Fifty-five years ago, construction crews started one of the tallest earth dams in the world 22 kilometres west of Hudson’s Hope, B.C. It was to flood a valley shaped by the Parsnip and Finlay Rivers.

This secluded paradise had been home to the Tsay Keh Dene for millennia. It was where they derived their livelihoods, established their identity, honoured their ancestors and envisioned their future. The band was not consulted about the project. No plans were drawn up to help them move ancestors to new burial sites or establish a new village.

W.A.C. Bennett, B.C.’s premier at the time, was consumed with his “two rivers” plan, developing hydro power both on the Upper Columbia and the Peace rivers.

The project managers of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam were in such a hurry they did not harvest the timber in the valley but crushed it under giant rollers now on display in Mackenzie. They also obliterated the rights of the Tsay Keh Dene. The project took seven years to complete, and employed more than 4,800 workers during construction. Today, a quarter of all electricity used in B.C. comes from the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, but far too few realize that their electricity comes at such a high cost to Tsay Keh Dene.

The tense relationship between BC Hydro and the Tsay Keh Dene is difficult, if not impossible, to put into words. Having been displaced from their original village, the Tsay Keh Dene have chosen the most northerly point of Williston Reservoir as the place to re-establish their village.

Here, they deal with high winds and dust storms — a consequence of living at one end of a 150 kilometre canyon. Here, they are ten hours away from Prince George and pay exorbitant prices for their most basic needs. Here, more than three decades after establishing their village, the federal government has yet to recognize the reserve. Here, they rely on projects, almost like handouts, from BC Hydro for their livelihoods.

For the past few years, this has involved collecting and burning the logs that were left unharvested and now float to the surface of the reservoir, endangering boats and barges. But this “contract award” is coming to an end in 2017.

An analysis of over 100 inspections by B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office over the past five years reveals BC Hydro as the most frequent violator of the terms of their development licence — far worse than the much maligned pipeline companies developing similar sized projects.

Though next to a massive hydropower project, for the past half century the village has had to rely on diesel for electricity. In response to the Remote Community Electrification initiative of 2007, the Tsay Keh Dene proposed to build a biomass cogeneration system to supply their electricity and meet their heating needs. This would be fuelled using the waste timber collected from the reservoir or harvested from vast areas of beetle-kill forests.

The fuel collection and operation of the cogeneration plant would have created over a dozen sustainable jobs while providing the village with inexpensive, renewable heat and power. The available heat would have allowed the establishment of a greenhouse, creating yet more jobs and providing locally grown food for an affordable balanced diet.  

The biomass cogeneration plan won a $1.1 million Award from B.C.’s Innovative Clean Energy competition. Tsay Keh Dene needed funding to complete the project. They appealed to the federal government for a capital grant. They tried to sign a power purchase agreement with BC Hydro to secure debt financing.

But Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada said they would not provide a capital grant for the village to develop the project. BC Hydro said Tsay Keh Dene’s demographic and electricity usage forecasts were too high and that the village will never need that much power.  

BC Hydro’s narrow vision has led to continued reliance on diesel power, rather than re-directing federal energy subsidies toward bootstrapping economic development in the village.

Rubbing salt into this wound, BC Hydro declared that the diesel generators serving the community were old and unreliable. They used their technical authority to force Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada into paying more than $3 million for diesel generators that mining companies in the same region install at one-third the cost. This funding could have helped Tsay Keh build their cogeneration plant — instead they are still saddled with a foul-smelling, noisy technology that drains away community resources to some oil company’s profit margin.

Moreover, the community’s electricity demand is already exceeding BC Hydro’s long-term forecast and installed capacity. Now, blackouts and flickering lights are regular reminders of that.

Last year, a 2,700-litre spill of bunker oil in English Bay, from the cargo ship MV Marathassa, had all levels of government in a tizzy. The fuel for Tsay Keh Dene’s generators are delivered by articulated tanker trucks travelling on forestry roads. They have repeatedly spilled far greater quantities of diesel oil in the Willison Reservoir watershed — without a whisper from anyone in power.

Inadequate consultation and disrespect for First Nations was not excusable half a century ago when the W.A.C. Bennett Dam was built; it should be criminal now.  

The Tsay Keh Dene and other First Nations continue to be treated as if they are minors. This power imbalance forces the band to acquiesce on matters they should have control of. In spite of overwhelming scientific evidence about environmental and social harm from high dams, in spite of a sufficient supply of electricity for at least two decades, in spite of rapid progress in other low-cost and low-impact renewable power, BC Hydro continues to promote the Site C dam, the third dam the Peace River. And with that, they are repeating their pattern of violations of rights 70 kilometres to the west.

This is a guest post by Chief Dennis Izony of Tsay Keh Dene First Nation and Hadi Dowlatabadi, a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Institute for Resources and Environmental Sustainability, UBC.

Photo: Construction on the Site C dam by Garth Lenz.

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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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