think you’ve got to look back to the government.”

Swain noted that the government is essentially arguing that the proponent of the project, BC Hydro, should be relied on to review its own project.

“Is the answer therefore that such projects are only to be examined by the proponent?” Swain said. “Recall about the first thing that happened after they approved it was that they confessed, ‘Oh golly, the price is about a billion dollars higher than we thought.’ ”

Harry Swain in his Victoria home during an interview with DeSmog Canada. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

The speaking notes obtained by DeSmog Canada also said: “The costs of Site C have been independently reviewed by KPMG and an independent panel of contractors — work that the commission would have contracted out itself regardless.”

When asked why, despite being well aware of the KPMG review, the panel still recommended a review by the utilities commission, Swain responded: “If you ask Lockheed Martin what the cost of the F-35 is going to be, they — the proponents — will give you a number. And if you believe that number, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you.”

He noted that accounting firm KPMG was hired by the project proponent, BC Hydro.

“Consultants hired by the project proponent are being hired in part to demonstrate the reasonability of the work being done by the proponent,” he said. “The last thing that you’d expect would be for the consultants to BC Hydro to say ‘Oh golly, what an interesting error you’ve made.’ It just isn’t going to happen.”

And that’s at the crux of why the panel recommended the project be reviewed by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission — because its mission is “to ensure that ratepayers receive safe, reliable, and non-discriminatory energy services at fair rates from the utilities it regulates.”

“I think projects of that nature where the public purse — and the public interest much more broadly — is involved deserve a degree of scrutiny,” Swain said.

“I think the province was determined to go ahead with the project from the beginning.”

Read Part 2 of DeSmog Canada’s Interview with Harry Swain: ‘Dereliction of duty’: B.C.’s failure to investigate alternatives to the Site C dam

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