A version of this article also appears on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Policy Note. 

BC Hydro has known for well over a decade that its Peace Canyon dam is built on weak, unstable rock and that an earthquake triggered by a nearby natural gas industry fracking or disposal well operation could cause the dam to fail, according to documents obtained by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ B.C. office.

For years, knowledge of the dam’s compromised foundation was not shared widely within the Crown corporation. It was even kept secret from members of a joint federal-provincial panel that reviewed the Site C dam, now under construction 70 kilometres downstream of Peace Canyon in the Montney Basin — one of the most active natural gas fracking zones in British Columbia.

The disturbing revelation is among many contained in hundreds of emails, letters, memos and meeting notes released by the publicly owned hydro utility in response to the freedom of information (FOI) request.

The documents show that BC Hydro officials knew from the moment the Peace Canyon dam was built in the 1970s that it had “foundational problems,” and that if an earthquake damaged the structure’s vital drainage systems it could be a race to stabilize the dam before it failed.

The documents also show that BC Hydro’s concerns about threats to the dam were discussed “at the highest level” within the provincial government 10 years ago, but that unidentified provincial cabinet ministers at that time rejected taking any action.

The documents have been augmented with a raft of emails supplied by a former BC Hydro construction manager, who oversaw $350 million in retrofits at the Peace Canyon and W.A.C. Bennett dams in 2007, and who is speaking out publicly for the first time about his concerns.

The Peace Canyon dam in B.C. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

A compromised foundation

Built in the late 1970s, the Peace Canyon dam lies a short distance downriver from the massive, earth-filled W.A.C. Bennett dam.

The FOI documents show that the Peace Canyon dam was built on top of layers of sedimentary rock, including shale — a rock known to present difficulties in large engineering projects.

“A number of weaker bedding planes were identified underneath the dam during construction. Some of these exist directly below the dam within the foundation, and shear tests on bedrock core samples indicated shear resistance that was significantly lower than originally anticipated during design,” reads one internal report on Peace Canyon prepared by BC Hydro. 

“The dam is marginally stable under full uplift considerations, which does not meet modern design practice.”

The discovery was a bombshell. Since the shale rock underlying the dam was more susceptible to shearing or breaking than previously thought, it was vital to prevent any industrial activities nearby that could possibly trigger earthquakes.

But that knowledge was not widely shared within BC Hydro itself, even when disturbing tremors started to be felt at the dam in 2007 — more than 30 years after problems were first detected.

Included in the list of people not to be told was Dave Unger, who began a year-long stint with the BC Hydro in December 2006.

Dave Unger at the Peace Canyon dam with author Ben Parfitt. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

‘My stomach went into my throat’

Unger was hired as the construction manager at BC Hydro’s Peace region dams, where he oversaw the dismantling and replacement of power-generating equipment at both the Peace Canyon and W.A.C. Bennett dams.

In the summer of 2007, while Unger sat in his office at Peace Canyon, he had a sudden sensation that the earth was shifting beneath him. It was the third notable ground-shaking event and by far the strongest he had experienced at the dam that year.

“I felt a real tremor and my stomach went into my throat. I opened up the door and I could hear a ‘ping’ as the concrete split right from the office door out to the front door, which is 100 feet away,” Unger said. “That really woke me up.”

At first, Unger wondered whether the shaking was related to ongoing crane operations that he was supervising and where very heavy equipment was being lifted. But he soon rejected that idea. There were just too many signs the dam itself was under stress. There were cracks in the concrete floors, cracks in the support beams and cracks in the powerhouse.

“It was just incredible what I found,” Unger later recalled. “I couldn’t believe what I saw, and nobody was doing anything about it.”

Unger and Parfitt look out towards the Peace Canyon dam where Unger felt a tremor and watched the concrete split in 2007. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

BC Hydro eventually dispatched Tibor J. Patakay, a professional engineer, to investigate.

Like Unger, Patakay found that the construction work didn’t explain the shaking. Something more elemental and potentially ominous was in play. The canyon walls that the dam was anchored to were slowly moving, Patakay said. Additionally, water pressure appeared to be causing “leaky joints and cracks” in the dam’s walls.

If, as Unger and others who worked at the dam later suspected, encroaching natural gas industry fracking operations were triggering earthquakes, that posed serious dangers to a dam with a compromised foundation — and to the people living and working downstream. 

BC Hydro’s dam safety specialist warned senior officials of fracking quakes

In 2009, two years after Unger’s departure, Scott Gilliss began writing email after email to his superiors expressing fear about how encroaching fracking operations could destabilize BC Hydro’s Peace Canyon dams.

Gilliss was BC Hydro’s dam safety specialist in the Peace region, a position he still holds today.

The FOI records show that Gilliss was particularly worried about the Peace Canyon dam given eerie similarities between it and a dam in California that had failed more than 50 years earlier.

At 3:38 p.m. on December 14, 1963, a hole opened on the face of the Baldwin Hills dam outside of Los Angeles. The hole rapidly expanded under pressure and eventually split the structure open, sending an unstoppable wall of water rushing downhill. Five people were killed and 277 homes were either destroyed or extensively damaged in the aftermath of the dam’s failure.

Thankfully, the death toll was far lower than it could have been because local police had enough time to issue a warning that the dam’s collapse was imminent.

The Baldwin Hills dam was built near known fault lines and near where oil and gas companies operated, a dangerous mix that Gilliss knew was also at play at Peace Canyon. Gilliss also knew that when investigators subsequently looked into what went wrong at Baldwin Hills that “pressure injection” operations by oil and gas companies were at least partly to blame for the “slow movement of the faults” under the reservoir that led to the dam’s demise.

Gilliss began writing numerous emails warning his superiors about the dangers associated with encroaching oil and gas industry operations in the vicinity of the Peace Canyon dam and the community immediately downstream of the dam, Hudson’s Hope, where Gilliss himself lived.

Gilliss alerted several senior officials with BC Hydro about “clusters” of earthquakes that were being reported in fracking operations in northeast B.C. He also warned about proposed natural gas wells that were to be drilled and fracked near Hudson’s Hope, with some wells slated to be drilled just two kilometres away from the Peace Canyon dam.

Gilliss recalls writing so many emails in 2009 that in his own words he started to “sound like a broken record.”

An email from Gilliss alerting BC Hydro officials to his concern regarding the threat of fracking-induced earthquakes to B.C.’s Peace River dams.

Ray Stewart, BC Hydro’s chief safety, health and environmental officer and director of dam safety, soon picked up on Gilliss’s concerns.

In December 2009, Stewart wrote Glen Davidson, British Columbia’s comptroller of water rights. As comptroller, Davidson was in charge of the department overseeing dam safety in the province.

“Hudson’s Hope Gas, a subsidiary of Canada Energy Partners and GeoMet Inc. have drilled at least eight, roughly 1,000-metre deep, coalbed methane production wells in the Hudson’s Hope region to date,” Stewart wrote Davidson. “Future plans could include drilling over 300 wells.”

Stewart warned there were “immediate and future potential risks to BC Hydro’s reservoir, dam and power generation infrastructure.” The biggest risk was increased earthquakes that could “re-activate” existing faults in proximity to the dam, Stewart said.

Thanks to Gilliss’ numerous emails, fracking and dam safety was also discussed by at least two provincial cabinet ministers.

“Your broken record was listened to at the highest level (minister to minister) and was ‘officially’ shut down,” Stephen Rigbey, BC Hydro’s then manager of dam safety, told Gilliss in an email.

Fracking ban ‘a dead issue’

It is unclear who the ministers were. But B.C.’s energy minister at the time was Blair Lekstrom, and Lekstrom had responsibility for both BC Hydro and the Oil and Gas Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry in the province. Barry Penner, meanwhile, was environment minister and had responsibility for dam safety.

Unfortunately, Rigbey told Gilliss, the ministerial meeting did not go BC Hydro’s way. The report-back was that unless BC Hydro could definitively show “a smoking gun” that linked a specific fracking operation to a specific earthquake detected at a specific dam location, a ban on fracking operations near BC Hydro’s Peace River dams was “a dead issue.”

Rigbey told Gilliss all that could be done for the time being was to keep the comptroller of water rights’ office informed.

But Gilliss was not to be dissuaded and kept up his email alerts.

On Feb. 18, 2011, he warned it wasn’t just the Peace Canyon dam that was at risk from fracking operations. The W.A.C. Bennett dam, where two sinkholes were discovered at the crest of the the 183-metre high structure in 1996, was also at risk.

“The Montney formation shale, which is being developed by these companies, may extend below the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. This is concerning because the seismic stability of the dam may be questionable given the possibility of internal erosion of the core and transition (I have already added a Dam Safety issue in our Database on this subject),” Gilliss wrote.

On Aug. 28, 2012, Gilliss wrote again with further concerns about the W.A.C. Bennett dam. This time it was to report about a “strange oscillation event” or sudden, unexplained change in the water levels at Williston reservoir — the seventh-largest hydro reservoir on earth by water volume.

The event had occurred the month before, Gilliss said, and was considered so perplexing that BC Hydro officials flew over the entire reservoir the next day looking for an explanation.

The suspicion was that a massive amount of soil and rock had sloughed into the reservoir — a possibility, given the notoriously slide-prone banks of the reservoir. But no sign of a big landslide was found.

With no means of checking for underwater slides, Gilliss and others began to contemplate the unthinkable — “that a frack opened up a fissure in the reservoir, and there was a release of gas, that could have displaced the water and caused the oscillation.”

BC Hydro engineer sidestepped Site C panel questions about seismic concerns

In 2014, two years after Gilliss wrote that email, three members of a review panel tasked by the federal and provincial governments with reviewing the Site C dam held meetings at the Pomeroy Hotel in Fort St. John.

One of the day’s agenda items was earthquakes and potential risks to BC Hydro’s Peace River dams. Among the experts to testify for BC Hydro that day was Tim Little, a senior consulting engineer with 37 years’ work experience.

Little was introduced to the panel as “an expert in seismic hazard analysis” and as BC Hydro’s former chief engineer, a position he had occupied between 2007 and 2011, years when Unger, Gilliss, Rigbey and Stewart had repeatedly raised concerns about problems at Peace Canyon.

“The seismic design of Site C is very robust and the dam can safely withstand earthquakes up to the 1 in 10,000 level,” Little said.

A map showing oil and gas leases surrounding the location of the Site C dam, currently under construction.

The dam’s designers also took into account the impact that earthquakes with magnitudes of up to 7.6 could happen on existing faults in the area, Little added. He later said that W.A.C. Bennett dam had been assessed “at a preliminary level” and that it, too, would likely survive a 1 in 10,000 event.

Little was then asked about a “seismic performance assessment” of the Peace Canyon dam, and replied that he did not know what the assessment’s status was. (At the time of Little’s presentation, BC Hydro’s board of directors had committed to an “updated stability assessment of the dam including a new analysis of the “seismic hazard” risks at the dam. But the work had not commenced, and to this day remains uncompleted.)

At that point, panel member Jim Mattison asked Little about recent reports of clusters of earthquakes triggered by fracking activities and what impacts they might have on BC Hydro’s dams.

Little acknowledged BC Hydro knew earthquakes were being triggered during fracking operations and that BC Hydro was in contact with the Oil and Gas Commission about them. But he said the earthquakes were generally small, that BC Hydro had considered them in its design of the Site C dam and that such earthquakes posed few risks.

“The fracking process might induce some other earthquakes, but we’ve already accounted for those in the seismic hazard analysis,” Little said. “The only thing that you might say is that fracking speeds them up a little bit over what nature would provide on its own.”

Mattison had been appointed to the panel based on his lengthy career in the provincial civil service, including a stint as British Columbia’s water comptroller. As comptroller, provincial dam safety officers reported to him.

So it would have been natural for Mattison to ask questions of Little about the stability of the Peace Canyon dam had Little volunteered any information about the numerous concerns that had been raised within BC Hydro about the dam.

But Little did not do so even though he himself had been warned by Rigbey in an email five years earlier that a magnitude 5.5 earthquake “could be significant for a meta-stable facility such as PCN [the Peace Canyon dam].” 

The result of Little’s silence was that Mattison and his panel colleagues were kept in the dark about the upriver seismic problems and their potential impact on the construction and operation of Site C — problems that only came to light when BC Hydro was forced to release documents in response to the freedom of information request.

When told about the existence of that and other emails, Mattison who is now retired and living in Qualicum Beach, said it left him feeling “quite uneasy.”

“There was always kind of a wonder about the seismic risk,” Mattison recalls. “They just kept saying: ‘No, we’ve looked into it. We’re on solid ground here.’ ” 

A Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. gas well site about 20 kilometres south of the Site C dam. A 4.5 magnitude earthquake was triggered at the site in November 2018, resulting in a “strong jolt” at the Site C construction site. Photo: Garth Lenz

Toxic waste pumped underground 3.3 kilometres from Peace Canyon dam

In early August 2015, less than a year after Little’s appearance before the panel, the British Columbia government approved Site C — a project t former premier Christy Clark had vowed to push “past the point of no return.”

Only a couple of weeks into preliminary construction work on the dam, a 4.6 magnitude earthquake north of Fort St. John was triggered at a fracking operation by Progress Energy, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Petronas. At the time, the Clark government was actively encouraging Petronas to invest in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant near Prince Rupert.

The Petronas earthquake was felt for miles around and was far more consequential than the industry-induced earthquakes Little referred to.

The earthquake caught people’s attention at BC Hydro and was much on the mind of Scott Gilliss a year-and-a-half later when, in March 2017, he learned that truckloads of liquid waste were being delivered to a disposal well site just 3.3 kilometres from the Peace Canyon dam.

Disposal wells are where fossil fuel companies deliver truckloads of toxic liquid waste, including contaminated water generated at fracking operations, to be pumped deep underground for “permanent” disposal.

Gilliss alerted Rigbey, who was by then director of dam safety for BC Hydro, and Rigbey quickly contacted the Oil and Gas Commission to express concerns about the threats the well posed to the Peace Canyon dam.

In an email on March 14, Rigbey noted that because of the “foundational problems” at Peace Canyon, BC Hydro had effectively downgraded the strength of ground motions that the dam could safely withstand by one third.

Were even a modest 4 to 4.5 magnitude earthquake to occur within 10 kilometres of the dam, Rigbey said that the ensuing ground motions could easily be three times stronger than what the dam could safely tolerate without some damage occurring.

“It doesn’t take much magnitude to reach this acceleration,” Rigbey warned.

Waving the red flag

Two-and-a-half hours later, Rigbey received a reply email from Ron Stefik, the Oil and Gas Commission’s man in charge of natural gas industry disposal well operations. 

“The seismic tolerance you have noted is of high concern,” Stefik wrote.

Stefik then asked BC Hydro’s dam safety chief to forward on “any engineering reports or other documentation” that the commission could use “to support appropriate regulatory action.”

By then both commission and BC Hydro personnel knew there was a distinct possibility that an earthquake far stronger than a magnitude 4 could be generated at a disposal well.

Three years earlier, a 5.7 magnitude earthquake had been set off at one such well in Oklahoma, a state that prior to the arrival of the fracking industry had few tremors of note. The earthquake and several powerful aftershocks caused the ground to shake in at least 17 U.S. states, buckled a highway in three places, damaged homes, and injured two people. Scientists who studied the event later concluded that the cumulative effect of 18 years of continuous pumping deep into the earth at the well site had unleashed the damage.

A magnitude 5.7 earthquake releases 53 times the energy that a magnitude 4 earthquake does.

Two engineers with BC Hydro — Omri Olund and Norm Stephenson — would later amplify Rigbey’s concerns.

In light of the weak rock underlying the dam, Olund and Stephenson said, it was essential that the dam’s drainage systems function well. That included the dam’s spillway. Spillways are an essential feature of any safe dam. They are a built-in safeguard against water levels behind a dam rising too high and over-topping it — an event that can easily bring a dam down.

Unfortunately, the engineers said, the Peace Canyon dam’s spillway in particular was not up to standard. It only “marginally” satisfied requirements for “usual” operations and was considered “substantially deficient” should a strong enough earthquake occur nearby.

Olund and Stephenson also had other concerns. The dam’s drainage gallery is at the base of and inside the structure itself. Due to the tremendous pressure that water impounded by the dam is under, water at the lowest depths gets pushed under and then up vertically through the pores in the dam’s foundation and into the gallery.

To counter this “uplift,” which left unchecked can destabilize a dam, pumps are used to drain such galleries.

“If the dam drainage pumps at PCN [Peace Canyon] dam have ceased to operate, and it is not possible to open the emergency drainage valves that allow water to drain by gravity from the bucket blocks to the powerhouse sump, the water is likely going to rise in the drainage galleries to levels which will cause a rapid increase in uplift pressures,” Olund and Stephenson warned. “This will negatively impact the stability of the dam.”

The engineers were waving a danger flag filled with qualifications, but a danger flag nonetheless. If an earthquake occurred, and if the dam’s drainage pumps were compromised, and if BC Hydro could not get the pumps running properly again, there could be big trouble.

An earthquake might not immediately bring the dam down, but it could set in motion events that could cause the dam to fail. Stephenson would later say just that in a meeting between BC Hydro and Oil and Gas Commission personnel in December 2017.

The Site C dam and ‘critically stressed’ faults

Less than a year after that meeting, on Nov. 29, 2018, hundreds of workers at the Site C dam were ordered to put down tools and immediately evacuate the area after a “strong jolt” was felt at the massive construction project.

By then, workers at the site were acutely aware of the unstable terrain they were working in. Only two months earlier, a massive landslide had occurred just downstream of the dam site. The wall of mud, rock and trees that sloughed off the steep, unstable bank overlooking the Peace River took out a section of the only road leading into and out of the community of Old Fort.

The epicenter of the November earthquake was just 20 kilometres south of Site C and was soon linked to a fracking operation at a Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. natural gas well pad.

The Old Fort road, crumpled by a September 2018 landslide. Photo: Jayce Hawkins / The Narwhal

The CNRL gas well site where a 4.5 magnitude earthquake was triggered in November 2018. Photo: Garth Lenz

Earlier that year, the company had pressure-pumped nearly 63 Olympic swimming pools worth of water along with chemicals and sand deep into the earth at seven gas wells drilled close together on a patch of once fertile farmland. The pressure-pumping or fracking was done to bust up the underlying shale rock and to unlock the natural gas and condensate trapped within it.

When the company pumped even more water into the earth as it fracked a further two wells, it set off the second-strongest induced earthquake yet in B.C. 

As work continues at the Site C dam, more earthquakes near the construction site and the Peace Canyon dam upstream are almost a certainty. What is far from certain and completely unpredictable is how strong those future earthquakes might be.

As three scientists noted in a report submitted in February 2019 to Michelle Mungall, B.C.’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, no one can predict how large an earthquake may be triggered by a fracking or disposal well operation. That is just one of the many big “unknowns” and “uncertainties” flagged in the report’s 232 pages.

What is certain is that parts of the South Montney basin, including the area where November 2018’s big shake occurred, are extremely susceptible to “induced” earthquakes.

According to a report submitted in June 2019 to the Oil and Gas Commission by two independent geological experts the “Kiskatinaw Seismic Monitoring and Mitigation Area,” which lies just south of the Peace River, is riddled with fractures and faults, some of which are close to the Site C dam.

Given all of those naturally occurring faults and fractures, continued approval of fracking operations involves known risks with unknown consequences.

Construction at the Site C dam on the Peace River in the summer of 2018. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

“Only small fluid pressure increases are sufficient to cause specific sets of fractures and faults to become critically stressed,” the geologists warned, adding that “generally stressed faults” lead to earthquakes.

Expect more earthquakes, then, as natural gas companies force tremendous volumes of water down into shale rock formations in deliberate attempts to break that rock up — the same brittle rock that BC Hydro knew 40 years ago was a big problem at the Peace Canyon dam, and that could yet be a big problem at Site C.

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BC Hydro deeply regrets the impacts of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on First Nations and will not repeat the “mistakes of the past,” Hydro’s Deputy CEO Chris O’Riley said Thursday at the unveiling of a new First Nations gallery at the dam’s visitor centre.

“While we remain very proud of the engineering marvel that is the Bennett dam, and we continue to be thankful in this province for the prosperity that it underpins, we recognize a need to acknowledge those parts of the picture that we can’t be proud of,” O’Riley told representatives from six First Nations in the Peace who gathered under a tent in the rain, overlooking the two kilometre-long dam.

“We recognize the need to acknowledge the adverse impacts of the dam on the environment and on the original people of the land. We think this acknowledgment is a really important part of reconciliation,” said O’Riley.

When the Bennett dam was completed in 1967 and the floodwaters of ten rivers and creeks converged to form the massive Williston Reservoir, local First Nations were not even informed, much less consulted.

Some, like Emil McCook, the former chief of the Kwadacha First Nation, were caught unaware as churning waters submerged First Nations riverboats. McCook, then a teenager, plucked a young boy from the rising water after one boat overturned, a story he recounts in a documentary video, Kwadacha by the River, part of the new First Nations gallery.

Emil McCook. Photo: Sarah Cox.

The gallery is titled “They Call It Progress, We Call it Destruction.” It was largely the work of a Peace Aboriginal Advisory Committee that collected stories from many First Nations members about the Bennett dam’s devastating impact on aboriginal communities who relied on the flooded rivers for travel, food, contact with relatives and other villages, and cultural and spiritual purposes.

The stories on the walls of the gallery tell a chilling tale of the reservoir’s largely-undocumented impacts on First Nations, which included severing the migration route of caribou that had provided them with food, tools, clothing, and other important materials: “We lost a way of life that used to provide us with so much and we got nothing in return.”

“Under water lies many burial ground, traditional ceremony sites and history.”

“…it was a death trap for the animals.”

“Many of our gathering sites and the trails leading to them were destroyed.”

“We can’t change that, we can’t bring it back,” McCook said in an interview after the ceremony. “But how can First Nations benefit from the resources? Over the years hopefully they will listen to First Nations.”

McCook said the Kwadacha First Nation still lacks hydro power and gets its electricity from a diesel generator.

Site C Dam Not Mentioned

Throughout the ceremony and speeches, one contentious subject was carefully side-stepped by both BC Hydro and First Nations members. Not one person mentioned the controversial $8.8 billion Site C dam currently under construction on the Peace River 100 kilometres downstream from the WAC Bennett Dam.

Site C, when complete in 2024, would flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, including the traditional land of Treaty 8 First Nations.

Contrary to O’Riley’s promise that BC Hydro will not repeat the mistakes of the past, the Joint Review Panel that examined Site C for the federal and provincial governments concluded that the dam and its reservoir would “significantly affect the current use of land and resources for traditional purposes by Aboriginal peoples.”

The panel disagreed with BC Hydro regarding Site C’s impact on fishing and hunting opportunities and practices for Treaty 8 First Nations, concluding that the project would likely cause a “significant adverse effect” that “cannot be mitigated.”

.@BCHydro’s #FirstNations apology doesn’t line up with unavoidable #SiteC impacts https://t.co/5C6C0tYmbD @christyclarkbc @maryforbc #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 12, 2016

Three Treaty 8 First Nations, all of them represented at the visitor centre opening, have on-going court cases against the Site C dam. Three legal challenges were launched by the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations.

A fourth legal case, launched by the Blueberry River First Nations, claims that the cumulative impact of Site C and other industrial development has infringed on the Nations’ treaty rights. A fifth court case against Site C by the Peace Valley Landowners Association, representing 70 landowners who will be affected by the dam, is also still in progress.

“We’re not in support of Site C,” McCook said in the interview. “We have to work with our First Nations brothers that live down the valley. Site C is going to be hurtful to our neighbours down here.”

The Tsay Keh Dene, one of the First Nations most affected by the Bennett Dam, was not represented at the visitor centre gathering or in the First Nations gallery. A quote on the gallery wall from Tsay Keh Dene Chief Dennis Izony said his people had decided not to contribute to the impacts gallery “due to the on-going trauma and lasting effects of the creation of the reservoir on our nation and its people that has yet to be resolved.” Neither the Tsay Keh Dene nor the Kwadawa belong to Treaty 8.

In 2009, the year before the B.C. government announced it would seek regulatory approval for Site C, the province reached a settlement agreement with the Tsay Keh Dene over the development of the Bennett dam and Williston Reservoir. That agreement provides the Tsay Keh Dene with a one-time payment of $20.9 million and annual payments of $2 million.

O’Riley acknowledged that sharing stories of the impact of the dam and reservoir had brought up painful memories for some First Nations members. He thanked those who participated in the process and said BC Hydro respected that others were not ready to discuss the Bennett dam’s “deep and profound and painful” impacts.

“The door is forever open to have that conversation when the time is right.”

O’Riley also said that remembering what was lost will lead BC Hydro “to be more mindful of our actions today and of our actions in the future.”

Premier Christy Clark has vowed to push the Site C dam  “past the point of no return” and BC Hydro continues to fast-track construction despite multiple requests by the West Moberly First Nations and others to pause until legal cases are resolved.

Image: Drummers at the opening of the gallery at the W.A.C. Bennett dam. Photo: Sarah Cox

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Toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, barium, cadmium, lithium and lead, are flowing unchecked into the Peace River following a series of unusual landslides that may be linked to B.C’s natural gas industry fracking operations.

The landslides began nearly two years ago and show no sign of stopping. So far, they have killed all fish along several kilometres of Brenot and Lynx creeks just downstream from the community of Hudson’s Hope.

As plumes of muddy water laced with contaminants pulse into the Peace River, scientists and local residents are struggling to understand what caused the landslides and why they have not ceased.

Hudson’s Hope mayor Gwen Johansson is also worried about a broader question raised by the ongoing pollution. The toxic metals are entering the Peace River in a zone slated to be flooded by the Site C dam. That zone could experience nearly 4,000 landslides should the dam be built and the impounded waters begin to rise in the landslide-prone area.

The landslide estimate is contained in a voluminous consultant’s report to BC Hydro, which under the direction of Premier Christy Clark is rapidly advancing work at Site C in an effort to push the project past “the point of no return.”

“If this much damage can result from tiny Brenot Creek, what happens to the reservoir if we get thousands more landslides?” Johansson asks.

No definitive cause has yet been identified to explain what caused the Brenot Creek landslides. But one possibility is that they were triggered or exacerbated by natural gas industry fracking operations, in which immense amounts of water are pressure-pumped deep underground with enough force to cause earthquakes. Fracking is known to cause unanticipated cracks or fractures in underground rock formations, allowing contaminated water, natural gas, oil and other constituents to move vast distances undetected.

Such brute-force operations happened frequently in the years immediately before the first slides were noted at Brenot creek in August 2014.

Between July 2010 and March 2013, a dozen earthquakes ranging between 1.6 and 3.4 in magnitude occurred in the Farrell Creek fracking zone, about eight kilometres away from Lynx and Brenot creeks. (A small number of other fracking operations also occurred closer to the creeks, but do not show up in the seismographic record.)

Requests to B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission or OGC, and information gleaned from non-redacted parts of Freedom of Information requests to BC Hydro, indicate that by March of 2013 both the provincial energy industry regulator and the Crown-owned hydro provider were increasingly concerned about “events” at Farrell Creek.

“Right now our focus is on getting the improved seismographic network up and running. We will continue to monitor and study all cases of induced seismicity [earthquakes] in NEBC [Northeast British Columbia],” Dan Walker, the OGC’s then senior petroleum engineer wrote in an email to Andrew Watson, BC Hydro’s engineering division manager, on March 7 of that year. The email was written two days after the last of the 12 earthquakes occurred at Farrell Creek.

By the time of that earthquake, Talisman Energy, the biggest natural gas company then operating at Farrell Creek, knew that wastewater was disappearing below one of four massive “retention ponds” that it had built to store millions of litres of highly contaminated water from its fracking operations.

A detailed investigation subsequently paid for by Talisman and conducted by Matrix Solutions, an environmental engineering firm, notes that Talisman’s “leakage management system” detected that contaminated water was escaping from between two liners that were supposed to trap and prevent Pond A’s toxic brew from polluting the ground and water around it.

Pond A had likely leaked for five months beginning in January 2013. In June of that year, Talisman drained Pond A and confirmed that the leaks had, indeed, occurred.

The wastewater ponds and gas reserves in the region are now owned by Progress Energy, owned in turn by Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned petro giant that the provincial government is eager to see build a liquefied natural gas terminal at Lelu Island near Prince Rupert. The Oil and Gas Commission, which regulates B.C.’s oil and gas industry, subsequently ordered Talisman to drain the remaining three ponds. At that point, it was discovered that Pond D was leaking toxic wastewater too.

Among the toxic substances found in water samples collected from groundwater sources underneath Talisman’s faulty storage pits were arsenic, barium, cadmium, lithium and lead, the same hazardous compounds that are found in the billions of fine sediments that continue to turn the waters of Brenot and Lynx creeks a muddy brown and enter the fish-bearing Peace River.

The Matrix Solutions report released in May 2015 noted that the release of toxic metals into the environment was predictable. By digging the huge pits and exposing massive amounts of unearthed material to the air, “surface and groundwater acidification” were potential risks, Matrix said.

“The primary concern for receiving environments related to acidic groundwater is the potential for release of trace metals,” the report warned.

Whether or not the fracking-induced earthquakes or the failures at Talisman’s waste ponds played any role in events at Brenot and Lynx creeks is unknown. To date, no studies have been done in the region to determine how and where water moves below ground. In its report of more than 2,200 pages, Matrix noted a troubling lack of such information. “Flow direction is not documented,” the Matrix report said. However, the report went on to say that groundwater generally moves from “topographic highs toward topographic lows.” In other words, it moves downhill.

Below the Farrell Creek fracking zone, the waters of Lynx and Brenot creeks continue to be so full of contaminants that a person’s finger placed just a millimeter below the surface disappears from view. The pollution caused one local farmer to quip at the time that his “cows are not supposed to chew the water.”

Martin Geertsema, a geomorphologist with the provincial Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations in Prince George, says he has never seen anything quite like what has occurred at the slide site since August 2014.

“We’ve got a camera pointed at the landslide. I’d like to install a few more to try to figure out what the heck is going on. It’s very unusual. There’s nothing quite like this,” Geertsema said in an interview.

“At other slide sites the water flows finished in a few days. The difference here is it just keeps going. Water is coming out of the base and because the water is eroding soil from the base it leads to cliff collapse. And the cliff is composed primarily of sand and some clay. And when it collapses, the debris just flows.”

Geertsema notes that the region is known for naturally occurring landslides, many of which show signs of “considerable antiquity.” However, today’s slides are occurring in a region with some of the most extensive and intensive industrial land-uses anywhere in B.C., including two major hydroelectric dams and reservoirs and water-intensive natural gas fracking operations that the OGC has concluded triggered clusters of earthquakes in various locales in northeast B.C.

When the slides at Brenot Creek first began, the District of Hudson’s Hope advised local residents not to drink the water. The advisory was followed by a similar one issued by the provincial government. The town’s council later paid a hydrogeologist and consulting water expert, Gilles Wendling, to collect and test water samples at the slide site to determine how toxic the water was.

Mayor Johansson remains disturbed by the event’s duration, its origins and most of all its timing. At the time that the first landslide was discovered, the region had endured weeks of extremely hot and dry weather. A water-triggered landslide in August was, Johansson felt, highly unusual.

In January 2015, Johansson wrote an article in a newsletter published by the District. During a recent interview she said her views remain unchanged.

“I have contacted MoE [B.C.’s Ministry of Environment] to ask what further steps they are planning and to find out when the advisory might be lifted. The MoE representative said they have no plans to do anything further, other than file a report. He said he expected that eventually the creek would cleanse itself.”

“That seems pretty inadequate. Test results show levels of exotic metals such as lithium, barium, cadmium, and others to be significantly above guidelines. They are not normally found in shallow ground or surface water. They have not shown up at those levels in any previous testing in the area, and I am not aware of similar readings being found anywhere in the northeast of the province. Some of the metals are toxic. They pose a risk to human and animal health.”

The OGC, which visited the site shortly after the slides began, concluded that the contaminants in the water were commonly found in the soils in and around the creek and that a natural spring was the source of the groundwater.

“The 2014 landslide appears to be entirely natural, and is one of a number of similar landslides that have occurred along Brenot and Lynx creeks over the last few hundred years, resulting from natural geomorphic processes,” Allan Chapman, the OGC’s hydrologist reported in November, 2014.

Chapman added that the “landslide deposited a moderate volume of fine-grained silt into Brenot Creek and Lynx Creek. I would anticipate that these deposits along the stream channels will continue to release the elevated metals into the stream water, affecting the stream water quality, for an extended period of time.”

Wendling, however, has questions. For one, the slide was not a singular event. Slides continue to occur there regularly. In an interview from his Nanaimo office, Wendling said the only way to understand whether the presence of toxic metals in the water is natural or not would be to dig deep into the ground around where the slides have occurred and to see whether the metals are found there. If they are not, and are being carried into the creek by groundwater, then where is the groundwater flowing from and why does it continue flowing in such intensity so long after the first slides?

Such test wells might shed light on whether or not major changes to the landscape such as the nearby giant Williston reservoir and/or natural gas drilling and fracking operations played a role in altering the direction in which groundwater flowed, Wendling said.

Wendling, an independent professional hydrologist, works closely with First Nation governments in the northeast who are concerned about the gas industry’s impacts on water resources. He said the high volume of groundwater entering Brenot and Lynx creeks, the contaminated soils being carried in that water, and when the slides began are all of concern. Typically, he said, such events occur in the spring months following periods of intense rain and snowmelt. But this one appears to have occurred in the middle of a drought, he said.

Shortly after the slides began, Wending says he walked the area and was struck by the dramatically different water levels upstream and downstream of where Brenot creek enters Lynx creek. Upstream, Lynx creek was virtually dry. Downstream, the creek had 50 times the normal water discharge.

“Why do two similar steams have such a difference in flows?” Wendling asked, adding that it was “important to investigate” all possible explanations for “the discharge of larger flows of shallow groundwater in proximity to Brenot creek.”

However, no one is expecting any such investigations any time soon. Neither BC Hydro, the Oil and Gas Commission, provincial ministries such as Environment, or the natural gas industry have groundwater flow monitoring wells in place: a fact that Geertsema laments.

“I think it would be very useful to characterize groundwater flows,” Geertsema said. “It would help me and it would help the mayor whose backyard is where the problem is.”

It would also be extremely useful in light of another uncomfortable truth about earthquakes and their potential to alter groundwater flows and trigger landslides.

Hydroelectric reservoirs themselves can and do induce earthquakes. After the massive Three Gorges Dam was built in China, for example, more than 3,400 earthquakes were recorded between when the dam’s reservoir began to fill in June 2003 and the end of 2009. The frequency of earthquakes in the region during those seven years was 30 times greater than before the dam’s reservoir began to fill.

A network of groundwater testing wells would go some way to helping people in the region understand what might occur as the Site C dam goes from concept to potential reality over the coming years.

The reservoir that would be created by the dam would flood nearly 110 kilometres of the Peace River valley and side valleys.

Should the Site C dam be completed, steadily rising waters impounded by the dam are expected to cover ground vegetation that will react with the water to contaminate it with methylmercury, a substance that continues to poison fish in the massive Williston reservoir nearly 50 years after the first dam on the Peace River, the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, was completed in 1968. First Nations people and anglers are warned not to eat fish from the artificial lake, whose shores continue to erode and slide into the reservoir, causing further contamination.

Johansson’s worry is that any one of a number of other landslides like those at Brenot creek could occur in future years, leading to a steady increase in the amount and variety of other waterborne toxins that could one day accumulate in the Site C reservoir. Toxic water impounded by the future dam would have to be released to power the dam’s hydroelectric turbines, meaning that such water would then flow downstream toward the wildlife rich Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the world’s largest freshwater deltas and a critically important staging area for migrating birds.

Meanwhile, as Site C construction activities accelerate, members of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee are about to conduct a study into the impacts that the dam could have on Wood Buffalo National Park, a World Heritage Site. The investigation was prompted by a petition from Alberta First Nations concerned about the potential downstream impacts of the $9 billion hydroelectric project. The committee has asked the federal government to ensure that no irreversible work on Site C takes place until it has completed its mission and report.

This article originally appeared on Policy Note.

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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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Projects like the $7.9-billion Site C dam cannot be built “on the shoulders of communities,” says the mayor of Fort St. John, B.C., a city located just seven kilometres from the proposed hydro dam and its 1,700-man work camps.

Mayor Lori Ackerman told DeSmog Canada her community is holding its breath waiting for the province’s decision on the project.

“It is one of those things where we would just like the decision to be made so we know which way we’re going,” Ackerman said.

The provincial and federal governments are expected to issue a decision on the dam — the third on the Peace River — this fall.

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In her January presentation to the joint review panel assessing the project, Ackerman was emphatic that  “empowering the province should not disempower Fort St. John.”

“Many we spoke to felt the community would be run over by this project,” she said.  “Our community is at a saturation point for many of the services that our citizens want and need.”

In an interview with DeSmog Canada, Ackerman said residents recognize this dam has been on the books for decades, but “if you’re going to build it, don’t do it on the backs of the taxpayers here.”

Fort St. John is already struggling to manage the growth it has seen due to the fracking boom in B.C.’s natural gas fields — a boom that will only intensify if the province’s much-touted liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plans come to fruition. The city of 20,000 is already stretched for health care services, facing an affordable housing crisis and confronting an increase in drug and gang activity.

With an eight-year construction period and a potential for 1,700 workers living in camps near the city, the Site C dam has been the No. 1 issue for Fort St. John for the last couple of years, Ackerman said.

“It’s seven kilometres from our downtown. In between the downtown and the dam will be a 236-acre area that they will mine for aggregate and a 500-man camp,” Ackerman explained. “So all of this: the traffic, the noise, the dust, having that kind of population sitting on our doorstep, is going to impact our services.”

In her presentation to the joint review panel, Ackerman noted the project will affect the quality of life and cost of living for Fort St. John residents.

“Construction of Site C will be dependent to a large extent on the services and facilities provided by the City of Fort St. John,” she said.

Site C camps would bring 1,700 transient workers

In its report, the joint review panel noted Site C would pose “the usual health and social risks common to boom towns” — risks like the tragic beating death of Christopher Ball in downtown Fort St. John in July 2012.

Councillor Byron Stewart told the panel about that incident (both Ball and his two assailants lived in work camps) while highlighting his community’s concern that the transient workforce from the camps will put considerable strain on the city’s emergency resources and impact the safety of the community. 

While the Site C dam is projected to create about 10,000 person-years of direct employment during its eight-year construction period (or about 1,250 jobs per year), very few of those jobs would go to people in the Fort St. John area.

“The low local unemployment rate would mean that most of the project workers would come from other parts of the province and Canada,” the joint review panel’s report read.

The report also states that “the local economic upside would largely provide the resources to deal with possible problems, including those related to health, education, and housing, especially if the arrangements BC Hydro is willing to make with local authorities can be concluded.”

BC Hydro estimates that Site C would result in a total of $40 million in tax revenues to local governments. But thus far, an arrangement between BC Hydro and the city of Fort St. John hasn't been reached.

“We’re very actively having conversations with the proponent,” Ackerman said. “We want to ensure that we’re at the table with the province and BC Hydro when the decisions are made because we can be very much be a partner in this.”

Ackerman says she wants to ensure that whatever happens “the community is better off as a result of it.” That could mean everything from guarantees that local contractors will be hired to additional funding for policing.

Where will workers come from?

However, those types of promises are little solace to families who stand to lose their homes due to the dam construction. Esther and Poul Pedersen own a 160-acre farm above the proposed dam site and would have to move if the dam is built.

Poul and Esther Pedersen on their land overlooking the Peace River. Photo: Emma Gilchrist.

“They’re taking bids for work camps like it’s already been approved,” Poul said. “I’d like to know where they’re going to find the workers. There’s a shortage of workers already. Are they going to be bringing migrant workers over?”

Esther is concerned the projected positive economic impacts for Fort St. John won’t materialize.

“The workers will just fly in and fly out,” she said. “The only places that will be busy are the airports and the bars and the drunk tank.”

Fort St. John businessman Bob Fedderly echoed those concerns in an interview with Common Sense Canadian. 

“Camps aren’t the camps that they used to be,” he said. “It’s all done from outside, so when you start looking at the real spin-offs to the project, if you tear it apart one item at a time, are the spin-offs really there? Or are they cost items, lost opportunities to existing businesses?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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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With a provincial decision on the Site C dam expected in September, the District of Hudson’s Hope is calling on B.C. Premier Christy Clark to refer the Site C dam project for review by the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC).

“Before spending $7.9 billion of taxpayers money on the proposed Site C dam and increasing the already enormous $62 billion provincial debt, the provincial government needs to do its homework to see if there are less costly alternatives," said Hudson's Hope Mayor Gwen Johansson.

Hudson’s Hope request echoes the findings of the joint review panel’s 457-page report on the Site C dam, which recommended that the B.C. Utilities Commission review Site C’s costs, develop a long-term pricing scenario, review BC Hydro’s load forecasts and demand-side management plans.

“We feel we haven’t had a full arms length, independent review,” Johansson told DeSmog Canada.  “We need to look at the cost, at the demand and at the impact of these emerging technologies.”

The Liberal government previously exempted Site C from the oversight of the B.C. Utilities Commission, which has rejected the project previously. When the joint review panel recommendations came out, Energy Minister Bill Bennett immediately threw cold water on the idea of the project being reviewed by the independent regulator.

“This project has been poked, prodded and analyzed for the last 35 years,” he said at the time. “I think subjecting it to another review after all the years it has been studied, is not a good use of public money.”

A spokesman for Energy Minister Bill Bennett declined a request for comment on Wednesday.

Hudson’s Hope, a community of 1,100 people in the heart of the Peace River Valley, would be impacted more than any other municipality if a third dam is built on the Peace River. About 600 hectares of land in the district would be flooded and another 1,400 would land inside BC Hydro’s “impact lines,” putting the land off limits for permanent structures. Hudson’s Hope is already home to the W.A.C. Bennett Dam and the Peace Canyon dam. (Map of current and proposed dams)

“It’s such a beautiful valley,” Johansson said. “One of the best things about living in Hudson Hope is to drive through the valley from Fort St. John to Hudson Hope and that would be lost.”

Johansson was in Vancouver yesterday to release a report by Urban Systems, commissioned by Hudson’s Hope, reviewing the findings of the joint review panel report.

 “Critical questions about the proposed Site C project and viable alternatives remain unanswered," the report finds. It continues:

“The evidence suggests that a commitment to this $7.9 billion public investment would be premature before the BCUC undertakes a review of the proposed Site C project costs and long-term energy pricing and re-investigates the comparative costs and benefits of potential alternatives.” With BC Hydro stating that it has generation capacity to meet demand until 2028, Johansson says more time should be taken to consider alternatives.

“Some options have the potential to save B.C. taxpayers billions of dollars while at the same time avoiding the negative impacts of Site C,” Johansson said.

DeSmog Canada’s series on the proposed Site C dam has explored alternatives to the dam — including how the province of B.C. has failed for three decades to follow up on advice to research geothermal options.

"There is no crisis.  Let's adopt the recommendations of the Joint Review Panel and allow the BCUC to do the job it was set up to do,” Johansson said.

Johansson and other Peace Country residents will gather this weekend for the annual Paddle for the Peace.

Photo: Peace Valley near Hudson's Hope by Susan Hubbard via Flickr

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.