West Moberly First Nations will proceed with a Site C dam “megatrial” following six months of confidential talks with the B.C. government and BC Hydro aimed at avoiding litigation, chief Roland Willson announced on Tuesday. 

“They’re not going anywhere,” Willson told The Narwhal. “It’s essentially kicking a dead horse. … They wanted to have discussions and now we’re not talking anymore. We’re going to court.” 

In January 2018, West Moberly First Nations and Prophet River First Nation filed civil claims alleging that the Site C project and two previous dams on the Peace River unjustifiably infringe on their treaty rights.  

West Moberly First Nations subsequently lost an application for an injunction to protect 13 areas of cultural importance for the Dunne-Za nations — including prime moose habitat, a rare old-growth white spruce and trembling aspen forest and two wetlands called Sucker Lake and Trappers Lake — from clear-cut logging for the dam.

But the judge ruled their treaty rights case must be heard by 2023, prior to scheduled flooding of the Peace River Valley the following year. 

Tim Thielmann, West Moberly First Nations legal counsel, said the ruling leaves the door open for the court “to impose an eleventh-hour cancellation or injunction onto the project and to prevent the flooding of the Peace River if the First Nations are successful in their treaty infringement claim.” 

Chief Roland Willson of West Moberly First Nations. Photo: David Moskowitz

NDP government’s position a ‘profound conflict’ 

The Site C dam would flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, about the equivalent distance of driving from Vancouver to Whistler. 

It would destroy First Nations burial grounds and culturally significant areas, some of Canada’s best farmland, habitat for more than 100 species at risk of extinction and the last intact section of the Peace River Valley still available for Treaty 8 members to engage in traditional practices.

At trial, B.C. Premier John Horgan is expected to defend the 2014 decision made by former Liberal Premier Christy Clark to proceed with the Site C project, a decision West Moberly First Nations says infringed Treaty 8, according to a news release the nation issued on Tuesday.  

“You have this surprising situation where the provincial government is finding itself on a path to a large trial in which they will be defending the position that they have been fighting,” Thielmann told The Narwhal. 

Thielmann pointed to a statement Horgan made shortly before Clark’s decision to proceed with construction of the Site C dam. In 2014, Horgan said in a filmed interview that First Nations in the Peace region had entrenched constitutional rights that were “going to be violated by this dam.” 

“In his announcement to proceed with the dam in 2017 he still said that Site C should never have been started,” Thielmann added, pointing to other senior NDP cabinet ministers who made similar statements. 

In a public Facebook post, for instance, B.C. Attorney General David Eby described the Site C dam as a “terrible situation of a massive public infrastructure investment without any apparent customer for the electricity it will produce.”

“That’s a profound conflict in their current position,” Thielmann said. “Now they have to go to court and decide what their position will be on the Christy Clark decision to approve the dam in 2014.”  

It’s a no-win situation for the NDP government because if they “own up to the statement they have made on record,” that approval of the dam was a mistake and an infringement of Treaty 8, then “presumably they wouldn’t be fighting this case in trial,” Thielmann said. 

But if they agree with West Moberly First Nations it will open them up to whatever orders the court chooses to impose, he pointed out.

“If they begin defending the Christy Clark position to approve the dam it will have untold political costs internally to the party and amongst many of the NDP voters and others in British Columbia that believe, like Premier Horgan apparently did, that this was a profound mistake.” 

Site C dam still shrouded in secrecy

Willson said Horgan should have stopped construction of the “boondoggle” dam after the NDP came to power in July 2017. 

Instead, Horgan green-lighted the dam six months later — following intense lobby efforts by construction trade unions that donated generously to the NDP —  on the grounds the project was past the point of no return, a claim debunked by independent energy experts. 

“Right from the beginning we thought this whole project was a sham,” Willson said. “We’ve been railroaded. … There’s billions and billions being spent on a project that is totally not needed. And the environmental footprint and the devastation that this thing is going to create is sad.” 

Willson said he does not believe BC Hydro will make the scheduled date next year for diverting the Peace River so construction of the dam structure can begin. The missed deadline would add substantially to the escalating cost of the dam, the largest publicly funded project in B.C.’s history. 

“Everything’s in the shadows,” Willson said. “This was supposed to be a public process and they’re keeping information from people.” 

The Boon family farm at Bear Flat/Cache Creek in the Peace River valley, which will be flooded for the Site C dam. Bear Flat/Cache Creek is a culturally significant area for First Nations, who have gathered here for millennia. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Last year, international hydro dam expert Harvey Elwin described the high level of  confidentiality surrounding the Site C hydro project as “extraordinary,” saying he had never encountered such secrecy during his five decades designing, developing and managing large hydroelectric projects, including China’s Three Gorges dam.

In an affidavit for the West Moberly First Nations injunction application, Elwin outlined the five main categories of risk that, in his view, made it extremely unlikely that the dam would be on schedule to produce power in 2024 and within its revised budget of $10.7 billion.

“We haven’t seen any public announcements that BC Hydro has made up the kind of ground that they would need to make up in order to have any chance of achieving river diversion in a year’s time,” Thielmann said. 

“And there may very well be other challenges that haven’t been disclosed at the present time but will become more clear in the months ahead.” 

The B.C. energy ministry said in an April 24 email to The Narwhal that the Site C dam remains on schedule to produce power in 2024 and within its budget of $10.7 billion, an increase of $2 billion over the project’s 2016 budget.

But BC Hydro’s latest Site C project report to the B.C. Utilities Commission hints of potential problems, assigning a yellow status to the project’s schedule, budget and overall project health to indicate “moderate” concerns. 

The project remains cloaked in secrecy, with the NDP government refusing to make public the findings of a “Site C Project Assurance Board” that began meeting early last year. 

 Commitment to reconciliation called into question

The news that West Moberly First Nations will proceed to trial follows an announcement in May that Blueberry River First Nations is returning to court after almost a year of negotiations with the province. 

The Blueberry First Nations allege that the cumulative impacts of resource development in their traditional territory, including intensive fracking operations and the Site C dam, violates treaty rights. 

“This government’s failure to achieve significant reconciliation victories in cases like this calls into question what reconciliation, in this government’s view, is intended to look like,” Thielmann said. 

The NDP government is “being called to task for radical changes on the landscape in the northeast and the threats that Indigenous peoples in the northeast and in the Peace River region are experiencing to their way of life,” he said. 

Willson echoed Thielmann’s comments, saying, “They want to talk reconciliation but they don’t want to reconcile anything.” 

In a rare rebuke, the United Nations has requested that Canada suspend Site C dam construction until the project obtains the “free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous peoples. 

Thielmann, who also represents Prophet River First Nation, which was in the talks with the B.C. government and BC Hydro, said he can’t yet comment about Prophet River First Nation.

“At this point in time, they continue to have a civil action that is parallel to West Moberly’s,” he said. “Their action has not been suspended or discontinued. They continue to have a civil action that alleges essentially the same thing as West Moberly’s — that the combined effect of the three dams is an infringement of their treaty rights.” 

The B.C. government does not normally comment on cases before the courts. The Narwhal will update our reporting if the government responds to the case.

The 120-day trial to hear the West Moberly civil action is scheduled to begin in March 2022 and will last about six months, according to Thielmann.  

He said the trial will likely include dozens of witnesses and many thousands of pages of evidence about everything from the “cumulative effects of the three Peace River dams within the Peace region to the nature of the West Moberly First Nations’ seasonal round and the traditional mode of life and how it has been radically disrupted and would be radically disrupted by the completion of Site C.” 

Willson said he remains hopeful about the trial’s outcome. 

“The mere fact that we’re going to trial should speak volumes.”

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While news of Saskatchewan’s plan for a small geothermal power plant was met with excitement by renewable energy advocates,  experts say British Columbia is far better situated to capitalize on the technology yet has failed to do so.

“It should be a little bit of a shock that a less good resource is being developed in Saskatchewan over a world-class resource in B.C.,” said Alison Thompson, chair and co-founder of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA).

B.C. is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, a geothermal hot zone. Maps produced by CanGEA found B.C. has enough geothermal potential to power the entire province.

“There are geothermal projects all up the coast but they stop at the border. There’s nothing in B.C.,” Thompson said.

“This is clearly not technical, not economic. This is policy driven.”

Northeastern B.C., a hotbed of oil and gas drilling, is home to one of the hottest recorded wells in Canada, measured at around 170 degrees Celsius. Aquifer temperatures in Saskatchewan’s Williston Basin are recorded at around 120 degrees.

“You only need about 80 degrees for power,” Thompson said.

Project developers in Saskatchewan signed the first Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for geothermal in Canada with the province’s utility provider, SaskPower.

The same has not been possible in B.C., where a primary focus on hydro development, most pronounced in the recent decision to build the controversial $9 billion Site C dam, has taken up the lion’s share of the the provincial utility provider’s attention.

In 1983 the B.C. Utilities Commission recommended the province to explore geothermal as a potential alternative to Site C. As the Site C Joint Review Panel noted in its final report on the project, the province put virtually no effort into exploring alternatives.

“If the senior governments were doing their job, there would be no need for this recommendation” to explore alternatives, the panel wrote in its final report on Site C in 2014. “The low level of effort is surprising, especially if it results in a plan that involves large and possibly avoidable environmental and social costs.”

Critics argue Site C has actually forced out renewable energy industries like wind and solar.

“At CanGEA, we’re in our 11th year and we’ve been advocating consistently for geothermal in B.C. with no results with B.C. Hydro and the Ministry of Energy,” Thompson said.

The West Moberly First Nation, which is fighting Site C in court, has also advocated for geothermal to no avail.

“If Saskatchewan can build a geothermal plant, why the hell isn’t B.C.? Especially when they know there’s geothermal potential here. We’ve asked to partner with them on it,” Chief Roland Willson told DeSmog Canada.

B.C. Hydro’s Mandate Needs Update: Weaver

B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver told DeSmog Canada geothermal is long overdue in B.C. but that “B.C. Hydro’s mandate needs to be massaged, be changed a bit.”

“The problem with geothermal in the province is not that we can’t do it,” Weaver said. “The problem is B.C. Hydro is the only buyer of power so no one is going to invest the capital in a project if there’s no buyer for the electricity.”

He added: “We have enormous potential for geothermal — it’s stable, base power that’s renewable and it will happen in B.C. sooner than we think.”

Steve Grasby, geoscientist with Natural Resource Canada’s Geological Survey, said in the 15 years he’s been researching Canada’s geothermal potential he has seen a massive shift in public awareness and interest.

A 2013 Geological Survey of Canada report found northeast B.C. has the “highest potential for immediate development of geothermal energy” anywhere in the country.

“When we first started this most people didn’t even know the term and if they heard it they didn’t know what it meant,” Grasby told DeSmog Canada.

“There has been a huge increase in awareness on all different levels. Now we’re seeing a lot of growing industry interest with small companies and people exploring this new opportunity.”

He added test drilling has yet to be completed in Saskatchewan, so it could be some time before more detailed knowledge of that resource comes to light.

Grasby said there is “tremendous” geothermal potential across Canada but the highest temperature regions are in B.C.

“That’s where we really have the potential to consider electrical generation compared to just direct heat. There’s been a lot of interest and various projects pushing forward. It’s an exciting time.”

B.C. Policy ‘Indifference’ to Geothermal Hurt Industry

In Valemount, B.C., plans for a geothermal ecovillage are underway. If successful, the plan will not only produce electricity but also provide direct heat for the community, recreational hot springs, year round greenhouses and a first-in-Canada geothermal brewery.

It took several years for the company behind the project, Borealis Geopower, to land a drilling permit.

Thompson, who’s also a principal at Borealis, said the regulatory system is slow, full of setbacks and plagued by what she considers chronic indifference.

Policy in B.C. hasn’t kept pace with advancements in the geothermal field, she said.

“For example, B.C. Hydro only thinks about electricity and there isn’t a utility provider in B.C. that thinks about heat. Geothermal can give you electricity, it can give you heat and it can even be a source of precious minerals that don’t have to be open pit mined. It provides jobs and carbon credits.”

Borealis is now awaiting a land access permit for the drilling pad from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

Thompson said the permit is stuck in suspension as B.C.’s political landscape remains uncertain.

“If this was oil and gas permitting it would be done in weeks. With geothermal, this is rolling out in the months and years,” she said.

Korie Marshall from the Valemount Geothermal Society said some of the lag time can be considered the hazards of trailblazing.

“It’s not always fun to be first. We’ve been coming up against all these roadblocks that no one understands. We want to help fix that for others coming up.”

“A big part of our goal as a society is not to just get this going in Valemount but to show the rest of Canada that we can do it.”

Geothermal Energy a Part of Community Building

Meanwhile, geothermal companies are chomping at the bit to get to work in B.C.

“At StromTech we’re actively engaged with clients in northeastern B.C., in the Peace River region, to explore geothermal. There’s lots of good opportunity up there,” said Ben Lee, engineer and geothermal consultant with StromTech Energy Services.

StromTech is in the preliminary stages of conducting a feasibility study for a community led geothermal project with the West Moberly First Nation.

Lee said smaller communities stand to benefit from local geothermal projects, especially where heat from geothermal projects can be used to prop up other industries and jobs.

“The fact that we can generate electricity and generate heat in sustainable, renewable manner — that’s sometimes overlooked or glossed over,” Lee said.

Lee said northern communities concerned about food security are especially interested in the co-generation of electricity and direct heat from geothermal.

“The ability to grow food and produce that for themselves, reduce their reliance on imported food whether that be from the Okanagan or southern B.C. or California, that’s of interest to remote communities.”

“Where I see an opportunity for government, for B.C. Hydro to make a difference is in supporting localized, distributed generation.”

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Roland Willson is a practical man. As chief of the West Moberly First Nation in northeastern B.C., he’s got to be.

“The natural gas industry is the main source of employment,” Willson said over coffee in Victoria this week, before heading into meetings with the B.C. NDP and B.C. Green parties. “It’s a natural resource economy up there.”

Of all the industrial activity happening on his traditional territory — ranging from fracking to forestry to coal mining — one development takes the cake: the Site C dam.

With B.C.’s new NDP-Green alliance, and its promise to send the $9 billion Site C for an independent review by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC), there’s reason for Willson to be hopeful.

“We are hopeful that this stupid project is going to get stopped. They’ve done nothing that can’t be undone so far. The trees will grow back. The animals will come back,” Willson. "I'm pretty confident that if it goes to the BCUC, it'll be deemed non-viable."

Still, Willson isn’t holding his breath.

First Nations Chief Hopeful For Stop to #SiteC, More Balanced Approach to Resource Extraction https://t.co/FMk2NB0eLr #bcpoli #geothermal

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 15, 2017

“Politicians are politicians. We saw that when Trudeau came in. He made all these promises and then those promises just went up in a big puff of smoke.”

Last July the Trudeau government quietly issued permits for work on the Site C dam, despite promises of a new relationship with indigenous peoples. At that time, the West Moberly First Nation and Prophet River First Nation were still waiting for their day in court.

“It’s a dysfunctional relationship and we’re forced to live it over and over,” Willson said of dealings with government and BC Hydro, comparing it to the treatment of indigenous people in residential schools.

“They’re not taking our children away but they’re taking our land away. It is a continuation of their cultural genocide.”

As for the raging debate about job losses if Site C is delayed or stopped altogether, Willson said there are other ways to create jobs.

“I think we should immediately go into geothermal discussions,” he said.

“If Saskatchewan can build a geothermal plant, why the hell isn’t B.C.? Especially when they know there’s geothermal potential here. We’ve asked to partner with them on it.”

The Canadian Geothermal Association has said that B.C. is home to enough geothermal energy to power the entire province. The federal-provincial panel that reviewed the Site C dam found the province’s efforts to investigate geothermal to be sorely lacking.

“The low level of effort is surprising, especially if it results in a plan that involves large and possibly avoidable environmental and social costs,” the panel concluded.

In his meetings in Victoria, Willson intended to raise the issue of BC Hydro’s chosen route for the new highway through the Peace Valley, which cuts straight through a sacred area for the Dunne-za.

“There’s absolutely no reason for them to have realigned the road to put it where it is,” Willson said. “It’s within 50 metres of the sweat lodge and right through the grave site.”

“That’s one of the last spots in the Peace Valley that we have left to lose.”

The alternative highway route would run further away from the reservoir and avoid the houses in the valley and the First Nations sacred sites, but BC Hydro has said it’s less preferred due to less room for passing lanes and geotechnical conditions.

Willson also planned to invite NDP Leader John Horgan and Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver to attend this year’s Paddle for the Peace on July 8. An added benefit of having the leaders in the north would be to show them the impacts of shale gas development.

“The rapid pace of development is mind-blowing. The fracking. The use of water,” Willson said.

“The problem with the extraction industry is that B.C. loses their mind with it.”

Instead of slowing down to study the impacts of fracking, like Quebec and New York State did, “B.C. was full bore,” Willson said.

“They started the industry before they did the groundwater studies, before they understood what was going on.”

“We’re supportive of development, but there’s got to be a balanced approach.”

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The route chosen by BC Hydro for a Site C dam highway relocation will “desecrate” a First Nations burial ground and destroy a culturally significant site used by the Dunne-za people for millennia, says West Moberly First Nations Chief Roland Willson.

“This is a very serious matter,” Willson wrote in a letter to B.C. Transportation Minister Todd Stone, co-signed by Prophet River First Nation Chief Lynette Tsakoza. “Digging up graves is not acceptable in our custom.”

Willson told DeSmog that the graves are in an area of the Peace River valley known locally as Bear Flats/Cache Creek, which BC Hydro plans to clear cut this winter for the first phase of a $530 million project to move 30 kilometres of a provincial highway out of the Site C dam flood zone.

Called as tluuge by the Dunne-za, or Beaver people, an ethno-linguistic grouping within the Treaty 8 Tribal Association, the area slated for the first part of the highway realignment contains known B.C. archaeological sites, a natural spring, a sweat lodge, and a campground used by First Nations for elder and youth gatherings.

“The Dunne-Za people have been using Bear Flats for thousands of years and we’re still using it today,” Willson said in an interview.

“The desecration of burial sites is a very serious matter. There’s absolutely no reason for them to disrupt those graves. They can move the highway over.”

Chief Roland Willson from the film River Interrupted. Credit: Hawkins Film.

According to BC Hydro itself, the Bear Flats/Cache Creek area is classified as an “archeological site complex,” an area noted for its high density of archeological sites.

Eighteen archeological sites at the Bear Flats/Cache complex will be affected by the $8.8 billion Site C project, including four Class 1 sites and 10 Class 11 sites.

The Bear Flats/Cache Creek area, where highway construction is imminent. Credit: Garth Lenz.

In July 2015, BC Hydro received an eight-year permit from the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO) to “alter” 163 archeological sites for Site C, including for the construction of permanent roads, clearing, surface stripping, excavations and inundation from the reservoir. The permit says all work must cease if human remains are found and the Archaeology Branch must be contacted for further direction.

In a statement e-mailed to DeSmog, BC Hydro said it has undertaken “extensive archeological fieldwork including extensive subsurface shovel testing” and has not found  “any specific burial locations that would be directly affected by the Highway 29 alignment” at Bear Flats/Cache Creek.

“We take the potential disturbance of burial sites with the utmost seriousness,” BC Hydro said in the statement.

The Crown corporation said it has extended repeated invitations to local First Nations to share specific information about potential burial sites they believe are in the Site C project area and has funded traditional land use studies for First Nations that have “not resulted in such information being shared with BC Hydro.”

A BC Hydro Heritage Resource Assessment report notes that four Treaty 8 First Nations believe there are burial sites in the vicinity of Bear Flats.

Testimony given by four Treaty 8 First Nations to the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C for the federal and provincial governments recounted how the Bear Flats area was traditionally used as a gathering spot because it had good habitation sites, proximity to ceremonial and sacred areas, good hunting and fishing opportunities, a nearby freshwater spring and multiple trails and transportation routes.

“Many of the trails which criss-crossed the Peace River valley came into or close to this gathering place, and were often used as horse pack trails by families on their seasonal rounds,” the testimony read.

“Historically we were hunter gatherers and there were certain places like Bear Flats where we’d come together,” Willson said.

Willson said he met with Minister of Aboriginal Relations John Rustad in July and again in October, in an effort to find a solution. He said he also met with FLNRO Minister Steve Thomson in October, and followed up with letters to the two ministers asking for an alternate route for the 8.5-kilometre Bear Flats portion of the highway realignment, in addition to writing to Stone and BC Hydro in early November with the same request.

“We still haven’t heard anything back.”

Willson said a second route shortlisted by BC Hydro would avoid adverse effects to First Nations’ “ancestral belongings and burial” and protect the homes of local farmers such as Ken and Arlene Boon, who live on a hill just above some of the archeological fieldwork sites. The Boons, along with seven other landowners at Bear Flats/Cache Creek, were informed in March that they must sign over their land to BC Hydro by the end of this year or face expropriation for the highway re-alignment.

“They don’t have to kick the Boons out just before Christmas,” said Willson. “There’s no reason for it.

Arlene Boon out for what could be her last harvest on the Bear Flats farm that’s been in her family for three generations. Photo: Garth Lenz.

In October, the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations launched the Yellow Stakes campaign on the Boon’s farmland to raise money for their ongoing court cases against Site C. For each $100 donated to the First Nations legal challenges, a yellow stake is driven into the ground beside the Boon’s farmhouse, along the centre line for the Highway 29 relocation.

More than 300 stakes, similar to the ones BC Hydro contractors placed throughout the Bear Flats area to demarcate the highway’s new centre line, have been hammered into the earth, including a stake personally planted by Perry Bellegarde, the national chief of Canada’s Assembly of First Nations.

In their letter to Stone, the two First Nations chiefs said an alternate route would address “many of the substantive issues and concerns” regarding that portion of the highway relocation. “Our alternative routes also eliminate the need to remove the local farmers from their homes and, as such, have an added benefit for the general population,” they wrote.

“We have made considerable efforts to identify and communicate how the proposed realignment of Highway 29 will cause significant adverse effects to our treaty rights,” the chiefs said in their letter to Rustad. “We have also put a considerable amount of effort into finding solutions…The province, however, has refused to engage our nations on such matters for over three months.”

Ken Boon, who has been told he’s going to have to sign an agreement with BC Hydro by Christmas, so a highway can be built through his farm. Credit: Garth Lenz.

In response to questions about the highway re-alignment, BC Hydro spokesperson Dave Conway e-mailed a link to a BC Hydro information sheet that outlines why the route along the banks of the future Site C reservoir was selected for the Bear Flat highway relocation instead of the inland option requested by First Nations and Peace Valley landowners. According to BC Hydro, the route along the reservoir’s banks will increase the length of passing opportunities for drivers and has less of an impact on agricultural land and better geotechnical conditions.

The reservoir for the Site C dam, currently in the early stages of construction, will flood more than 100 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, including Cache Creek, a wide-bottomed valley where prickly pear cacti grow and arrowheads and fossils, including part of a woolly mammoth tusk, have been found.

Earlier this year, the Peace Valley Landowners Association asked BC Hydro for a copy of the “Multiple Accounts Evaluation” that demonstrates how the highway relocation route was chosen. Association president Ken Boon said instead of receiving a copy of the evaluation the 70 landowners who will be affected by Site C were given only “a few vague reasons to justify the route.”

New Democratic Party transportation critic Claire Trevena also said has not received any answers to questions she sent to Stone in an August letter regarding the highway route selection at Bear Flats/Cache Creek.

Among other questions, Trevena asked if the ministry had the right to review the route options in light of costs and social impacts, if there were financial risks to the Crown that could arise from the choice of routes, when the ministry would become responsible for the new highway route and if the minister knew the full costs of both route options.

“We’re somewhat stymied because we’re not in the Legislature so I can’t ask questions directly of the minister,” Trevena said in an interview, referring to Premier Christy Clark’s cancellation of the fall session of the B.C. legislature.

“It’s extraordinarily difficult when we’re talking about something this serious and we not have recourse to the minister. Democracy can’t work and people’s best interests can’t be served when the government is effectively in hiding.”

DeSmog contacted the Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation, which said comment should come from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO). The Ministry of Transportation did not respond to questions, including one asking if the cost of the highway realignment has changed from the $530 million previously reported by BC Hydro. And FLNRO, for its part, said the government’s statement on the issue would come from BC Hydro.

Main image: BC Hydro archaeologists on the Boon family farm. Credit: Garth Lenz.

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Premier Christy Clark has ambitious plans for the copious amounts of electricity — far more than British Columbia is expected to need for more than a decade — generated by the Site C dam on the Peace River: sell it to Alberta.   In a recent interview with Alaska Highway News, Clark said the power from the Site C dam, scheduled to come online in 2024, could potentially provide electricity to Alberta — where the government has recently committed to closing all of its coal-powered energy plants.   “We could potentially electrify the oilsands, which would make the oilsands the cleanest oil produced anywhere on the globe,” Clark said.   “If Canada wants to make an argument for our resources to find their way to market, let’s make them the cleanest in the world and let’s make that our brand.”

Need for Site C Unproven 

Clark’s suggestion that the Site C dam may power the oilsands shines a spotlight on the B.C. government’s ever-changing rationale for building the project.   Ken Boon, a Peace Valley farmer who lives on family land that will be flooded if the dam is built, said he finds the prospect of prime agricultural land being destroyed to supply the oilsands with electricity “very disturbing.”   “It highlights that they don’t have a market for the Site C power,” Boon told DeSmog Canada.   “So here we have a government floundering for a market while they go ahead building the project.”   In its final report, the federal-provincial panel tasked with reviewing the Site C dam said that, due to the severe environmental impacts of the project, the project should not proceed unless there is an unambiguous need for the power.   “Electrifying the oilsands doesn’t seem like a demonstrated unambiguous need,” he said.   Harry Swain, chair of the Joint Review Panel that reviewed Site C, said BC Hydro never mentioned Alberta as a potential market for the dam’s power in its application.   “One recognizes that things change over time, but this has an air of desperation,” Swain told DeSmog Canada.   "In the rationale for building the dam, BC Hydro put forward load forecasts that included a fair amount of electricity for the LNG industry and continued growth in other industrial, commercial and residential demand. Well, the truth is that since 2008 demand has been falling, not rising."   As DeSmog Canada recently reported, BC Hydro’s records show that without an expanded natural gas export sector, there is no demonstrable need for the Site C dam.   BC Hydro anticipates domestic energy consumption won’t surpass domestic energy supply until 2028, at the earliest.   According to BC Hydro’s estimates, major industrial users of electricity, such as the pulp and paper industry, will use less energy than previously thought — partially because the cost of electricity will increase 28 per cent over the next five years, in part to pay for the Site C dam.   A DeSmog Canada investigation revealed BC Hydro is in fact paying independent power producers not to produce electricity due to an oversupply problem.   “The case that we need this power by 2024 was not made then and is in even worse shape now," Swain said.   He added that electrifying the oilsands would require new transmission lines and likely a new regulatory process with Alberta.   "It does not appear to be a practical alternative.”

Destination for Site C Power a Moving Target 

B.C. LNG projects have been delayed, labeled unprofitable, caught up in land disputes and lack committed investors — hence Clark’s wandering eye.   “I think…we want to have as many customers for BC Hydro product as we can,” Clark told the Alaska Highway News.   Clark added that exporting power “allows us to lower rates for people who live here,” but did not make mention of BC Hydro’s plan to raise hydro rates until at least 2019.   Clark also didn’t mention that Site C’s power is going to cost $80 to $90 per megawatt hour to produce, but the pool price for electricity in Alberta right now is hovering at around $30 per megawatt hour.

Site C is ‘Cultural Genocide’: Chief 

West Moberly First Nation Chief Roland Willson said Clark’s suggestion Site C might be used to electrify the oilsands is absurd.

The purpose of Site C “is a never-ending moving target,” Willson said. “First it was for LNG, then it was to sell power to California, now it’s Alberta.”   He said recent revelations that BC Hydro is paying power producers not to produce highlights that there is no need for Site C.   “So it’s absolutely ridiculous that we’re destroying a valley to potentially sell the power to the Alberta tar sands now.”   The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations are currently fighting against Site C in court, arguing the project infringes on rights guaranteed by Treaty 8.   Willson said Site C will not pass the Sparrow test, a legal litmus test for determining if a government decision justifiably violates First Nation’s rights, because there is no demonstrable need for the power it will produce.   “They’re taking away from us what we value,” Willson said, saying the effects of this project amount to “cultural genocide” for his community.   “It’s residential schools. It’s smallpox in blankets. Now it’s energy development,” he said.   “It’s criminal. They should be held accountable for the damages.”

With files from Emma Gilchrist.

Image: Christy Clark/Flickr.

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On the banks of the Peace River on Saturday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told hundreds of opponents to the Site C dam that he will be handcuffed if necessary to stop BC Hydro’s mega project from moving ahead. 

“From this point forward we have to really focus our efforts on how we’re going to physically stop this project from happening,” Phillip said during a speech at the 10th annual Paddle for the Peace. “The provincial cabinet recently approved permits to allow construction to begin. That’s where the rubber is going to hit the road.”

An emotional Phillip said B.C. is on the eve of an uprising after the government has repeatedly dealt in “bad faith” with First Nations.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip has vowed to be arrested to stop the Site C Dam.

“If push comes to shove, I for one — being a grandfather of 14 grandchildren who I absolutely adore — I am more than willing to be arrested as long as that will contribute to stopping this project,” he said.

“I know when that moment comes I will not be alone.”

The Last Paddle for the Peace?

About 300 boats took to the water Saturday in what could be the last Paddle for the Peace — held on a stretch of the Peace River that will be flooded if the $8.8 billion Site C dam is built.

Construction is due to start on the dam any day now despite a pending Treaty 8 legal challenge, due to be heard by the federal Supreme Court on July 20.

“This is a watershed moment in the province of British Columbia and in this country,” Phillip said. “We simply can not — we can not allow this to happen.”

Beth Steiner, 8, helps bag lettuce at her parents market garden stand in the Peace Valley. The land the Steiners grow everything from corn to watermelons on will be flooded if the Site C dam is built.

Calls for a moratorium on construction on Site C have gained strength recently with the Greater Vancouver Regional District board, representing 23 local governments and 2.5 million people, voting to ask Premier Christy Clark for a two-year moratorium on construction.

The Peace River Regional District — which includes Fort St. John, the city that would see the most economic activity from the dam — voted on Thursday to write a letter to Clark to request that all construction on Site C be stopped until active court cases regarding the project have been completed.

The B.C. government has been criticized for pushing ahead with the project while ignoring repeated calls for an independent review of costs and demand — a recommendation made by the government’s own panel.

David Suzuki: ‘We Fundamentally Failed’

Famed environmentalist David Suzuki changed his schedule to join the paddle on Saturday (and helped rescue some capsized canoeists while he was at it) because the fight for the Peace Valley is near and dear to his heart. During a keynote speech, he told the crowd about his involvement with stopping the Site C dam for the first time in 1981.

“Thirty-five years later, guess what? We’re fighting exactly the same battles all over again,” Suzuki told the crowd. “What we thought were victories were not victories at all, because we fundamentally failed. We failed to shift the way we see our place on the planet.”

Ranchers Dick and Renee Ardill know the drain of the 34-year fight against the dam all too well. When the dam was first defeated, Dick was a spry 54-year-old. Now he’s 88 and grasps his truck for balance as he walks.

Dick Ardill has spent his 88 years ranching in the Peace Valley. His parents homesteaded the land in 1910.

His daughter Renee is sick of telling their story.

“I’m tired of the whole thing,” she told DeSmog Canada during a break from baling hay. “I’m tired of the stupidity of it.”

“You have to just keep going on and doing your job and, if we lose and they build the thing, we’ll worry about that when the time comes. In the meantime, I’m hoping that someone comes to their senses.”

While the recent rejection of the Peace Valley Landowners Association legal challenge was disappointing, it’s not the end of the world, Renee says.

“The battle goes on.”

Injunctions Will Be Filed to Stop Site C Dam Construction

“This is the tenth year we’ve done this and if BC Hydro and B.C. have their way we won’t be doing it any more,” said Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation, before canoes were put in the water.

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson.

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, Willson said he’s holding out for the courts to make the right decision.

“The dam is a direct infringement of our treaty rights,” he said.

Willson said injunctions will be filed to stop any construction that will cause “irreparable harm.”

Farmer Ken Boon, who hosts the Paddle for the Peace on his land, says the early construction plans look like a soft start.

“I’m still confident this dam will not be built,” Boon said. “All we’ve got to do is win one court case.”

Ken Boon is confident the Site C dam will not be built.

Boon’s land will be flooded if the dam is built, but he has yet to be approached by BC Hydro about moving.

“I’m pretty sure they’re expecting a lot of these to go to expropriation if things carry on,” he said.

As it stands, Boon and his wife Arlene still aren’t thinking about moving.

‘We’re Being Mowed Over’

Shawna-Marie Phillips is less optimistic. If construction moves forward, a 3,000-man camp will be located one kilometre from her organic farm and ranch.

Sometimes it feels like she’s yelling into the void and nobody’s listening, she said.

Given that the Site C dam is the most expensive public project in B.C. history, yet only one reporter from a major news outlet attended Saturday’s event, Phillips could be forgiven for feeling out of sight and out of mind.

“I feel like we’re being mowed over,” she said.  “I get a feeling that this is the last time.”

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B.C. will continue to kill wolves for at least a decade in an attempt to save endangered caribou according to government documents released this week — but new research re-confirms that caribou declines are primarily caused by industrial development.

The province recently finished the first year of its province-wide wolf cull, which resulted in the killing of 84 animals. But documents released to the Globe and Mail indicate the B.C. government is aware habitat destruction is at the root of declining caribou populations.

“Ultimately, as long as the habitat conditions on and adjacent to caribou ranges remain heavily modified by industrial activities, it is unlikely that any self-sustaining caribou populations will be able to exist in the South Peace [region],” the document says.

New research published in the journal Biological Conservation re-enforces that view.

In their paper, “Witnessing Extinction,” Chris Johnson and Libby Ehlers from the University of Northern B.C. and Dale Seip from the B.C. Ministry of Environment found that the cumulative impacts of roads, mining, oil and gas development and forestry have resulted in a 65.9 per cent loss of caribou habitat.

The study concludes that in B.C. this level of habitat restoration and protection is unlikely.

“At current rates of habitat loss and population decline, these caribou, a significant component of Canada’s biodiversity, are unlikely to persist. Although the factors leading to extinction are complex, the cumulative impacts of industrial development are a correlative if not causative factor,” the authors conclude.

According to the federal government’s caribou recovery strategy, provinces are expected to meet a target of 65 per cent undisturbed caribou habitat in all ranges by 2017.

Wolf Cull Ignores Main Drivers of Caribou Decline

Experts say the wolf cull program is a band-aid solution, which overlooks the real drivers of caribou decline.

The real problem is much less exciting than wolves — it’s shrubs, according to Robert Serrouya, of the Columbia Caribou Research Project and researcher with the University of Alberta.

Shrubs — left to grow in areas that have been logged — provide prime habitat for species such as moose and deer, which in turn compete for habitat with caribou and inflate wolf populations. These species are referred to as “alternate prey.”

Serrouya is advancing research that could minimize the killing of wolves and transform caribou recovery in the province: alternate prey management.

By suppressing moose and deer populations, wolf numbers may naturally decline, Serrouya said. He added that killing more populous species that are commonly hunted for food, such as moose, deer and elk, may be received more favourably by the public than the wolf cull, which has received widespread criticism.

“The thing about prey reduction is you have to do much less predator control because you’ve reduced their food source, they won’t breed as much or colonize an area as much because you’ve reduced their resource,” he said.

Industrial Impacts in B.C. Growing

But other experts argue even killing off other prey species such as moose or deer won’t help much if the B.C. government doesn’t slow the province’s industrialization.

Paul Paquet, a wolf biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said the killing of wolves or other prey species to save caribou while ignoring habitat loss is not only misguided, but unethical.

“It’s really frustrating, the wolf cull really creates a moral dilemma for people,” he said. “It’s useless to pursue without aggressive measures to protect habitat.”

“Habitat, habitat. That’s been repeated since the ’70s and ’80s,” he said.

Paquet said the B.C. government put a “totally arbitrary time frame” on the wolf cull, while contributing to the rapid industrialization of the north.

He pointed to the recent study showing a strong correlation between caribou declines and industrial development in B.C.’s South Peace region.

“At Raincoast, that’s been our primary point — to protect what we have, hold the line on what habitat remains.”

‘I Want To Eat a Caribou Before I Die’

Roland Willson, chief of the West Moberly First Nation in northeast B.C., said caribou declines have transformed his traditional way of life.

Speaking at a recent event in Victoria, Willson said the proposed Site C dam will mean further damage to caribou herds, which his tribe is working hard to protect.

“I want to eat a caribou before I die,” he said, talking about a book he wrote with the same title.

“We’ve put together a study on what we’re losing by not being able to harvest caribou any more,” he said, noting caribou is essential to traditional practices involving food preparation, tool and cloth making and art.

Willson said his people have had to go to court to fight against industrial development, especially mining, in caribou habitat.

“Canada has a Species at Risk Act that B.C. isn’t listening to,” he said. “B.C. isn’t following its own best practices.”

Willson said he isn’t against the province’s wolf cull in principle, adding the West Moberly people have long “managed the number of wolf packs.”

Willson added he isn’t opposed to industry, but wants the province to find a way to balance development with treaty rights that protect his nation’s right to traditional hunting practices.

“We don’t want to just look at the caribou. We want to eat them.”

The West Moberly First Nation is located in Treaty 8 territory in B.C. where there are thousands of oil and gas wells. The Treaty 8 Tribal Association is currently working on a strategic assessment of the cumulative impacts of development in the territory, which covers 279,000 square kilometres in B.C.

Too Late for Habitat Focus?

For Serrouya, the opportunity to focus solely on habitat protect might have been missed years ago.

“We used to do so much forestry in this province,” he said. “It’s much better now with large protected areas.”

He added that protection of old-growth forests has helped limit habitat loss and he argued B.C.’s caribou decline “isn’t necessarily being led by sprawling oil and gas activity.”

“It’s the legacy of intensive logging,” he said. “Unfortunately we can’t speed up the regrowth of deforested areas.”

“The key factor with all of this is, if you don’t do anything with the population side — the caribou, moose, deer, wolves — and you just focus on habitat protection, you’ll lose the caribou,” he said.

Paquet disagrees, however.

“Habitat protection has always been the most important part of this story,” he said, adding the removal of top predators, such as wolves, can be damaging for complex ecosystems in the long term.

“I think a lot of it is solvable,” Paquet said. “But it means full protection of their critical habitat, to hold the line there and reestablish them as their populations increase.”

“For that you need more critical habitat and less rampant industrial development. But will that ever happen in B.C.?”

Image Credit: B.C. wolf by John E. Marriott

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West Moberly First Nation Chief Roland Willson said the day his nine-year-old son caught a nine pound fish, a dolly varden, in the Williston reservoir should have been a proud moment.

“He caught it in the reservoir but because of what I know about the mercury we couldn’t eat it,” Willson said. “He had snagged it so bad we had to take it home and it ended up going in the garbage.”

The Williston reservoir, resulting from the creation of the W.A.C Bennett dam, is known for containing high levels of mercury, a common feature of large man-made reservoirs containing high levels of organic material. In 2000, the B.C. government issued a fish consumption advisory for the reservoir.

Although that day of fishing on the reservoir was seven years ago, Willson has a new reason to fear those high levels of mercury: the recent approval of the Site C dam.

Willson said he’s concerned the Site C dam will result in similarly contaminated reservoir water.

“Site C is proposed for the same river,” Willson said. “There’s no reason to think this problem is not going to transfer.”

According to an internal mercury assessment for the Site C reservoir prepared by BC Hydro for Health Canada, “one of the known impacts of reservoir creation is the increase in fish mercury concentration and the real and perceived effects on human health.”

The Site C dam project will flood a 100 square kilometre region that is rich in organic materials. According to the Site C mercury assessment, the flooding of such areas contributes to the creation of methyl mercury, a form of mercury that bioaccumulates in the food chain through fish:

The flooding of soils and vegetation to create reservoirs during hydroelectric development provides a new source of nutrients and inorganic mercury for bacteria in the flooded environment. Bacterial decomposition of this new organic material increases the natural rate of methyl mercury creation in the new reservoir which can last for several years. Ultimately, this causes methyl mercury concentrations to increase in water, plankton, aquatic insects, and fish. In Canada, the phenomenon of increased methyl mercury concentrations in the environment and especially in fish as a result of reservoir creation has been well documented, especially in Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

The West Moberly First Nation recently sampled 57 fish taken from the Crooked River, a migration route directly connected to the Williston reservoir.

They found 98 per cent of the samples contained mercury levels that exceeded provincial guidelines.

Willson held up a Hershey’s Kiss chocolate. “See this? Our study shows that women of childbearing age, toddlers and the elderly should not eat more than that (amount of fish) a day. That’s how much mercury is in there.”

He said he’s very concerned the construction of the Site C dam will further threaten his Nation’s ability to consume their traditional foods.

“This is our salmon. We don’t have salmon up there. The bull trout, the lake trout, the dolly varden — they have lots of fat content, you smoke them, you dry them, we can them, you throw that fish on the fire at the cabin, barbeque and cook it up with onions."

“It tastes pretty good. So we thought.”

Willson said the B.C. government is arguing Site C is needed to create power for B.C. homes.

“This power is not needed for homes. That’ a lie,” he said.

“This power is not for homes, it’s for development. They need power for LNG and for all the mines up there.”

The B.C. government is aggressively pursuing development of natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities to supply gas to Asian markets.

Willson said he is committed to fighting against the Site C dam’s approval. His nation is working with RAVEN Trust, a legal aid group which is currently fundraising to support the West Moberly Nation’s legal challenge.

“There’s a workable solution for creating an alternative,” Willson said, saying geothermal is a known option BC Hydro has been criticized for not giving full consideration.

“Canada is supposed to be a world leading country in technology,” he said. “There’s got to be a way to use gas here, without flooding our valley.”

“Site C started as a $7 million dollar bad idea. It’s now a $9 billion dollar mistake,” Willson said. “By the time they’re done it’s going be a $12 billion dollar nightmare. Our grandkids are going to have to deal with it.”

Aboriginal Health Risk Assessment of Mercury in Bull Trout Harvested from the Crooked River, British Columb…

Image Credit: Carol Linnitt

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The provincial and federal governments have issued an environmental approval certificate for the Site C dam despite acknowledging it will cause significant adverse environmental effects.

“Those effects are justified in the circumstances,” says the decision statement signed by Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s minister of environment.

The province must still decide whether to proceed with the 1,100-megawatt project based on an investment decision, expected by the end of this year.

“The final decision still has to go through the cabinet, so we’ll still be working to convince them it’s not the best decision,” said Andrea Morison of the Peace Valley Environment Association, a group that has fought the dam for decades.

The $8 billion project would be the third dam on the Peace River and would be located seven kilometres from Fort St. John, B.C.

The dam has been opposed by local farmers, ranchers and the Treaty 8 First Nations because it will flood 87 kilometres of the Peace River, impacting wildlife and flooding 30,000 acres of farmland, including an area the size of the city of Victoria within the Agricultural Land Reserve.

West Moberly Chief Roland Willson has already vowed to challenge the decision in court and has said the province can’t have both the Site C dam and liquefied natural gas (LNG) development, which requires gas from Treaty 8 territory.

The environmental assessment certificate is subject to 77 conditions, including establishing a fund of $20 million to compensate for lost agricultural lands and activities.

In May, a federal-provincial Joint Review Panel issued its report on Site C. The panel was ambivalent in its findings, saying both that the dam could provide cheap power but also that the costs needed to be examined further and that it’s not clear that the power will be needed on the timeline provided.

“The Joint Review Panel considering the dam’s impacts determined that they are so significant that only an ‘unambiguous need’ for the power would justify them. And BC Hydro did not demonstrate such a need,” said Karsten Heuer, president of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). “We don’t understand the basis on which the B.C. and federal governments could issue their approvals.”

Y2Y has argued that the Site C reservoir would seriously impede wildlife movement in the region.

“The Peace River Valley is located at the narrowest width of the Yellowstone to Yukon region and the existing Williston Reservoir already is a major blockage to wildlife movement,” Heuer said.

The joint review panel’s report included a recommendation to refer the project for review by the independent B.C. Utilities Commission, saying the panel didn’t have the time or resources to comment on the cost of the project.

“All British Columbia Hydro ratepayers should be concerned about that,” said Gwen Johansson, mayor of the District of Hudson’s Hope.

The panel also found that the province has failed to look at alternatives to the Site C dam for the past three decades. New maps released this month indicate B.C. has enough low-impact geothermal energy to power the entire province. 

Read DeSmog Canada's 12-part series on the Site C dam.

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A third hydroelectric dam proposed for the Peace River would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace Valley in between Fort St. John and Hudson's Hope, B.C. Dubbed the "Site C" dam, if built, it would put more than 3,800 hectares of Agricultural Land Reserve farmland — an area nearly twice the size of the city of Victoria — under water.

DeSmog Canada recently visited the Peace Valley for the ninth annual Paddle for the Peace, which attracted hundreds of paddlers from across North America. While we were there, we met with the farmers and ranchers who stand to be impacted if the dam is built.

Check out our photos below and learn more by reading our in-depth series on the plight of the Peace Valley and the Site C dam.

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I round a bend on Highway 29 just west of Fort St. John and a magnificent river valley opens up before me.

At the bottom of the winding road, farmers' fields stretch as far as the eye can see along the banks of the mighty Peace River.

This is the same valley explorer Alexander Mackenzie paddled through in 1792, noting in his journal that the valley was so rich in wildlife that in some places it looked like a barnyard.

“Ninety per cent of the people who take that drive remember it for a lifetime,” says local rancher Leigh Summer. [view:in_this_series=block_1]

Today, the highway toward Hudson’s Hope is dotted with trucks carrying canoes and kayaks, all converging upon one spot: the Halfway River bridge, where the 9th annual Paddle for the Peace will launch.

The Paddle is an annual pilgrimage for people who want the valley to be protected from BC Hydro’s proposed Site C dam, which would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace River and 24 kilometres of its tributaries. The two-hour paddle takes place on a section of the river that will be flooded if the dam is built.

Highway 29 between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope is home to several billboards with slogans like “Keep the Peace,” “Site C Sucks” and “Save the Peace Valley.”

With the federal and provincial governments expected to make their decisions on the project this fall, there’s an undercurrent of tension at this year’s Paddle as farmers, ranchers and First Nations wait to see what will be next in their decades-long fight to stop the dam (the project was first rejected in 1982).

The people of this area know a thing or two about dams given that the Peace River is already home to two major ones.

Leigh Summer was just 14 years old when his family’s ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in 1967. His grandparents homesteaded that land in the 1920s and his mother was born there.

“We were told it was going to be good for the economy, so we took it in stride,” Summer says while sitting in his boat with his family during Saturday's Paddle for the Peace.

The W.A.C. Bennett dam stretches two kilometres across the head of the Peace canyon and creates Williston Reservoir, B.C.’s largest body of freshwater.

“I think the Williston Lake has paid dividends to the province,” Summer says. “But I think the time has come to realize that it’s a decent energy, but it’s a thing of the past.”

Now, 47 years after being flooded out for the first time, Summer's ranch is at risk again — this time from BC Hydro’s proposed third dam on the Peace, dubbed “Site C.”

With a price tag of $7.9 billion, the Site C dam is the largest infrastructure project in Canada and would produce about 5,100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year. But the demand for the power has been questioned by economists and by the joint review panel that reviewed the project.

The panel's report, released in May, was inconclusive, saying both that the dam could provide cheap, reliable power for B.C. and that the demand for that power is not clear. The panel asked the provincial government to refer the project to the B.C. Utilities Commission to analyze the costs — something the province has yet to do.

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

If the dam is built, Summer would be one of dozens of families who will impacted by flooding, slope instability and road re-alignments. His family could end up with a road through the field in front of their house. He finds it galling how BC Hydro talks about this being the Crown corporation's last chance to build a big dam.

“Why is this the last if this is such a good thing? They are admitting that hydro electricity was good in the 19th and in the 20th century. We’re in the 21st century … we have to either look to conservation or other forms of energy,” he says. “It’s so archaic. Building this dam isn’t even progress for the province.”

Leigh, his wife Darcy and their three young children spend most of the summer enjoying the Peace River. Their youngest son, a fifth generation Peace Country boy, is even called River.

Leigh Summer's family ranch was flooded by the W.A.C. Bennett dam in 1967.

River Summer spends a lot of time on the Peace River with his parents and two older sisters.

“I’m just sad at what they lost already with the two valleys,” Darcy says. “When you see pictures and when you do research on that, it was just beautiful, it was so magnificent. To think that we’re going to keep destroying it.”

This stretch of the Peace valley between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope is the last intact part of the river in British Columbia.

“Why can’t we leave a piece of the Peace intact for future generations?” Leigh says, his daughter sitting in his lap. “Let them have a choice. If we flood it, we take that choice away from them, from ever seeing what the Peace River was like.”

Out of sight, out of mind for the voting majority

For those trying to stop the Site C dam, one of the biggest challenges is that this part of the province — a 14-hour drive from Vancouver — is out of sight, out of mind for the voting majority of the province.

A September 2013 poll commissioned by BC Hydro found only four in 10 British Columbians had even heard of the Crown utility’s proposal to build a third hydroelectric dam on the Peace River.

“That’s what this event is all about,” says Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation. “There are people who are making a decision about this valley who have never even been here.”

Roland Willson, chief of West Moberly First Nation.

“There is nothing better in the world than to be able to put your boat on the water or go stand knee deep in the water and catch a fish and eat that fish. And drink the water. That in itself is something that’s worth saving,” Willson says.

Because the Peace River is the only river to break the barrier of the Rocky Mountains between the Yukon south almost to Mexico, it has provided a gateway for wildlife and people for thousands of years.

Although few British Columbians make it up to the Peace region nowadays, Fort St. John is the oldest non-native community in British Columbia, established as a fur trading post in 1794 — and First Nations have been here more than 10,000 years. Indeed, the Peace got its name from a peace treaty signed between the Danezaa people, called the Beaver by the Europeans, and the Cree signed in 1781.

As I float down the river in one of about 250 boats taking part in the Paddle, First Nations drummers start to sing alongside. At just that moment, an eagle swoops overhead.

About 250 boats were on the water for Paddle for the Peace on Saturday July 12.

“We’re prepared to take any means necessary to stop this project in support of the Treaty 8 First Nations leadership,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip told Desmog Canada at the Paddle. “I really hope that this project is buried once and for all.”

People aren’t the only ones who will be impacted if the dam is built.

“Site C will make a major contribution toward severing that Rocky mountain chain that goes all the way from Yellowstone to Yukon,” says Sarah Cox, senior conservation program manager for the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.  

“The science shows that vulnerable species like grizzly, wolverine and lynx will be greatly impacted to the extent that populations may not be recoverable,” she says. “It’s hard to imagine that the beauty of this valley will be completely flooded and underwater.”

Last week, the Sierra Club BC, Peace Valley Environmental Association and Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative launched a new website, StopSiteC.org, where citizens can sign a petition to voice their opposition to the project.

'The Peace … has paid her price'

Doug Donaldson, the NDP’s aboriginal affairs and reconciliation critic, spoke to the crowd of paddlers before they hit the water.

“I think that this river and the Peace River Valley and you have given enough to the province,” he said.

A billboard protests the Site C dam above Bear Flats in the Peace Valley.

Organizers said BC Liberal representatives were invited to speak, but did not attend. Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett has said he has not made up his mind about the dam yet.

For Leigh, who’s watching and waiting to see whether his family may be uprooted a second time by one of BC Hydro’s dams, the Peace has shouldered more than its fair share of the impacts of providing power for the province.

“The Peace River in British Columbia has paid her price for prosperity,” Summer says. “Do we have to completely destroy the whole Peace River in all of B.C.?”

He’s frustrated that the province has exempted the project from the review of the B.C. Utilities Commission, the independent regulator that turned the dam down in 1982.

“That’s wrong. We call ourselves a democracy; that’s not democracy,” Summer says.

“The truth would set us free here, but the truth never gets to the right people.”

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