Although former B.C. premier Christy Clark vowed to push the $9-billion Site C dam past the “point of no return” before the May 2017 provincial election, the fate of the most expensive public project in B.C.’s history is still far from certain.

B.C.’s new NDP government has vowed to send the dam for an expedited review of costs and demand by the B.C. Utilities Commission within a speedy six-week timeframe.

New aerial photos of Site C construction show a small stretch of the Peace River valley significantly altered by excavation crews. The building of the actual dam and associated infrastructure has yet to take place. Unless the project is stopped, construction is expected to continue until 2024 when the filling of the reservoir will flood 107 kilometres of river valley, flooding valuable agricultural land and First Nations historic sites.

An analysis by the Program on Water Governance at the University of British Columbia found that, if completed, Site C would operate at a 100 per cent surplus incurring an estimated $800 million to $2 billion loss to B.C. ratepayers. That same analysis calculated cancellation of Site C by the end of June 2017 would save B.C. between $500 million and $1.65 billion.

A Site C worker camp can be seen in the bottom right of this photo, taken July 2017. Photo: Vicky Husband

Photo: Vicky Husband

A bridge crosses the Moberly River which flows into the Peace River. A 400-metre tension crack appeared on the valley face directly across from the mouth of the Moberly River. The embankment was partially flattened is an effort to stabilize the slope. The tension crack was listed as one reason BC Hydro missed hitting key Site C construction milestones, according to a report filed with the B.C. Utilities Commission.

Photo: Vicky Husband

As a result of the tension crack, BC Hydro’s plans to construct Peace River diversion tunnels to allow construction of the dam structure may be delayed. According to BC Hydro’s construction timeline, the river is to be diverted September 2019.

Photo: Vicky Husband

A partnership that includes the Alberta corporation Petrowest, Korea’s Samsung C&T and a Canadian subsidiary of the Spanish conglomerate Acciona make up Site C’s main civil works contractors. According to BC Hydro these contractors have “experienced delays on several of their critical path activities, requiring a re-sequencing of planned work.”

Photo: Vicky Husband

A deep cut in the slope reveals underlying shale rock. Photo: Vicky Husband

Photo: Vicky Husband

Boon family farm. Part of the farm will be flooded as a result of the site C Dam. the remainder of the farm will be destroyed by B.C. Hydro’s road diversion project which will put the road right through the Boon’s Home and upper section of the farm. Photo: Garth Lenz

According to BC Hydro 6,469 hectares of farmland — an area larger than all the farmland in Richmond — will be destroyed by the Site C dam and its vast reservoir. Floodwaters will cover this Peace Valley farm owned by Ken and Arlene Boon. An additional 5,900 hectares of farmland falls within what BC Hydro calls a “stability impact zone” and is at risk of destruction.

Arlene Boon harvesting vegetable in their market garden. Photo: Garth Lenz

Arlene Boon, pictured here in her garden, and her husband Ken live on a third-generation farm recently expropriated by BC Hydro. The Boons are expected to vacate their property by July 23, 2017 unless granted a new extension by BC Hydro.

Tufa seep. Photo: Garth Lenz

In the fall of 2016 BC Hydro applied for a provincial permit to destroy an ancient wetland known as a tufa seep for Site C construction. Botanist and lichenologist Curtis Bjork has studied the Peace River Valley since 2008 and said the tufa seep included in BC Hydro’s application likely began to form 10,000 years ago.

Cascading pools in a Peace River Valley tufa seep. Photo: Garth Lenz

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

It has been two weeks since the Nathan E. Stewart, a U.S.-based fuel barge tug, struck ground and sank near Bella Bella, B.C., contaminating the harvest waters of the Heiltsuk First Nation with an estimated 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

During that time coastal residents have watched with dismay as spill response efforts have been hampered repeatedly by unfavourable weather, failed spill containment and even one incident where a spill response ship took on water and itself began to sink.

But the ongoing failure to contain and clean up the spill has been witnessed most closely by members of the Heiltsuk First Nation, who have been on the frontlines of the spill response effort since day one.

Jess Housty, member of the Heiltsuk tribal council, told DeSmog Canada the spill has put much of her community’s regular life on hold, thrusting many individuals into the unfamiliar territory of disaster response.

“That’s been one of the great challenges for us — as a nation we have no particular capacity and expertise around spill response,” Housty said, saying that hasn’t stopped members of her community from stepping in to help response teams from the Canadian Coast Guard and the Western Canadian Marine Response Corporation.

Housty said community members are working on every aspect of spill response from wildlife monitoring to ecological sampling to maintaining and preparing oil spill booms.

The Nation is currently crowdfunding for support to hire experts to continue sampling and monitor environmental and human health impacts of the spill.

“We’re working in a kind of incident command system that makes objective sense but is certainly not a system that reflects our values and the way we would operate and govern a process like this,” Housty said.

“There’s a lot we don’t know. We’re not engineers or spill response technicians.”

“We’re fishermen, we’re harvesters, we’re mariners, we’re people who love the place we come from.”

Heiltsuk crews gather absorbent materials. “We haven’t known how long this process will carry on. I still don’t know how long it will carry on,” Jess Housty said. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Diesel sheen seen on the beach of Athlone Island on October 23. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

The Nathan E. Stewart, owned by Texas-based Kirby Corporation, sits grounded near Gale Pass. Photo: April Bencze

Poor weather conditions have prevented containment booms, shown here stopping the spread of contaminants from the tug, from staying in place. Photo: Tavish Campbell and April Bencze

“Ninety per cent of our resources come from that area,” Russell Windsor said. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

On October 24, day twelve of the spill, containment booms broke apart on the beach. Photo: April Bencze

“One of the frustrating thing is some of the containment booms broke apart and you end up with what looks like soggy toilet paper all along the beach,” Jess Housty told DeSmog Canada. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of containment booms and absorbent materials, Housty said. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

“We have no great sense of what is still in open water,” Housty said when asked about diesel recovery rates.

“I can tell you how many garbage bags of sorbent pads have been hauled out of the water, but that doesn’t really give you any idea of how soiled they were and how much diesel they’ve picked up.”

She added, “My reports that I’ve been getting every day is they’re not particularly effective unless the diesel is concentrated enough for it to pick up.”

“It’s really hard to put a number to how much.”

Diesel sheen on the beach of Athlone Island. Photo: April Bencze

Prints can be seen alongside tattered sorbent. Photo: April Bencze

Heiltsuk trapper and fisherman Fred Reid. “I had a trapline in the area…have trapped in that area for 14 years,” Reid said. Reid added the region is critical for salmon, cockles, abalone, urchins, five species of clams and otters. “We were already devastated this year, I guess the temperature of the water, the seaweed never came back. It just never grew.” Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Heiltsuk crew continue to collect contaminated material October 25. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Diesel sheen can be seen spreading far beyond containment booms. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Diesel slick can be seen escaping a failed containment boom on October 22. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Poor weather has made it extremely difficult to keep containment materials in place. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Herring smelt seen around the sunken Nathan E. Stewart. The tug is still releasing fuel into surrounding waters. Photo: April Bencze

Herring are a species of traditional importance for the Heiltsuk First Nation.

“I think it’s really important for the wider world to understand this isn’t just an environmental issue; it’s not just an ecological disaster,” Housty said.

“It is that — don’t get me wrong. But what has been violated is not just the environment. It’s also about food security, it’s our certainty that we can maintain our trade relationship with our relatives in other communities.”

Housty said her community has lost its certainty that they can feast and conduct ceremony with traditional foods.

“And there is a huge ceremonial loss because the things we hold sacred have been violated by this. So for our community, this is not just about cleaning up an environmental disaster, it’s about our whole certainty that we can be Heiltsuk and practice the fullness of our identity in the way we did before.”

“And to have that certainty taken away has introduced a grief into our community that is going to take a very long time to heal.”

The Nathan E. Stewart resting along the rugged reef, an area rich in biological diversity. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

The crumpled base of the Nathan E. Stewart. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Rich marine life, such as these colourful anemones, surround the sunken tug. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Photographers survey the wreckage. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

Sorbent pads on the waters of Gale Pass. Photo: Tavish Campbell and April Bencze.

“We have several different types of containment booms deployed and sorbent pads deployed as well to try to pick up some of the diesel sheen but as you may have been following we have had really difficult weather conditions,” Housty told DeSmog Canada.

“Four of the last five days we’ve had to stand down small vessels because it’s too challenging for us to operate out there.”

Gale Pass with a trailing line of sorbent pads. Photo: Tavish Campbell and April Bencze

A transient orca passes by clean up crews on October 24. Photo: Heiltsuk Nation

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

Residents of Mayflower, Arkansas, are suing ExxonMobil for damages in a class action lawsuit that is seeking more than $5 million in compensation for property damage.

"This Arkansas class action lawsuit involves the worst crude oil and tar sands spill in Arkansas history," the lawsuit reads. The filed claim indicates more than 19,000 barrels of oil were spilled.

Both the Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and the US Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) have indicated investigations into the pipeline rupture are ongoing.

Between 2010 and 2012, pipeline incidents incurred more than $662 million in property damages annually. More than 20 years of PHMSA records indicate levels of pipeline related accidents are consistent – around 250 occur each year – while the cost of those accidents is steadily increasing.

These recently released images show the scope of the damage has grown far beyond the nearby residential street:

Above Image Credit: Alyssa Martinez / Drew Crownover / Annie Dill / Alex Shahrokhi via Imgur.

The EPA's On Scene Coordinator also recently released images of the scene:

Image Credit: EPA On Scene Coordinator.

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

The massive tailings ponds holding billions of litres of tar sands waste are leaking into Alberta's groundwater, according to internal documents obtained by Postmedia's Mike De Souza.

An internal memorandum prepared for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver and obtained through Access to Information legislation says evidence confirms groundwater toxins related to bitumen mining and upgrading are migrating from tailings ponds and are not naturally occurring as government and industry have previously stated.

"The studies have, for the first time, detected potentially harmful, mining-related organic acid contaminants in groundwater outside a long-established out-of-pit tailings pond," the memo reads. "This finding is consistent with publicly available technical reports of seepage (both projected in theory, and detected in practice)."

This newly released document shows the federal government has been aware of the problem since June 2012 without publicly addressing the information. The study, made available online by Natural Resources Canada in December 2012, was still "pending release" at the time Minister Oliver was briefed of its contents in June.

The study in question, co-authored by 19 scientists from both provincial and federal bodies including Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, the Geological Survey of Canada, was designed to distinguish naturally-occurring chemical substances from mining-related contaminants.

Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) spokesman Travis Davies told Postmedia's De Souza the study's evidence of chemical seepage into groundwater did not come as a surprise.

"Their study isn't new in any way other than perhaps the laboratory methods and detection limits," Davies said. "We also know and report on the chemistry of groundwater from our monitoring wells that surround tailings facilities. So again, (there's) no surprise."

CAPP's website had recently been updated to acknowledge(s) "seepage into ground water can occur," although still claims "comprehensive monitoring programs have not detected impacts from tailings ponds seepage on surface water or to ground water."

In early 2012, a DeSmog team traveled to Fort McMurray to document the growing impact tar sands expansion is having on the local landscape and wildlife. According to CAPP, existing tailings ponds cover 176 km2 or 67 mi2 of land in the Fort McMurray region and are expected to grow.

Fort McMurray's temporary tailings ponds currently hold billions of gallons of water, sand, clay, hydrocarbons, naphthenic acids, salt and other byproducts of the bitumen extraction and upgrading process. Even in negative 30 degree Celsius, the hot waste sends a plume of steam into the frozen air, a sign of the high energy costs of tar sands oil production.

An aerial view of one tailings pond shows the extent of the impact accumulating tar sands waste has on the local landscape. How the local landscape will be remediated and restored to its preexisting condition is becoming one of the tar sands industry's most pressing long-term concerns.

According to a recently released plan by CEMA, an industry-funded consultancy group, tar sands companies are considering transforming tailings ponds into 'end pit lakes,' meaning they will be left as permanent features in the transformed landscape. The success or failure of these permanent installations will not be known until decades after their construction.

One conservation specialist told DeSmog, "the basic concern is that end pit lakes with tailings at the bottom will release toxins such as naphthenic acids from tailings into the environment, to the detriment of ecosystems generally. And so many end pit lakes have been approved on sheer faith rather than demonstrable results that it's creating a potential huge environmental liability."

Bitumen processing and upgrading facilities line the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray. In 2011 water usage for tar sands operations amounted to 158 million cubic meters, the vast majority of which (112 m3) was withdrawn from the Athabasca River.

In November 2012, Environment Canada scientists released a study that showed tar sands pollution is contaminating the landscape up to 100km away from central refineries. 

Toxic pollutants, traveling through the air year-round, have been found in tributaries of the Athabasca River where they are believed to disrupt development of fish embryos.

According to a ministerial briefing note, greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands operations are expected to make up 15 percent of Canada's total emissions by 2020, up from 4 percent in 2005.

In 2008, Environmental Defense estimated leakage from tar sands tailings ponds equals 11 million litres each day, according to industry figures.

At current rates the tar sands produce about 3.3 million barrels of oil per day. Approved projects will bring that figure past 5 million barrels in the near future and proposed project might see that number jump to 6.2 million by 2030.

Photos by Kris Krug.

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